Someone last week insisted that she was going to wish people a “Merry Christmas” and not a “Happy Holiday” and that she didn’t wish them a happy holiday at all–ONLY a Merry Christmas.  Wow, that’s the Christmas spirit?  How sad.  If you don’t know what to wish people and don’t have the time or inclination to find out exactly how they celebrate this time of year, rather than pushing your own religious agenda, how about simply wishing someone a GOOD day or a  NICE day?

It’s that time of year again when the very word Christmas becomes part of a struggle for control between Christians and pretty much any other religion.  This is an article that ran five years ago this week and is as pertinent or more so today as the War on Christmas terminology escalates.  It’s too bad that some people forget their Christ’s compassion when they’re publicly  remembering the reason for their season.   It’s a time of the year when people tend to be either very happy to be with loved ones or very sad not to be–and way more stressed than is necessary.  Let’s remember to be kind to others who may not be having as merry a time as others are, particularly in the current economy, with soldiers far from home, and a lot of uncertainty about what the next year will bring.

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Contrast.

You know what? I don’t really care if you wish me a “Merry Christmas,” a “Blessed Solstice,” or “Happy Holidays.” I don’t. But just wish it for me and don’t demand it of me. Such a wish, in my opinion, should be meant as a lovely personal blessing, not a political grenade.

I’m doing pretty good, I suppose. I’m still having moments  of  sadness  juxtaposed  with  relief  and  solid  attempts to enjoy the season with my children. I am open to joyful moments, and there have been more than a few sweet ones. So no one needs to avoid me or feel they can’t laugh around me. Most of my co-workers  stay out of range and let me work quietly. They don’t know what to say and they don’t want to  intrude, and this is okay. But sometimes I am unexpectedly sad and it shows. If the Law of Attraction is in effect, then I probably draw to me the  thing I’m most fearing at this moment,  which is, I really  don’t  want  to  be antagonized  or further stressed right now.

Which is why the woman behind the counter goes to great pains to insist I have a “Merry Christmas.”

I’m frowning  into  my purse,  looking  for the  credit card that’s  somewhere  in there but  my  fingers  instead find the “A Life  Remembered”  memento,  and I wince. Reflex, I suppose. I’m having an overall good day but the reminder takes me by surprise.

Just then the cashier says, in a not so pleasant way, “Smile. It’s Christmas.”

I barely hear her. I say nothing. At the moment, my throat is tight and I can’t talk.

When I look up, her eyebrows  are knitted  together and her eyes are angry. “I said, ‘Smile. It’s Christmas.’”

I don’t smile. I don’t feel like it and I’m not sure I even can right now. Instead, I just nod.

“You don’t have to be so bah-humbug about it! You don’t believe in Christmas or something? Oh.” She gets a strange look on her face as if  she just tasted something rancid.  “Was  I  supposed  to  say  ‘Happy  Holidays’  or something?” She says “Happy Holidays” in a voice that’s a perfect imitation from “The Exorcist.”

I stop what I’m doing and just stare. I shove the little memento back  into my  purse  and hand  her  my  credit card. All I can do is blink. I can’t even swallow.

“I don’t say, ‘Happy Holidays,’” she tells me. “I believe in Christ the Lord and I say ‘Merry Christmas.’  To everybody. Non-believers,  too.  Jews, too. I’m not going to be a casualty of the war on Christmas.  I’m  going to wish  everybody  who  comes  through  this  line  today  a Merry Christmas whether they like it or not. And my employer says I can.”

She takes my card and totals my bill. I’m hopeful that she’s done with her outburst, but I must be giving off my I’m-a-good-listener-and-you-can-tell-me-anything vibrations because she just  won’t shut up.

I’m breathing  deeply.  I must  look absolutely  miserable.

“Look at all these people out Christmas  shopping,” she tells me. “They’re all so happy.”

I glance at the long line of impatient people behind me. None of them are smiling either, and the woman behind me keeps sighing her displeasure. We’re all trying to finish errands  on our  lunch  hour  and  none  of us  will make it if the cashier keeps yammering.

“Everybody else in the Christmas  spirit,” she continues, finally handing me a receipt to sign. “You need to get into the mood, too. You’re spoiling it for the rest of us.” She takes  my signed  receipt  and looks  angrily  into my face. “And for God’s sake, if you’re not going to have a Merry Christmas, at least smile.”

I finally swallow and regain my composure. I respond but my voice is too low to be heard.

She completes  the business  transaction,  handing me my  receipt,  credit  card,  and  my  purchases  in  a  bag. “What? I didn’t hear you.” Her tone is unbearably hateful. My  presence  among  the  Christmas  “Merry-Makers”  is irritating to her and she is letting me know it.

I repeat myself, loud enough for her to hear, and I watch her freeze in her tracks.

“I said, I just buried my dad and I’m not really feeling like smiling right now.”

I leave without another word. I won’t shove my politics down her throat or demand she wipe the sudden look of shock and embarrassment  off her face. I could wish her a “Blessed Solstice” or a “Merry Christmas” or whatever blessing of celebration would make her happy, but that would be…disingenuous…of  me.

My IT girl— and that’s IT as in Internet Technology, not as in Poor Little Rich Girl idiot Paris Hilton—sent me a terrific quote today. It just seems to fit this particular day rather well.

“When one door closes, another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
- Alexander Graham Bell

Mercury’s in retrograde again. That comes too often, doesn’t it? Revisits and relooks and problems with communication, transportation, and computers.

Some things have shifted around this past week. It reminds me of throwing groceries in the back of the car and getting home to find that they’ve settled a bit differently with the twists and turns of the ride. The carnations and lilies are on top, upright now after sliding across the bags of food, but the bread is under the jugs of organic milk and glucosamine-laced OJ.

Yes, I skipped lunch to prepare for a briefing; hence, the food-related analogies.

I’d had the feeling last week of not-so-good things for the Ten of Pents’ career, but that doesn’t feel dark anymore. I haven’t done any magick for him—I don’t have permission—so maybe it was just wishing good things for him or maybe something happened to make him change his course, but it feels as if any foul has been averted. I’m glad for that and I’ll consider it to be an uprighting of carnations and lilies, and be at peace with it.

The bread under the milk and OJ, though, that’s a new concern with several non-romantic relationships, both mine and those around me. Each one has been a slight concern since back in the winter, but they’ve all shifted abruptly over the last week.

This is when it occurs to me that the carton of eggs so carefully placed on top…is now under the 50-pound bag of dog food and something’s dripping from bumper.

I’m troubled about something but really have no one I can discuss it with. Or at least, no one I feel comfortable discussing it with. I tried in earnest but discovered I was talking to absolutely the wrong person. It made me realize that it was time to release some things I’d been holding onto for a long, long time.

I’ve been a part of a writers’ online community since back in the “electronic bulletin board” days 15 years ago, but tonight, I finally decided to eliminate my participation in it. Time to release it and not look back, whether I wanted to or not.

I didn’t do it in some grand dramatic flounce and announce that I was angry or hurt or whatever. I just simply deleted a couple of posts I didn’t want to leave behind and then bowed out silently. It will probably take some time before they even notice I’m no longer there as my involvement had grown scanty in recent weeks.

For a long while now, I haven’t felt really part of the community but much less so in the past year. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. A lot of the writer-pals I used to chat with both on and off-line have been exceptionally quiet toward me in recent months, and some simply stopped communicating with me at all.

I shared something very personal with the group—the kind of thing we’ve done for 15 years—and heard nary a word of response. That’s more than once that’s happened in the past six months. Even a single utterance would have been nice in this case.

Finally I was let in on the secret. Some of the community—people I’ve shared writing dreams, failures, and successes with for years—thought they needed to take sides in an argument that was never an argument and never discussed in the community. It had nothing to with the community. It had nothing to do with writing at all. It was just a personal matter that, as far as I knew, no one in the group was even aware of.

I was never asked for details. Assumptions were made and sides were chosen, without me even knowing. But it explained a lot.

Mainly that I need to leave my old community in the past and move on, even though they’ve been a big part of my life for a long time. What I realized in tonight’s transaction was that the majority of the interactions with the group in the past few months have left me feeling…bad. Certain people in particular, but enough to overshadow my experiences with the group as a whole. Some, I’m sure I’ll continue to talk with privately as I always have, but the bottom line is that I can’t let myself stay in a place where I feel bad about day after day.

And that’s where things had gone in recent months, with me feeling like I was showing up for either my shunning or my beating. I don’t need that. This isn’t said in anger or retaliation or vengeful glee or anything of the sort. It’s simply…said…as my own way of releasing it to the winds of change.

It’s time to move on and not stay with something out of either habit or tradition when it’s no longer something that nurtures my soul. It’s time to release it and let myself go.

You cannot imagine how much email I get everyday. Filters do little to no good or I lose sales.

Part of the problem is that one of my private email addresses has been spread all over the planet by a handful of people I told the email address was private, yet every email they send to me has anywhere from 1 stranger to, literally, 200 unknown names cc’d for all to see. And while I think their video clips of the rain forests or the vacation to New Zealand or the new grandbaby are just delightful, I don’t know these people at all and they don’t know my political or religious beliefs (which is how I made enemies of a particular book reviewer years ago when I got fed up with the daily political opinions that downright proclaimed anti-military activity).

Part of this elimination process has to do with different mailing lists and email loops I’ve been on for years, many of them duplicating information that I receive direct from the author via RSS feeds. I receive one author’s RSS feed faithfully and frequently read the same info from several email lists before I realize it’s the same thing. She’s wonderful, but I need to read it only once!

In any case, it’s out of hand and consumes too much of my time, so tonight, I deleted all the lists that are not currently absolutely essential or that I read through sources other than email.

I feel like I’m clipping vines that have been strangling me, even though much of the information is good—it’s just too much right now and I recognize it and I’m doing something about it. So this is the business part of eliminating a lot of information, socializing, and ordinary junk that comes to my inbox. This is the part where I liberate.

I’m having a moment of doubt, and I’m not sure what the origin is. What I’m worried the origin is is money. That’s why I have to be absolutely sure before I make any decisions.

I’ve completed the first phase of my training to be a life coach with a professional level certification, and I’ve been talking to the woman who will supervise the next phase if I choose to go forward with professional level certification. Plenty of people call themselves coaches with absolutely no training at all, and though I have training and experience in this area through another group, it’s not within this particular school of certification. Like the last group I worked with, this certification requires focused time and training, and lots of hours, much of it repetitive to previous training. Though this training is good.

The issue? It’s a lot of money.

Yes, it’s an investment in myself, yadda yadda. There are other investments I could make with the same amount of money. I could have my body upgraded for this amount, or at least the parts I’d want…refurbished. I could have new carpet in the whole house. I could take the girls to Europe for several weeks. I could take off for a couple of months and frolic on the beach while writing full-time. I could turn the back yard into fountains and gardens galore. I could hire a SWAT team to hose down the neighbor who brings her dog to poop in my yard on a daily basis. I could hire an MBA in India to run an Internet-based business for me full-time for 6 months. I could pay my water bill.

I don’t want my decision to be based on money. Certification training assumes you’re brand new to the game, and I’m not. So it’s a matter of weighing time and money right now against what I would gain by completing this particular program.

I’ve been certified in other career fields (CACM certification through the National Contract Manager’s Association, NCMA, along with the many, many hours of time and money I sank into it, and other than the couple of promotion points it gave me, big whoop. Yes, beneficial to improve my then-current position but it didn’t make me any better at what I did, and I was eventually disgusted enough with the certifying group that I burned the certificate and quit the group. That experience may be influencing me now.

Or maybe it’s wondering if there’ll be an equal exchange. There are definitely things I can bring to my fellow trainees and to the program. That often happens. Another pattern. I will participate and pay for training and end up being a trainer myself, given specific skills I have. It’s rare that I simply pay my money for tuition. Will I get back more than I give?

Because I want to get back more than I give, for a change. I really do. I’ll settle for getting back as much as I give. And that’s true in so many areas in my life right now.

My intuition is a bit twisty on which path to take at the moment, and I need to let it settle down so that I can figure out if it’s my inner miser rebelling against the cost or if it’s a stronger flag for me to notice. The problem with intuition is that it comes (to me) at the third chakra level, the same place as self-esteem, control, and ownership. If any of the other children of this particular energy center scream loudly enough, I sometimes do not hear my intuition.

I’ll just have to wait until everything quiets before I decide my next step.

Pensacola Guy, a cute mid-30-something I dated once in the early spring of this year, has suddenly remembered my number after disappearing, mainly due to his work and some trips abroad. He’s back in town as of this past week and wants to go out.

I’ve declined to see him again.

No special reason. And that’s just it.

He’s fun, I suppose. I just wasn’t attracted to him. He’s intelligent…he’s…I don’t know. I think a lot of other girls would be quite happy with him, but I’ve declined.

It’s not that I wouldn’t give him a second chance. It’s not that I wouldn’t be willing to give any guy a second chance. But I have a guideline for that.

I have to feel good being with someone. There are guys I’ve dated that I’ve felt really good with—I mean really good just hanging out with—and though I haven’t seen them in a while, I’d be willing to see if that really good feeling is still there. It’s that feeling of omigod-can-we-just-bottle-this? When you both know you’ve connected.

I can’t say that for Pensacola Guy. I found myself watching the clock during our first and only date. I found myself wondering if I’d have enough time to water the plants when I got home and how to make sure he didn’t invite himself back to the house. There was no sense of wanting to keep talking to him or wishing the night wouldn’t end. And that’s what I want in a date. In just hanging out with a guy. In just “doing nothing” with a guy.

So that’s my guideline. Not that he’s not worth seeing again but that my time with him doesn’t leave me feeling wonderful.

And not that I expect every minute with any man to leave me feeling wonderful every time, but it’s got to be a lot more often than none at all for me to agree to another date.

Being with someone I feel good with is special reason enough.

I never know whether to chuckle or give the kid a hug, but Shannon has a new job for the summer. And it’s most definitely a new perspective, and not just for her.

Her original plan was to take college classes this summer while working part-time for me and part-time elsewhere, plus volunteering and getting her college applications off. Things have turned out a bit different from what she expected, with her new employer working her full-time and with a varied schedule. Her classes and homework haven’t even started yet. She is getting a new appreciation now for why I live by the calendar and my mantra to her and her sister, “If it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t exist!”

Some of her family members didn’t consider it a “real job” when she worked for me. I’m wondering now if maybe it wasn’t. Not that the work itself wasn’t real (now I’m outsourcing some of her work), but the situation wasn’t the usual working conditions.

Now she has to worry about things like the $4-5 a day in bridge tolls. And gas at $3-plus a gallon. And buying the cheapest lunch/dinner possible to get her through her shift.

She’s less likely to be able to switch schedules to hang out with her friends or go have lunch with her dad or to go to a family party.

She gets to stand on her feet all day and come home with a backache or muscle spasms. She gets to deal with the general public—at its best and worst.

Yes, it brings back memories of some of my jobs in college and right after. It’ll bring back more memories when she sees how much of her paycheck goes to Uncle Sam.

The biggest chuckle for most parents though is when we realize that yes, we still work those long days, too, but come home and worry about feeding the kids, getting laundry done, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, and all those things that are part of every day life. We fit the social life around the rest.

So the first job is just another rite of passage, I suppose, and one that brings back memories for the rest of us of what it’s like to be at the bottom of the food chain.

At first, I had to wonder if I’d said something to offend the Guardians of the West and the Element of Water. Maybe forgotten to dismiss them in ritual or something.

First there was the slow leak in the toilet that eventually was fully flowing a few months ago, jumping up to a sudden 11,000 gallons in a month before we were able to shut it down and find the culprit.

One of the sprinkler pipes broke, too, in the middle of the drought we’ve been in, and turned into a lovely fountain.

Then there was the exploding washing machine and the flooding of the kitchen last weekend.

On top of that, the water bill arrived yesterday with another little surprise. Yes, 16,000 gallons of water used in May. Huh?

By now my plumber is on speed dial. This one turned out to be a valve-gone-bad on the water heater, so my electric bill probably won’t make me any happier than the water bill that covered the spill through about ten days ago…meaning there’s more pain to come with the next bill.

I mentioned it to Obi-Wan a few nights ago and she reminded me that emotions are represented by water. Perhaps, she suggested, citing the Law of Analogy, an emotional shift has been taking place and the emotions are starting to flow again.

Could be. Of course, passion is often represented by fire. Given all these wildfires in Florida over the past month, well, please don’t blame ME for that!

When a loved one dies, we are often crushed by the realization that life goes on without them. It’s no different when someone is “dead” to us, whatever the reason may be. It’s just not as obvious because we assume they still live on elsewhere, not just in our memory.

We tend to remember the last time we saw someone or heard their voice. That’s why I declined to see Joe when he was dying and so ravaged by cancer. It’s why I refused to see Daddy in his casket. People are forever emblazoned in our memory as they were at that last encounter.

The same is true of people we have not seen in a while, whether that’s a few weeks or a few decades. The longer the distance, the more pronounced it is as we realize— if we realize—that life has gone on without us. Not without them, but without us. They may have been dead to us, but life has not ended for them. Their lives have happened without us, without our mental documentation of their joys and sorrows and daily growth experiences.

We don’t usually see it that way, though. That intervention of life feels like a betrayal, as if they’re no longer who we thought they were. And they’re not. Things have happened, while they were dead to us, and they really aren’t the same person as in our memory.

I’m at a place in my life where enough cycles have completed that I have now seen many people come and go and come again in my life. The ones who come back are often surprised, and the ones who are more of an oppressive nature don’t tend to stay for very long and almost always try to shame me that I’m not the person they remember. That usually happens the first time I say no.

I think on this as I consider brief reunions with an older woman I have not seen in many years and a younger woman I haven’t seen in a couple of months. Both are professional ties, but we were friendlier than most colleagues and were close enough that we knew each other’s kids’ names and quirks as well as each other’s politics and sexual preferences.

The older woman was back in town on a visit and looked me up. I’d tried to keep in touch but she’d moved out of the country and she was never one to write long letters. Lonely and newly divorced, she decided to seek out old safety—and finding me again was part of that. She could not, however, reconcile that time had passed, and while it was great to hear Pat Benatar CD’s again after so many years and talk of nothing but remember-whens, it grew stale very quickly as I realized we no longer had anything in common but our youth. We could not hold a conversation in the present. Our reunion was nothing but a trip to the past, and she couldn’t understand that I’d changed. I’d grown up and my priorities were different. Our visit left me feeling a bit sad, I think more so because she really had not changed so much over the years and was stuck back in that place of long ago. She’d frozen me in her memory, most likely in some spike-heeled, hat-wearing, braless-but-mega-shoulder-padded concoction from the 80’s. I’d been dead to her for a long, long time, but my life had gone on without her.

The younger woman basically dumped me as a lunch partner when she took a new job that required a new set of friends and activities. It wasn’t malicious—she just didn’t have time for anyone who didn’t give her career a boost right then. But two months later, she’s back and calling to suggest we do lunch and reconnect. Now that she’s settled into her new life, she’s a bit lonely and misses our talks. She’d like to take up with where our friendship left off.

And therein lies the problem. She may have put our friendship on a shelf, but my life hasn’t been on a shelf. I’ve had a lot happen in the past couple of months. She says she wants to hear all about it, but I no longer feel like sharing any of it with her. I’m not the same person I was two months ago. I was hurt when she cancelled lunches with me to associate herself with higher-ranking professionals and pissed when she brought them along to what I’d thought would be private discussions—and shared with them some of my private information so they wouldn’t feel “left out.” While she’s been working on her career and neglecting old friendships, I’ve worked through my annoyances with her and moved on. She hasn’t seen me in two months and in her mind, I am still the same person who hung up the phone after our last conversation and I’ve been frozen in time for those 60 days, still sitting at my desk and, while working on a project, waiting non-chalantly for her to call back and say, “I’m running late so meet me at the food court at 11:45 instead of 11:30.”

But I am not the same, and life has gone on without her.

Everything changes. Nothing remains unchanged by the passage of life and time. And if we do not share the moments, if we choose for someone to be dead to us, then we’re actually the ones who have died in that person’s life because they do go on and they will never be the same again as they were in that moment.

Nor will the relationship ever be the same again as when we parted. And then, it’s often easier to speak to the Dead than to start over with the Still Living.

The moment I opened my eyes, I knew—with a growing sense of dread—that I had overslept. Somehow I managed to be showered and out the door in 10 minutes, knowing I’d still be a good 5 minutes late for work, and already stressing over telling my boss I’d slept right through the alarm.

I just had this discussion yesterday with another colleague—how we each feel that every time we talk to the boss, it’s nothing but excuses and how we hate that feeling. Never mind that she loves us and we get plenty of recognition for our good work. It’s a quirky focus that our boss has developed that sometimes drives us nuts, and the more stressed she is, the more we feel her focus on deficiency, that deficiency being our being somewhere other than behind our desks.

Late and absent employees are her reality and we’ve let it become ours. Here’s why:

Knowing that she’s very focused on the clock, I will cut lunch short by 10 minutes to make certain I’m back within the hour or I’ll microwave something and eat it at my desk while I work through my lunch hour. She doesn’t notice I’m at my desk or working, and usually doesn’t go looking for anyone during lunchtime. If I’m at my desk for an hour longer than I’m paid for or back 10 minutes early, she knows it but it doesn’t register because she’s not at all focused on employees being there.

Giving myself a 10-minute leeway means I may be back 10 minutes early or, if I run into the frequent construction work, can’t find a parking spot, or get delayed at the security gate, I’m still back within my allotted hour. If I’m 5 minutes late walking in from lunch, she wants to know what took me so long and I feel silly explaining that the cars at the security gate were backed up 2 miles because some idiot just ahead of me confused their Sam’s Club card with their official ID.

Never mind that I frequently wolf down take-out at my desk while answering emails. Or that I skip lunch altogether. Or that I prepare for briefings at home on my own time. Or that I check in and respond to urgent emails (and not so urgent ones) in the evenings and on weekends. It’s the fact that I’m not at my desk during the two minutes she has a question for me or I didn’t answer my office phone because I was in an intense meeting in my office with the door closed. None of the time there matters. It’s the seemingly ridiculous excuses I have for the rest of the work week.

Ridiculous? Oh, it feels that way, even though they’re just everyday things in everyday life. Because now I’m focusing on it, too, and on the feeling of dread I get whenever I’m not behind my desk. It’s to the point where if I’m home with the flu, that’s when I schedule repairmen and house maintenance so I don’t have to explain that the hot water heater is out again and ask for a few hours off.

Here’s a list of the ridiculous (and I’m calling them that, not my boss) excuses I’ve had in the past couple of weeks. And they’re every one true and most of them are repetitive because we haven’t had a secretary in six months.
1. I took 12 hours of vacation time because the washing machine exploded and flooded my house. (hopefully that one’s not repetitive!)
2. I wasn’t at my desk because I was in the bathroom.
3. I was 20 feet away at a customer’s desk, delivering his files to him.
4. My meeting with the big boss ran over by 30 minutes.
5. I was at the photocopier or scanner in the next room.
6. I went down the hall to get a file.
7. I was in discussing a contractor issue with the supervisor next door who’d asked my advice.
8. I took a thumb drive over to the price analyst 50 feet away because I couldn’t send a 20MB file to him via email.
9. I was pulling a file in the next room.
10. I was at the computer help desk.

See, here’s how this focus thing works. I know what my supervisor is focused is on and it’s become my own focus at work—being late or not at my desk when I’m expected to be, even for good reason, even for normal business reasons—and I’ve reinforced that feeling by dwelling on how dread-full it is. Am I never at my desk? No, but if that’s where the focus is, that’s certainly how it seems. But how did this shift happen? Contagiously!

The interesting thing is that an office of workaholics now anxiously watch the clocks. The focus on absenteeism/tardiness/excuses started at the top and has quickly cascaded down to the employees so that the focus sometimes seems to be more about being behind the desk to show our dedication than about getting the work done and done well.

But that’s a normal thing in corporate America when it comes to the Law of Attraction. The hierarchy sets the reality, usually out of its fears, and the rest of us fall in line with it and take on the spirit of the company.

The washing machine repairman held up the hose and shook his head. “This shouldn’t have come off night before last,” he said. “This should have come off a long time ago.” He indicated the condition of the hose and the clamp that wasn’t properly tightened. “I don’t know why it waited until now.”

“Timing,” I told him.

Yes, any other time, any other moment in time, that it might have come loose other than when it did, and the situation would have caused around $20,000 in damage or more and meant our house would be uninhabitable for at least a few weeks and some invaluable items would have been destroyed, including the bottom shelf of my rare book collection.

Yeah. Timing.

It’s been a series of coincidences that just kept me from having to have major, major repairs to the house. At least several thousand after insurance, if insurance covered any of it at all. The coincidences make it almost pleasant when I think of what could have been. I do believe my angels were extra busy last night.

I’m really glad I went ahead last November and had all the Pergo flooring ripped up and replaced with beautiful tile. If I hadn’t, I’d be crowbarring it all up right now for certain.

Because the seal on the toilet in the little “powder room” bathroom broke and all the Pergo in that room had to be replaced and my allergies went into overtime because of it, I learned that most insurance companies will laugh at you if you put Pergo particle-board floating flooring in any place where there’s running water…which would be the bathroom, kitchen, and laundry room. In other words, everywhere we had Pergo in the house. Insurance companies will laugh at you because they won’t pay it since it’s an accident just waiting to happen.

So I had all the Pergo replaced with tile I loved. I said at the time to the girls that it would just be so easy for the washing machine to overflow and the Pergo have to come up then and in a massively uglier mess than when dry. I didn’t mention the dishwasher or the sink or another toilet. Nope. Just the washing machine.

So last night about 11:30, the washing machine exploded, dumping ankle-deep water in the laundry room, kitchen, pantry, through the garage door and down the driveway. It could have been so much worse.

Let’s just say that this catastrophe was “well contained.”

I had finished the laundry for the weekend but knew a load of sheets would be done the next day when I wasn’t home…this could have happened then.

After Shannon got home from work, we readied for a long walk when Aislinn discovered several loads of dirty clothes in her room and dragged them to the laundry area to dump out. It’s probably a good thing there were so many dirty clothes on the floor because they soaked up much of it and corralled some of the deepest water, preventing and slowing its spread.

Aislinn started the offending load of laundry as Shannon and I were walking out the door. Normally, it would have been an hour-long power walk but Shannon’s back was hurting after standing all day, so we cut it to 20 minutes. If we’d done our full hour, we would have had serious repairs.

Aislinn and I gave poor Shannon an intense back massage on the floor in the hallway of all places, near the kitchen. Doing this kept Aislinn up longer than usual or she wouldn’t have found the beginnings of the disaster.

The puppy started whining like crazy, enough to get Aislinn’s attention, or we wouldn’t have found the problem before it became a huge problem.

Both girls and I were up and were able to stop the water’s flow, get the fans aimed at the floor, and get things dried out. The washing machine is still under an extended warranty insurance plan I’d been strong-armed into last October when an overflow valve got stopped up. The repairman felt bad at the time about charging me $160 or so for a 5-minute job that Sears knew was a 5-minute job when they told me I could buy the extended insurance or pay even more for the repair. The repairman groused about this practice and did a few non-required maintenance extras for the washer. So I’m getting to use that insurance after all. Hmmmm.

As it is, it’s a bit of a mess in the kitchen right now but tons better today. We threw out a few things in the pantry, but Aislinn had recently moved things around so very little got wet. We might have lost a lot of food otherwise.

If the events of the evening had occurred any other way—if Aislinn hadn’t forgotten her dirty clothes or Shannon had been up for a longer walk or I had gone to bed when I’d originally planned to—if any of the annoyances had not happened, then it would have been so much worse.

How much worse? Well, if we’d discovered the problem no more than 10 minutes later, the water would have crossed the tile and into the family room and dining/living room area as well as into the office. It would have meant tearing out at least 2000 square feet of carpet. It would have meant damage to furniture in at least 3 main rooms, as well as the office furniture and destroying at least 3 computers and a project we’d spread on the office floor to put in the right order.

So it’s a big inconvenience that’s costing me a couple of days at the office when I’m really needed there, but it’s also a lesson from the Universe. We may not like the little evils have to deal with and may not understand why things get thrown in our paths.

And sometimes, we just may understand exactly why the lesser evils have to happen.

Going back to bed now.

The dreams over the past few days have been really odd—like the being sentenced to be strangled with rope and choked to death with crystalline rocks and me knowing that even though my end was coming, my big concern was in having the freedom up until the hour of my hanging to live every moment fully and enjoy it. Sheesh, why are my nightmares so often fifth-chakra-related? What a terrible past life feel!

Or the one last night where my old college friend who’s been getting into a dangerous crowd over the past few years was talking to me about disturbing matters involving the Ten of Pents and showing things to me that make me wonder if she’s dead and I really don’t have a way of finding out.

With several dreams this week, I woke with a feeling of dread and had a hard time shaking them off. Makes me fear sleeping more tonight. This is not an intrusion or invasion of my spiritual space but just turbulent energies associated with the Ten of Pents.

Got a strong flash in my nearly asleep stage tonight of the Ten of Pents in trouble with his job…something instigated by his ex…that will cost his current position at a lucrative job he loves It’s a career and reputation killer. It’s a set-up. It’s going to be a big-to-do this summer. A legal matter, I think. Sorta like Pluto in the Tenth House in a solar return…a nuclear-powered build-up and explosion in his career and in the area of authority. That’s a configuration that The Treat had when he abruptly left his job here. It’s the same feeling.

I’m told to “allow.” That’s easier now that he’s all quiet and remote. Scarily easier. If he weren’t so distant at the moment, I’d be doing protection magick for him like I did (with permission) for The Treat when he was here and those wards are still in place in regard to his time here.

Okay, okay. Just “allow.”

The way I was taught “Harm None,” it included preventing harm when you could.

Deep breath. Deep breath. Bless it to soften it, but just allow.

So tired but a little afraid to sleep.

I saw “Mr. Brooks” tonight. Loved the movie. Always great to see women in their 40’s in meaty roles, though at times, Demi Moore felt a bit stiff. At times I thought the movie was a bit bizarre with his conscience or whatever talking to him, but it became amusing and a great plot device as the movie wore on and it really grew on me. The big problem in movies vs. books is that it’s hard to get inside the character’s head, but the conscience allowed that. Lots of subplots and threads that wove together nicely and often unexpectedly (as in, his targets weren’t always who I thought they were). Interesting, too, what an over-indulgent dad might have to deal with.

The violence was rather graphic, though, and sometimes gratuitous. That’s what I was thinking as I walked to my car. About the violence and the level of its necessity and how bloody the movie was in parts.

Then I noticed the long bumper sticker on the car next to mine: THIS VEHICLE UNDER THE PROTECTION OF BEING WASHED IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB.

Ewwwwwww.

This is an observation made by the divorce lawyer for the guy I was seeing—and no, I had nothing to do with his divorce.

In criminal court, you see the worst of society at their very best. They’re dressed up and paraded around and on their best behavior.

In divorce court, you see the best of society at their very worst.

I’m thinking, hey, who needs TV when you can watch reality?

Maybe it’s because I, for some reason, equate intimidating with domineering and I know they’re not the same but that that quirk is from something in my childhood. I’m also a relatively quiet person, which I don’t equate to intimidating, perhaps because it’s loud, aggressive, in-your-face people who have often intimidated me.

But…I am frequently told, especially over the past couple of years, that I’m very intimidating and it hurts my feelings, probably because people shy away from me when they’re telling me this. And that’s just the ones who come out and say it.

I’ve been told a few things that people find intimidating but I’m not going to change those things and I won’t even try. I’ve never been the straight-A student who tried to play dumb to get a guy in high school, for example, and I ain’t ‘bout t’ start now.

So what is it about me that people find intimidating?

I have profound children!

At dinner tonight—just Aislinn and me this time—we were talking about how some people fret over having too much drama in their lives and how we frequently encounter people who are in the murk in a bad way. Shannon has likened this to being in the eye of the storm with the drama swirling around us or of someone else’s making but we’re still watching it whiz past and occasionally ducking if we get too close to the edge.

So in answer to a personal question from Aislinn, I explained that some people feel that they can’t be attentive friends or focus on work or meet their deadlines because they have too much drama in their lives.

“Who doesn’t?!” she said, almost angrily. She pointed out a few examples.

And I know what she’s talking about…divorces, deaths, friends departing, jobs lost or won, little manipulations from various relatives and friends, sick relatives, suicides, car problems, hurricane repairs, unplanned pregnancies, miscarriages, mortgage foreclosures, idiot neighbors, college interviews, promotions to fight for, unexpected house repairs, and so on, and so on, and so on. Indeed, who among us doesn’t have some form of drama in their lives, either in the present, in the recent past, or lying in wait around the next bend?

Then I thought about it and realized that she’s right. Most people do have drama—of varying degrees—in their lives.

But as Shannon has pointed out recently, there’s a big difference in dealing with drama because you have to and dealing with it because you keep doing stupid things to bring it to you.

I want a relationship where the communication is deep and the walls are few. That’s always the problem in a relationship, isn’t it? Lack of communication? The other person’s communication?

We pride ourselves on being able to communicate. On telling the other person how communication is a two-way street. On telling ourselves that we don’t allow any walls to be built. But we all create walls, or at least what are interpreted as walls, no matter how earnest we may be. We cut off other people and we isolate ourselves.

I’m angry right now…at all the Great Communicators in my life, past and present, who have expressed what great lengths they’ve gone to in order to communicate with me, with their families, with their colleagues, with other friends and lovers. And if I’m angry, I know why and I know what comes next and I don’t like it.

I woke this morning with an old pattern from my marriage echoing in my head, and I’m beginning to think that it’s possible that my ex and I actually didn’t have the patent on that particular relationship dynamic.

There were many times that this pattern emerged. It began in one of two ways—usually with me doing some small something that was unintentionally offensive or with something troubling occurring in either his work life or his internal life that he didn’t care to share with anyone. In either case, rather than express himself, he withdrew into a shell, leaving me to wonder what the hell was going on.

My Piscean love nature tends to be very responsive to a friend or lover’s moods, so when feeling cut off, I would feel the lack quite deeply. I would attempt to reach out—once, twice, a few dozen times. I’m not even sure now if my ex (or any other man) knew that he was withdrawing, though I certainly seemed to be sure of it then. Whether it was the factual reality or not, it was the emotional reality, and as an empath, I felt deeply cursed.

But after attempts and frustration at trying to keep those highly touted channels of communication open, then came the anger and despair, which I so often feel as the same. Then I, too, would withdraw.

At some point after that, he would miss my connection with him. That’s usually when I got the lecture on needing to communicate more or better and not building walls between us.

If it’s a close relationship, we go with the ebb and flow, build walls and tear them down and rebuild and raze again. If it’s not a close relationship or not close any longer—or, I suppose, not destined to be—I eventually become angry and frustrated and give up altogether. I don’t like that pattern of isolation, frustration, anger, withdrawal. So it leaves me two other choices.

I either keep trying to break down the walls until the other person usually becomes angry with me because they haven’t had time to work through their own issues or…I stay quiet and give them time to work through it themselves and remain open and available for when they are ready to talk. Unfortunately, with the latter of those, even a loving silence is usually interpreted as withdrawal on my part.

To be such a highly developed species and such intelligent people, it’s sad that we go through much of our lives experiencing such aloneness as we walk among so many others who are just as alone.

I’m amused. I’ve spent a nice while in the garden, watering, and then checking out some plants on the back patio that Aislinn planted but didn’t water. Er… ex-plants.

I’m planting lots of flowers around my back patio and even thinking of a grill and some patio furniture. Over the past few weeks, it’s been my retreat for late night phone calls, away from the girls and their own late night phone calls.

I had started taking a couple of candles out and sitting with several candles burning under the stars, the phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. I neglected the wine after a few nights, though, and just enjoyed the candles and conversation. Last Thursday night, I took a couple of candles out to the patio and blew them out when I came inside. On Saturday night, I set the wicks to flame again. On Sunday night, the only one I lit was the lusty orange candle in the middle of the chimenea in the middle of the back part of the patio. I guess I forgot to blow it out.

So tonight, while watering near-dead plants, I glanced at the chimenea and was surprised to find that the candle was still burning, 72 hours later, and not burned down or out yet. In spite of the brief rain, sprinklers, wind, and hot sun, it’s still flickering away.

There was no magick attached to it except for the smile it put on my face. I think I’ll let it burn a while longer because I won’t tell you what I was thinking the moment before I noticed it.

I am very grateful for these past few weeks. It’s been an amazing submersion into long-overdue romance and I’ve enjoyed every moment of it with a man who has been emotionally available, intelligent, great conversation, hopelessly romantic, and fun. I suspect, however, that I did not pass the child test.

I met his kids—adorable and exuberant—after he met mine. He’s only the second man that my kids have given an approving nod, the Treat being the first. Somewhere in between, I’ve mentioned other men the girls haven’t met and have heard Aislinn’s scorn: “What makes you think we’d let you date X?” Fortunately, the girls’ approval criteria run similar to my own. Also fortunately, I will take my kids’ opinions into consideration but I recognize that they’ll be grown and gone soon and I have to make my own decisions about my potential relationships, just as they may or may not take my opinions into consideration about their own romantic relationships.

Just last Friday night, sitting with my feet dangling in the hot tub, a glass of wine in one hand and a sexy man by my side, I recounted a story about the “child test” that I haven’t thought of in a long while. There’s a man I have known all my life. He’s been divorced for 30 years and had custody of his small child since Day 1. He was an indulgent father who always, always put his child first. He was also a very good looking guy back in his 30’s and 40’s when his child was small and he had women clamoring for him. There were at least three different romantic interests I met or knew of over the years who were much more than just girlfriends. They were serious love relationships and I believe, based on our conversations back then, that he would have married any one of them, started a second family, and been very happy. He didn’t.

He didn’t because in at least those three cases—and in countless minor relationships that never got off the ground—his child sabotaged the relationships or told the man outright that the woman was disapproved of as a potential step-mother. I know at least once or twice, he asked his child’s blessing before discussing marriage—and got quite the opposite. The last time, the child was only about a year from high school graduation. The man let those women go from his life and has, to date, not remarried.

Whenever I see him now at events in my hometown, he’s a little bitter and has reconciled that he’ll never have another long-term relationship. His child? The kid grew up, moved far away, and seldom sees or has anything to do with the dad who indulged and centered his life on his child.

I realize how soon my girls will leave home and I make good decisions about who to introduce into their lives, but I look to the lessons that have come before me and won’t let their opinions be the deciding factor. I really doubt they’d like for my opinions to be the deciding factor on whom to spend their lives with.

Shannon said something rather profound as we were taking a nice walk
along the lake. I passed along some news from Jillian about her new romantic interest and how he was planning to introduce her to his friends—a big deal since a former boyfriend of hers never would do that because he was afraid of the controversy.

Shannon and I also were talking about boys, men, relationships and what happens when you meet their families and friends and how nervewracking that can be, whether you’re 17, 30, or 45.

We talked of how you meet someone new and you get to know each other in the present, maybe even think about or wonder about the future. You get comfortable with each other, excited about each other.

“Then you meet their family or friends, and you introduce your past to them and that changes things.”

Interesting. Because no matter how many hours you spend talking to each other, even when you’re talking about your pasts, it’s never quite the same as letting them meet your past up close and personal.

What was so profound to me was thinking of family, friends, all the people who have supported you in where you are, as the past…the what’s-happened-before-this-new-person.

Oh…if it weren’t so pathetic, it would be funny. I received a message tonight from a girl in Arizona. Or maybe a woman. I’m hoping she’s just very young and ignorant, but the level of gumption makes me shake my head.

On the out-of-date Spilled Candy site, there are articles on Wiccan names that talk about the different names/terms that Wiccans use to refer to themselves. This is just too self-righteous not to share.

Here it is, word for word:

I’m looking for wiccan names for my cats. I’m a Christian who does not subscribe to Wiccan beliefs but finds the names very interesting. I’m acquiring 2 new kittens next week and want to name one of them Minnerva and call her Minnie. The other maybe Matilda, but I was searching for names. When I Googled “Wiccan Names+Female” your website was second on the list. I find this interesting since I can’t find any Wiccan names on your website anywhere.

I believe in Jesus Christ the only Son of God, our Lord, Who lives and reigns by the Holy Spirit. I believe in God the Father Almighty.
I believe that I am not perfect and cannot enter Heaven as an imperfect being. Jesus paid my penalty for imperfection on the cross and made my way to Heaven possible.
That’s what I believe.

Now where are the Wiccan names I asked for?

I was able to do a brief meditation this morning. That’s been difficult recently because I’ve felt other people intruding—not intentionally—on my meditative space and I’ve also been just too tired to focus for very long and too relaxed not to fall asleep.

I got far enough into the meditation to see a couple of things and then that was it.

The fountain is flowing full and bright, plenty of water and it’s cool to my lips and refreshing. My forest is full of light.

The man who so often retreats to my hidden forest is still there, but he’s quite reserved at the moment. He stands in the distance, arms crossed, angry and despairing but neither emotion is directed at me. I am standing in light, and he fears the worst.

For one instance, he sits at a table, head down, berating himself. And in the next instance, I see the long, black tunnel that leads down, down, down into a pit I led him from only weeks ago, the same pit that he’d chosen as his prison and would not leave with me when I first found him there.

In the meditation, I do not descend into the pit to bring him out. I have been there twice before—once when he was lost to me and once when he was ready to emerge and linger in my presence in the light.

It’s not my actions that have put him in this pit, but his own choices.

I don’t remember ever hearing a man say aloud what he felt in terms of what he had to offer a relationship with me…until these past few years.

It seems that it was always about what I had to offer—a wife who worked and brought home a good paycheck, a mom who took care of almost everything for the girls, someone who could run the household and present a certain image and not be the high maintenance woman of male lore. In my memories of relationships, this is how I see it, perhaps because I was raised with the generation of superwomen who were told we still needed to have something to offer so we could “catch a good man.”

I don’t think I ever thought, until my divorce, in terms of what a man might have to offer me in a relationship.

Since my divorce, I have known a couple of amazing men who, on the surface, certainly seemed to have a lot to offer any woman—intelligence, sex appeal, integrity, prosperity, songs and poems…. I’ve had them tell me they felt they have nothing to offer me and I have everything to offer them.

I don’t know whether to feel sad about that or to smile, but for now, here’s to men who appreciate a woman and know how to show it.