low investment, big return

Learned decades ago - at Jimmy John's Restaurant, just south of West Chester - the astonishing return on the investment of 25 cents.  

I don't know the current cost to make the railroad diorama in the center of the main room charge up all its wonders, but back in the day it was a quarter.  Mom & Mim & I loved to sit in one of the booths near it, keeping an eye out for the wistful child longing to see the miniature railroad cars go whizzing along the tracks.  Once spotted, Mim or I would get up, go over & put a quarter in the slot, then return to the others to watch the show.  So many happy faces, for so little investment!

Last night, at the swim club, at the very tag end of the night, as everyone was out of the pool & we were packing up to head home, I was aware of two older girls - 7th or 8th grade - sort of hovering nearby.

"Can I help you, ladies?" I asked.

"Oh, no," they shyly responded, "We were just looking at the cupcakes."

"Would you like one?"

"Oh, no - we don't have any money."

All of a sudden, I was back at Jimmy John's & the two young ladies in front of me were a couple of four-year olds peering longingly at what they could not get for themselves.  

Two mini cupcakes - a vanilla with chocolate frosting & a chocolate with vanilla frosting - later, two very satisfied girls headed out the swim club gate for home & one very happy Cupcake Lady packed up the car, amazed again at the big return that can come from making an itty bitty investment.  Jimmy John would have approved! 

 

getting in the swim

People find it tough to believe that John & I have been lifelong social loners.  True.  Until last year.  It all changed, thanks to two fire pits.

Now, we both look forward to Friday nights at the B.A. pool, from 6-9.  We hate to leave, but don't want Anders to have to throw us out.  So wonderful to see so many happy faces, including many we came to know & become friends with last summer.  (Thanks, Brett & Heather!)  And on the BESTest of all Friday nights, we get to go from there to Rick & Adrienne's.  

One of the super special things about coming to the party so late in life is how much gosh darn fun it is just sitting around a big ol' swimming pool, being actual PART of it, not just watching from a corner.  

Ain't life grand?!?!?!?

Post-its

Woke up with thoughts of certain friends who have been the Post-its TM of my life - they stuck to where I was in my life chapter, then easily repositioned as it & I progressed.  Pretty darn awesome!

Show, don't tell

Shaking my head in bemused disbelief over the years & years that I went through life confusing the daylights out of folks.  They'd see this bright & sunny person, then they talk to me & I'd sound like a real-life Joe Btfsplk.  He was a character in the Lil Abner comic strip, which ran in either the Bulletin or the Inquirer when I was a kid.  Joe walked around with a small, dark rain cloud always hovering over his head.  That was me, once I got to talking.  

Praise be, that rain cloud finally blew away!!  

Weird, how I got so invested in the awfulness of my life, I couldn't didn't wouldn't see how utterly spectacular it was.  And I truly do feel a deep sense of tender compassion for that younger self who kept banging her head against brick walls trying to change things that were never going to budge.  

Buckminster Fuller said it all - You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing one obsolete.

The message I'd like to sing from the rooftops is - don't be a Joe Btfsplk!!  Don't get bogged down by visions that bring clouds on your parade.  Focus on YOUR very own!  See it & connect to it, believe in it & honor it with action.  And recognize that YOUR vision isn't everyone else's.  It might not be ANYONE else's.  But it is still yours.  

I have a lot of friends who want to see our church welcome women into its priesthood.  For decades, they've sought change.  It hasn't happened.  

Well, some women just decided to write their own stories.  Women like the young friend who was ordained - in a different branch of our faith - on July 4th.  She joined a group of women writing their own stories about women preaching the beliefs they love & treasure.  This most recent is also the youngest - the first added Reverend to her name when she was in her 60s!  


My dear mama was deeply engaged by the issue of a female ministry.  She'd often ask friends who were in favor, "What would a female priest look like?  How would it be different from a male version?"  She never got an answer.  

Maybe they never understood the question.  Maybe, she should have rephrased her question to, "I know the old story.  What is yours?"

Back in my college days, an English professor drummed into us, "Show, don't tell."  Today, friends - Emily Jane, Julie, Roz & Anna - could satisfy Mom's curiosity through the new stories they are living.  

Will they make the old one obsolete?  Does that matter?    . 

Duh!

Mondays SHOULD be the best night of the week - the night John takes me out to dinner.  He drives us to Bell's Tavern in Lambertville, we meet up with friends & have a lovely supper, then gas up the car at the (low price) L-ville station & head home, possibly with a stop over at B & N.  

That's the ideal night.  This is the second week in a row that it hasn't happened, that we've been reduced to a pick-up supper at home.  All because an idiosyncracy of John's runs headlong into an idiosyncracy of mine, making a major idioTsyncracy of the whole mess. 

Yes, it drives me nuts when the driver hands the decision making over to the passenger.  Makes no sense.  I can understand asking for an opinion, if both the driver & passenger have the same information.  But asking for a decision or for an opinion when the passenger has an obscured view or limited info?  Utterly illogical.

And don't get me started on how nuts it drives me to have a decision of John's laid onto me.  Which was what triggered tonight's turn-around.  It's not that he made a wildly illogical decision, it's that instead of just responding with a smack to the head & a "Duh," he said, "You told me to turn there."  

Where we were going is a driveway preceded by two almost identical driveways.  Yes, I had cautioned him not to turn at the 1st.  Yes, as he started into a turn, I warned him that the 2nd one was wrong, too - that the right driveway was AT the library sign.  If he had turned AFTER the sign, he would have been on the grass, headed toward the building.  After two false starts, he seemed to completely ignore the correct 3rd driveway.  When I said,  "Huh??" he seemed to come to & lurched right into the driveway.  How can you be waved off the first, off the second with the comment that it's the next one, then sail PAST the next one?  And when asked why, give a "wasn't me" explanation.

Drives me totally completely around-the-bend NUTS.  When we where driving home, he comes to a V & asks me which road should he take, like it was all virgin territory to him.  I can understand a driver asking if I'd LIKE him to take this or that road, but to ask "Which one...?" when he's lived in this area for over 30 years - - yeah, that is going to hit me all wrong.  

Mind you, I've had tons of female friends say, "He's just being a man," and maybe he is.  But it is still not right.  If you don't listen to someone, realize it.  Don't protest.  If you goof, a simple response is to hit your head & say "Duh!"  But don't shift the blame.  Whatever your gender, that's just not right. 

just plain dumb

I am not going to dwell on all the beyond-understanding times something that felt like it really mattered to me hove onto my horizon & then petered away into nothingness.  Feeling like something matters & actually engaging are totally different things. 

What I will mention is how just plain dumb that seems to me.  Oh, I know the various reasons that explain that tendency, but they all sound stupid to me.  We should be able, as thinking (if not truly sentient) beings, to see what works against our best interests & do things that will get us as far from them as possible ~ and ~ see what works IN our best interests & do things that will get us closer & closer to them.  It might not be easy, but it's still just common sense.  

When I marvel about that mega disconnect, friends tend to say to me, "But that's just human nature."  EXACTLY.  It would make sense, if we were actually human beings, but we aren't.  We are spiritual beings, having a human experience.  If I have to opt for my apparent human or my genuine spiritual, have to go with the latter, however challenging it is! 

picking my poison

One of the earliest steps in Kathy Freston's eating plan, The Lean, is to pick a personal poison & skip it for a day.  My first - today's - is caffeine.  This afternoon, noticed another - sugar - and experienced it as a poison, a negative, something to be avoided because it's detrimental to my health & well being.  Like a poison.

Interesting thought & imagery to instill in my mind....