Every successful manufacturing company has people whose job it is to check on the quality of the finished product. They might be called Quality Control Inspectors. They are to make sure that what leaves the factory is up to standard, worthy of the manufacturers name and reputation. It's a big responsibility. In our litigious society, one slip-up could cost the manufacturer millions of dollars, and the cost of the inspector's job.
The temptation, of course, is for everyone to blame everyone else for what goes wrong, both in manufacturing and in life. When one is attacked by criticism of any sort, the natural temptation is to respond self-defensively. I have a great deal of respect for companies--and people--who respond, instead, by taking responsibility and vowing to right the wrongs.
Consider the poor delivery nurse attending to my daughter's last pregnancy. She had been in labor for awhile, but the doctor decided to hurry things along by inducing stronger contractions with pitocin. Although Meg had already had one child with inducement but no real anesthesia, she was calling for pain relief, telling me, "This time is different, Mom". Her husband and I were asked to leave the room for about 45 minutes while the technician administered an epidural. We went to find fast food. When we came back, we were expecting to find a pain-free mother preparing for delivery. Instead, we saw nurses and doctors rushing around in a near panic, and Meg ready to deliver. Her first words to me were, "They tried to kill me." It seems that the delivery nurse had "spiked" the pitocin directly into Meg's bloodstream instead of putting it through a device that would regulate the amount and speed of the drip. In short, her uterus was in one big long contraction without any breaks at all. When this was discovered, Meg was given a shot to counteract the pitocin. The nurse was in tears, admitting her mistake. The doctor had been called to get this child delivered before anything else could go wrong. This all happened within minutes. Thank God, baby Ryan was born without incident, healthy as can be. Meg recovered normally. Not sure what, if anything happened to the nurse.
Frankly, I was a bit surprised that the nurse had admitted her mistake to her patient. I would think that fear of a law suit would prevent that from happening. The potential of the situation was that Meg's uterus could have ruptured. But it didn't. The only real harm (that we know of) is that she probably experienced more intense pain than she needed to. What had started out as quality control, with everyone doing everything that is expected and normal, soon turned to damage control, trying to fix what had gone wrong. The nurse felt bad. I mean, accidents DO happen. But still...
I could write on and on with examples of this sort of thing, especially since I experienced a need for damage control in my own life this week. Who was at fault? ME!! I caused the damage, and I had to mop up after myself. My dear sister's husband was hospitalized with multiple health problems. Because of his dementia, she had to be with him 24/7. I got on Facebook in an attempt to be supportive, saying that she was weary of the whole thing...and then I tacked on the sentence: "Notice to family: Step up to the plate". I meant no criticism. Her children and grandchildren had been attentive in the hospital, but there were things that needed to be done at home in her absence. I was hoping they would show up to mow or clean or take care of things. (One daughter actually was taking care of the family dog, so no worries there.)
Suddenly, my comment took on a life of its own. Both of my nieces and my sister's granddaughter lambasted me. They had been at the hospital with her. They had offered for her to take breaks. They didn't appreciate my criticism. I tried to defend my intentions but soon came to realize that anything I said was only going to make the drama worse. When I went back to look at what I had written, I could see why they felt accused. (It didn't help that a friend of my sister's was throwing in some unwelcome comments.) Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. (My fault. My BIG fault.) So...what to do by way of damage control?
The first thing I did was to write an email to my sister, apologizing for the firestorm that I had created which most likely contributed to her stress. The second thing I did was delete the whole conversation thread on Facebook. The third had to do with trying to decide how to apologize to those I had offended. Putting it on FB to reach the whole tribe would only put things "out there" publicly to create more drama. I decided that I needed to apologize by phone, but since the only phone number I have is my sister's (where one of my nieces lives), I called there. She seemed to take my apology well. However, since there is some animosity between the nieces, just the fact that I talked to one and not the other will probably be a source of consternation. (Laurie, if you are reading this, please understand that I don't have your phone number or I would have called you, too!)
The hardest thing for me to accept in Damage Control Mode, is that I know better. I am a communicator. I know how the written word can be misinterpreted. I know how drama-attracted my family can be. I know that, in my old age, I tend to speak the truth as I know it rather than the truth that others experience. I know my own intentions; others don't. That doesn't mean that I am right and they are wrong. It only means that I'm still a work in progress, even at my ripe old age.
It's not too late to teach an old dog new tricks. Every day is a humbling experience as I come to realize that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily want to hear what I have to say. And that's why I write this blog!! I'm not taking the family mistakes on myself, but I do know that when I'm wrong, I'm wrong and will take responsibility for it. It's so much easier to do quality control than damage control. That's my lesson for the week. Prevention is so much better than the aftermath of screwing up!
Monday, August 29, 2016
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Clothed and In My Right Mind
As it happens, I belong to an adult Sunday school class at my church. Members are put on teams to teach the weekly lessons, quarterly. This is my team's quarter. Unfortunately, the members of my team have dwindled--some with health problems, some with the health problems of family, and some that simply have too much stage fright to teach a group of adults. Thus, the responsibility tends to fall on me (a retired teacher) and my grandparent-partner-in-crime, Judy Heffelman (a retired nurse). Bless her, Judy is one of those people to whom people look to get things done. She's in everything, does everything, and knows everyone--which, I think, is what keeps her young at heart. She also sings in the choir which makes her sometimes unavailable to teach Sunday school on an expected basis. I, however, have been very spotty in my church attendance of the last few months for one reason and another. I promised her faithfully that, as soon as I got back from my sister's last time, I would take on teaching the lessons for the duration of our quarter. And I have.
The series that I am teaching from is called Lazarus Awakening, which takes the miracle of Jesus's raising Lazarus from the dead to provide us with lessons in how to release ourselves from our own tombs. (It isn't as simple as that, but you get the picture.) Today's lesson had to do with the things that cause us to stay apart from ourselves and apart from God. Part of that lesson had to do with another of Jesus's miracles: casting out demons from a demoniac who lived among the tombs. I had long ago forgotten that story, or maybe never knew it, because I didn't understand it. I do now.
Tombs in the Holy Land were often grottoes dug out of rock, with two rooms: one was a vestibule with a stone seat, and the other was a place where the dead were lain to let decay do its job for a year or so before the bones of the dead could be removed and put in an ossuary to make room for the next family member to die. According to the author of the series, it was not at all unusual for the poor or insane--outcasts of society--to live in the vestibules of graves..."among the tombs"...not quite out in the sunshine but not quite in the place of the dead, either. (The metaphor is obvious. Those of us who "dwell among the tombs" keep ourselves apart from sanity and grace.)
The story goes (in Mark 5), that Jesus and his disciples crossed a body of water and were confronted by a demoniac--someone who was insane. (Psychiatry hadn't been invented yet, although mental illness surely existed in those days.) This man was so far gone that he couldn't even be chained up to prevent him from hurting others or himself because he was so strong that he broke all of the chains and fetters. Jesus drove the demons out of him into a flock (herd??) of pigs, and the pigs then ran down the hillside into the sea and were drowned. Later, when others heard of the miracle and gathered 'round, they were amazed to see the crazy man calmly sitting there "clothed and in his right mind".
I had to chuckle to myself when I read those words. My mother would occasionally call and ask if I was "up, clothed, and in my right mind". I never realized this was a biblical reference. I just thought it was one of my mother's quirky little sayings! (I should have known better. Mom had a very spiritual upbringing, although she rarely talked about it. It showed in a lot of ways.)
For some reason, the lesson today was very successful with the class. They were "with me" for the duration of our time together. That is very gratifying to me, although I can't take credit for what it meant to the members of the class. Talking about the lies we tell ourselves and the things that keep us figuratively in the tomb, worked. Why? Because there wasn't a single person in that room who could say they had never held a grudge against another. No one could say that there were no issues that held them back from being the best person they could be in God's image. Not one could honestly admit that they didn't feel sometimes unwilling to give up their normal way of responding to the ways of the world. They/We keep ourselves entombed.
Today...just for today, perhaps...I am up, clothed, and in my right mind. Tomorrow will happen as it does. Still, I will take today's lesson into the week with me. The walls we raise to keep us in the tomb keep out nothing except our understanding that we are loved and we are worthy. God bless you this week!
The series that I am teaching from is called Lazarus Awakening, which takes the miracle of Jesus's raising Lazarus from the dead to provide us with lessons in how to release ourselves from our own tombs. (It isn't as simple as that, but you get the picture.) Today's lesson had to do with the things that cause us to stay apart from ourselves and apart from God. Part of that lesson had to do with another of Jesus's miracles: casting out demons from a demoniac who lived among the tombs. I had long ago forgotten that story, or maybe never knew it, because I didn't understand it. I do now.
Tombs in the Holy Land were often grottoes dug out of rock, with two rooms: one was a vestibule with a stone seat, and the other was a place where the dead were lain to let decay do its job for a year or so before the bones of the dead could be removed and put in an ossuary to make room for the next family member to die. According to the author of the series, it was not at all unusual for the poor or insane--outcasts of society--to live in the vestibules of graves..."among the tombs"...not quite out in the sunshine but not quite in the place of the dead, either. (The metaphor is obvious. Those of us who "dwell among the tombs" keep ourselves apart from sanity and grace.)
The story goes (in Mark 5), that Jesus and his disciples crossed a body of water and were confronted by a demoniac--someone who was insane. (Psychiatry hadn't been invented yet, although mental illness surely existed in those days.) This man was so far gone that he couldn't even be chained up to prevent him from hurting others or himself because he was so strong that he broke all of the chains and fetters. Jesus drove the demons out of him into a flock (herd??) of pigs, and the pigs then ran down the hillside into the sea and were drowned. Later, when others heard of the miracle and gathered 'round, they were amazed to see the crazy man calmly sitting there "clothed and in his right mind".
I had to chuckle to myself when I read those words. My mother would occasionally call and ask if I was "up, clothed, and in my right mind". I never realized this was a biblical reference. I just thought it was one of my mother's quirky little sayings! (I should have known better. Mom had a very spiritual upbringing, although she rarely talked about it. It showed in a lot of ways.)
For some reason, the lesson today was very successful with the class. They were "with me" for the duration of our time together. That is very gratifying to me, although I can't take credit for what it meant to the members of the class. Talking about the lies we tell ourselves and the things that keep us figuratively in the tomb, worked. Why? Because there wasn't a single person in that room who could say they had never held a grudge against another. No one could say that there were no issues that held them back from being the best person they could be in God's image. Not one could honestly admit that they didn't feel sometimes unwilling to give up their normal way of responding to the ways of the world. They/We keep ourselves entombed.
Today...just for today, perhaps...I am up, clothed, and in my right mind. Tomorrow will happen as it does. Still, I will take today's lesson into the week with me. The walls we raise to keep us in the tomb keep out nothing except our understanding that we are loved and we are worthy. God bless you this week!
Monday, August 22, 2016
Hmmmm....
In this age of computers and immediate information, one would think that things would move along smoothly, but not so. In some respects, the gears move slowly and uncomprehendingly, when the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. That's the sort of thing that went on BEFORE the computer age.
For example:
1. Once upon a time, my father had need of his birth certificate. He drove to the county seat where he was born and asked for a copy of the birth certificate for Floyd Darwin Covill--his name at birth. They didn't have one. They could produce birth certificates for his brothers and sisters, but not him under that name. They DID have one for Darwin Erskine Covill, born on Dad's birth date. I don't remember how that all turned out--if I ever knew--but it's pretty clear that either Grandma decided to change his name after his birth certificate was recorded, or someone filling out the certificate was asleep at the switch. I think Dad was in his 50s before this was discovered.
2. My daughter and grandchildren moved in with me for a time. She registered to vote here in Hendricks County, Indiana. Then, in 2009, she moved to California and registered there, then Illinois and registered there, and now Washington and registered there. (We are a mobile society!) I vote in every election, and every time I do, there is my daughter's name under mine on the voting roster, and every time, I tell the people at the poll that Megan doesn't live here anymore and hasn't for the last seven years. Still, nothing changes.
Just a month or two ago, I received two post cards from the elections board--one for me and one for Meg--asking if we still live at my address. I followed instructions and wrote on Meg's card that she no longer lives here and returned it. I thought that would be the end of it. But no...I later got a post card for Meg saying she could still vote in the election, even though out of state (absentee)...blah, blah.
Think about this for a minute. Picture IDs have been required for voting in some states for a number of years now, but I don't think there is any central data bank that shows which registered voters have voted where. Because of that, and in spite of the ID requirement in many states, I'm thinking that IF my daughter had wanted to break the law--which she doesn't--she could now apply for an absentee ballot for IN, IL, CA, and vote in person in WA. People who cry "foul" at election time need not look at the voters but at the whole voting system to plug up the loopholes!
3. My daughter tells me today that Lakes High School in Illinois called to inform her that Robin (her daughter) hasn't been in attendance at school. True enough. Robin doesn't live in Illinois anymore. She withdrew from school there in order to move with her family to Washington State. This isn't NEW news. She withdrew last December! Somehow, Lakes High School in Lake Villa, IL, didn't get the message from Palumbi Middle School in Lake Villa, IL, that Robin was withdrawn a whole semester ago! Obviously, if they had communicated, or if someone were actually paying attention, they would have discovered this. It could have saved them the trouble and the consternation they caused my daughter who wondered if they were ready to call the police to report truancy. (Easy enough to verify, so no problem there...but still...)
I'm sure there are a zillion more examples of this sort of thing. I hesitate to even bring up the whole health care system because I KNOW there are many slip-ups there. It's just so unnecessary! Link your computers, folks...then pay attention to them!
For example:
1. Once upon a time, my father had need of his birth certificate. He drove to the county seat where he was born and asked for a copy of the birth certificate for Floyd Darwin Covill--his name at birth. They didn't have one. They could produce birth certificates for his brothers and sisters, but not him under that name. They DID have one for Darwin Erskine Covill, born on Dad's birth date. I don't remember how that all turned out--if I ever knew--but it's pretty clear that either Grandma decided to change his name after his birth certificate was recorded, or someone filling out the certificate was asleep at the switch. I think Dad was in his 50s before this was discovered.
2. My daughter and grandchildren moved in with me for a time. She registered to vote here in Hendricks County, Indiana. Then, in 2009, she moved to California and registered there, then Illinois and registered there, and now Washington and registered there. (We are a mobile society!) I vote in every election, and every time I do, there is my daughter's name under mine on the voting roster, and every time, I tell the people at the poll that Megan doesn't live here anymore and hasn't for the last seven years. Still, nothing changes.
Just a month or two ago, I received two post cards from the elections board--one for me and one for Meg--asking if we still live at my address. I followed instructions and wrote on Meg's card that she no longer lives here and returned it. I thought that would be the end of it. But no...I later got a post card for Meg saying she could still vote in the election, even though out of state (absentee)...blah, blah.
Think about this for a minute. Picture IDs have been required for voting in some states for a number of years now, but I don't think there is any central data bank that shows which registered voters have voted where. Because of that, and in spite of the ID requirement in many states, I'm thinking that IF my daughter had wanted to break the law--which she doesn't--she could now apply for an absentee ballot for IN, IL, CA, and vote in person in WA. People who cry "foul" at election time need not look at the voters but at the whole voting system to plug up the loopholes!
3. My daughter tells me today that Lakes High School in Illinois called to inform her that Robin (her daughter) hasn't been in attendance at school. True enough. Robin doesn't live in Illinois anymore. She withdrew from school there in order to move with her family to Washington State. This isn't NEW news. She withdrew last December! Somehow, Lakes High School in Lake Villa, IL, didn't get the message from Palumbi Middle School in Lake Villa, IL, that Robin was withdrawn a whole semester ago! Obviously, if they had communicated, or if someone were actually paying attention, they would have discovered this. It could have saved them the trouble and the consternation they caused my daughter who wondered if they were ready to call the police to report truancy. (Easy enough to verify, so no problem there...but still...)
I'm sure there are a zillion more examples of this sort of thing. I hesitate to even bring up the whole health care system because I KNOW there are many slip-ups there. It's just so unnecessary! Link your computers, folks...then pay attention to them!
Friday, August 12, 2016
New Furniture!
Once upon a time, along about the year 2005, my daughter and her then-husband decided to move from the Camby, IN, area to Muncie, IN, so Nathan could take a better job in order to support the family. Things were looking up for them! My grandbabies weren't much more than toddlers. They had lived within a stone's throw of my house for the duration of their young years, but Muncie was one-and-a-half hours away. Of course, I cried for three days but finally decided that it was time to suck up and get with the program to help them as best I could.
They bought a 3-bedroom Bedford Stone house in Muncie. Compared to where they had lived in Camby, it was pretty nice although seriously outdated in a lot of things. The living room was quite large. Meg and I--and virtually everyone else in the expanded family--launched into cleaning/decorating mode. Repairs were made. Things were replaced. And living room furniture was purchased. They bought a brand-new wooden-framed futon couch with a matching futon chair, and a squarish end table to put in between them in an L-pattern. The futon covers were like brocade in appearance--mostly deep orange with gold Oriental motifs. We painted one wall in persimmon paint and another in tan to match...and when it was all clean and picked up, it looked great. (The futon was necessary in order to have a place for Grandma Peggy to sleep when she was there...darn near twice a month for awhile. I practically wore out two cars going back and forth from Muncie!)
Then, one day--which seemed suddenly to me but probably not to them--the marriage ended. Megan and the children came for a weekend to help celebrate my birthday, but never left. I had no idea about any of this, but did what I've always tried to do--just dig in and do what has to be done in any given moment. Damn the torpedoes, etc... In short order, her former husband asked that she come to get all of her stuff. Flying on a wing and a prayer, she got a couple of helpers and I managed to snag one of my radio friends, and we rented a U-Haul to go up to Muncie to retrieve her things, including the futon furniture. In one long, stressful day, we got her things out of Muncie and into a storage unit near--guess where?--Camby! We had so many people to thank that day, including the cook and wait staff at Bob Evans who stayed open past closing time just to feed five very hungry and very tired people, and my friend who paid for it all, including a tip for the waitress that must have been huge because she asked, "Are you sure?" as we were leaving. (Adam, you'll never know how much you did for this old woman and her daughter that day!)
Meg got a job, enrolled in school, and arranged for day care for the children. I was still teaching then so was somewhat strapped for time. So was she. We did what we could, but I felt that I was doing all of the cooking, shopping, laundry, and housework, and felt--well--I was worn out. Please don't get the opinion that Meg was skating. She handed me a pretty healthy check every month to ease the financial burden, and more.
Every weekend, the children went to Muncie to be with their father. Meg did college class homework. I did laundry and grocery shopping and housework, plus did what I could to assist with moral support when she was ready to drop courses because she felt overwhelmed. We were both running full tilt just to stay in one place. It was exhausting, frankly. So one day, I asked her to please do more around the house to help out. She said, (and I'm paraphrasing), "I don't know what to do. It's not my house. My stuff isn't here, so I don't feel all that comfortable."
I was stunned. Back in 1992, when it was just the two of us and our two cats, I bought this house for us. I never, ever, thought of it as just MY house. She belonged here, as far as I was concerned, and so did my grandchildren. What I hadn't counted on was that she had grown up in the years since. She had become the matriarch of her own home and her own family, and all of the "stuff" that she had accrued in that time was gathering dust in a storage unit in Camby. A storage unit that she was paying for every month. That day, I declared that we would incorporate her belongings into this house, one way or another.
Again, we enlisted friends to help. (Thank you, Travis!) My kitchen/dining room table and chairs went to Goodwill. They had been my grandparents', but were quite well worn, although functional. The living room furniture--couch, loveseat, and small swivel rocker, were sold for next to nothing. They were getting threadbare anyway. And in their place came the kitchen table/chairs that used to belong to Meg's McNary grandparents, and the futon couch/chair, and table. Plus many other things, but these were the bulkiest.
My house is very small. The futon furniture filled up the living room and made it all look quite wooden. I did what I could to decorate around the orange/gold colors, and we made do. We also remodeled and redecorated the rest of the house so that everyone had a bedroom of his/her own. Once in a blue moon, it came in handy to have a futon bed in the living room, but most of the time, it just served as a couch. An uncomfortable couch, as I got older.
And then, in 2009, right after I retired and had a heart attack, Meg fell in love with her now-husband. In a series of events that are too sensitive to talk about right now and are resolved anyway, her children were sent to Muncie to live with their father, and she left with her Russian Hunk for California. When they departed for CA, they went in a mini-van with not much more than the shirts on their backs, determined that they would buy new when they got to Sunnyvale. I was left with the futon furniture...and the longer I had it, the less I liked it.
Most recently, I came to hate it, actually. It took up sooo much space in my tiny living room. I could barely sit on it with my bad back, but couldn't nap on it because of the angle of the seating. For my disabled condition, it just wasn't functional for me, yet I had no money to buy new and--at my age--couldn't really justify such a purchase, even though I was considering what I could do to fix things.
And then, out of the blue, came an email from one of my Sunday school friends offering her couch and love seat to anyone interested. I didn't see the email at first but was talking to my friend Judy on the phone when she told me about it, so after we hung up, I went to the computer. I expressed interest and made arrangements to look at it the next day (along with picking up Sunday school materials for teaching purposes). Apparently I was the first to respond (thank you, Judy!) One look at what they were offering told me it would be perfect for my living room...and the price was right. I went over the very next day with cash in hand to buy.
I had a few days of wiggle room. I needed someone willing to take the futon furniture, then find a truck and a couple of young bucks to help move the new stuff to my house. (A distance of maybe 1.3 miles.) I got on Facebook and hit the mother lode. My stepson's widow, Diana, had just read a post from one of her friends who was looking for a couch for one of his college kid friends. She put me in contact with him. They were prompt to pick the stuff up on Saturday, and I felt wonderful about giving college student Darius a couch, chair, and table for his apartment in Decatur, IL. My friends Judy and Phil offered their truck, unsolicited, for moving the new stuff. I had a former student who responded that he'd be here to help and could bring a friend. (That story is a little more complicated than I am describing, but this guy really came through for me!) At the appointed hour on Sunday, everyone gathered and carried my "new" couch and love seat to my home. Absolute perfect fit!! With the new to-scale furniture in place, my living room looks sooo much bigger and sooo much homier. I think I'm in luuuuuv!
In the process of changing the way my house looked, I spent a whopping $145--$100 for the furniture, $40 as "tips" for the young men who did the moving work for me (and were not, at first, willing to take the money), and $5 for the overage of the gift card for Panera Bread that I got from the young man that took the futon furniture...which I spent on my friends Judy and Phil for letting me use their truck for the move. (Plus their fellowship over lunch.)
As stupid as it may sound for someone who is considering a move in 12 months to spend money on "new" second-hand furniture, it feels like money well-spent. I don't often do things just for me. This purchase, however, is a blessing. It makes me happy, however long it lasts. It all came together fairly easily (but not without my worrying that it wouldn't). God is good, all the time!
They bought a 3-bedroom Bedford Stone house in Muncie. Compared to where they had lived in Camby, it was pretty nice although seriously outdated in a lot of things. The living room was quite large. Meg and I--and virtually everyone else in the expanded family--launched into cleaning/decorating mode. Repairs were made. Things were replaced. And living room furniture was purchased. They bought a brand-new wooden-framed futon couch with a matching futon chair, and a squarish end table to put in between them in an L-pattern. The futon covers were like brocade in appearance--mostly deep orange with gold Oriental motifs. We painted one wall in persimmon paint and another in tan to match...and when it was all clean and picked up, it looked great. (The futon was necessary in order to have a place for Grandma Peggy to sleep when she was there...darn near twice a month for awhile. I practically wore out two cars going back and forth from Muncie!)
Then, one day--which seemed suddenly to me but probably not to them--the marriage ended. Megan and the children came for a weekend to help celebrate my birthday, but never left. I had no idea about any of this, but did what I've always tried to do--just dig in and do what has to be done in any given moment. Damn the torpedoes, etc... In short order, her former husband asked that she come to get all of her stuff. Flying on a wing and a prayer, she got a couple of helpers and I managed to snag one of my radio friends, and we rented a U-Haul to go up to Muncie to retrieve her things, including the futon furniture. In one long, stressful day, we got her things out of Muncie and into a storage unit near--guess where?--Camby! We had so many people to thank that day, including the cook and wait staff at Bob Evans who stayed open past closing time just to feed five very hungry and very tired people, and my friend who paid for it all, including a tip for the waitress that must have been huge because she asked, "Are you sure?" as we were leaving. (Adam, you'll never know how much you did for this old woman and her daughter that day!)
Meg got a job, enrolled in school, and arranged for day care for the children. I was still teaching then so was somewhat strapped for time. So was she. We did what we could, but I felt that I was doing all of the cooking, shopping, laundry, and housework, and felt--well--I was worn out. Please don't get the opinion that Meg was skating. She handed me a pretty healthy check every month to ease the financial burden, and more.
Every weekend, the children went to Muncie to be with their father. Meg did college class homework. I did laundry and grocery shopping and housework, plus did what I could to assist with moral support when she was ready to drop courses because she felt overwhelmed. We were both running full tilt just to stay in one place. It was exhausting, frankly. So one day, I asked her to please do more around the house to help out. She said, (and I'm paraphrasing), "I don't know what to do. It's not my house. My stuff isn't here, so I don't feel all that comfortable."
I was stunned. Back in 1992, when it was just the two of us and our two cats, I bought this house for us. I never, ever, thought of it as just MY house. She belonged here, as far as I was concerned, and so did my grandchildren. What I hadn't counted on was that she had grown up in the years since. She had become the matriarch of her own home and her own family, and all of the "stuff" that she had accrued in that time was gathering dust in a storage unit in Camby. A storage unit that she was paying for every month. That day, I declared that we would incorporate her belongings into this house, one way or another.
Again, we enlisted friends to help. (Thank you, Travis!) My kitchen/dining room table and chairs went to Goodwill. They had been my grandparents', but were quite well worn, although functional. The living room furniture--couch, loveseat, and small swivel rocker, were sold for next to nothing. They were getting threadbare anyway. And in their place came the kitchen table/chairs that used to belong to Meg's McNary grandparents, and the futon couch/chair, and table. Plus many other things, but these were the bulkiest.
My house is very small. The futon furniture filled up the living room and made it all look quite wooden. I did what I could to decorate around the orange/gold colors, and we made do. We also remodeled and redecorated the rest of the house so that everyone had a bedroom of his/her own. Once in a blue moon, it came in handy to have a futon bed in the living room, but most of the time, it just served as a couch. An uncomfortable couch, as I got older.
And then, in 2009, right after I retired and had a heart attack, Meg fell in love with her now-husband. In a series of events that are too sensitive to talk about right now and are resolved anyway, her children were sent to Muncie to live with their father, and she left with her Russian Hunk for California. When they departed for CA, they went in a mini-van with not much more than the shirts on their backs, determined that they would buy new when they got to Sunnyvale. I was left with the futon furniture...and the longer I had it, the less I liked it.
Most recently, I came to hate it, actually. It took up sooo much space in my tiny living room. I could barely sit on it with my bad back, but couldn't nap on it because of the angle of the seating. For my disabled condition, it just wasn't functional for me, yet I had no money to buy new and--at my age--couldn't really justify such a purchase, even though I was considering what I could do to fix things.
And then, out of the blue, came an email from one of my Sunday school friends offering her couch and love seat to anyone interested. I didn't see the email at first but was talking to my friend Judy on the phone when she told me about it, so after we hung up, I went to the computer. I expressed interest and made arrangements to look at it the next day (along with picking up Sunday school materials for teaching purposes). Apparently I was the first to respond (thank you, Judy!) One look at what they were offering told me it would be perfect for my living room...and the price was right. I went over the very next day with cash in hand to buy.
I had a few days of wiggle room. I needed someone willing to take the futon furniture, then find a truck and a couple of young bucks to help move the new stuff to my house. (A distance of maybe 1.3 miles.) I got on Facebook and hit the mother lode. My stepson's widow, Diana, had just read a post from one of her friends who was looking for a couch for one of his college kid friends. She put me in contact with him. They were prompt to pick the stuff up on Saturday, and I felt wonderful about giving college student Darius a couch, chair, and table for his apartment in Decatur, IL. My friends Judy and Phil offered their truck, unsolicited, for moving the new stuff. I had a former student who responded that he'd be here to help and could bring a friend. (That story is a little more complicated than I am describing, but this guy really came through for me!) At the appointed hour on Sunday, everyone gathered and carried my "new" couch and love seat to my home. Absolute perfect fit!! With the new to-scale furniture in place, my living room looks sooo much bigger and sooo much homier. I think I'm in luuuuuv!
In the process of changing the way my house looked, I spent a whopping $145--$100 for the furniture, $40 as "tips" for the young men who did the moving work for me (and were not, at first, willing to take the money), and $5 for the overage of the gift card for Panera Bread that I got from the young man that took the futon furniture...which I spent on my friends Judy and Phil for letting me use their truck for the move. (Plus their fellowship over lunch.)
As stupid as it may sound for someone who is considering a move in 12 months to spend money on "new" second-hand furniture, it feels like money well-spent. I don't often do things just for me. This purchase, however, is a blessing. It makes me happy, however long it lasts. It all came together fairly easily (but not without my worrying that it wouldn't). God is good, all the time!
Monday, August 8, 2016
The T-Shirt I Don't Have....Yet
I spent my 40-year career working with teens and pre-teens, plus I am the mother of a woman who was once a teenager, so I think I know a little bit about how relationships between adults and adolescents work. (Not to mention that both of my sibs and I were also teens once upon a time.) The picture isn't always pretty, but there are no do-overs in life. Sometimes you "gotta do what you gotta do" in order to keep the peace while moving forward...or trying to.
At what price is peace? I found out somewhat early in my learning curve that sometimes we get horribly embroiled in self-propagating arguments that are meant to place blame on the other guy for things that go wrong...to deflect our own responsibility for our share in it...and it never ends well. When we were a whole lot younger, my little brother would build intricate card houses right smack in the middle of the living room floor where the family would have to pass it in order to get to other rooms in the house. It irritated me because sometimes floor vibrations or tiny breezes from those who passed would cause him to get nervous about the stability of his card house. He would place a new card with less security than the last, and the house would fall. If I happened to be the one who passed, he would yell, "Now see what you made me do?!" It was an accusation, as if I had deliberately tried to ruin his happy little project. I would try to protect myself by saying, "If you would put that somewhere else instead of right here in the middle of things, that might not happen." You know the outcome. I was wrong, and he was right. Every. Single. Time. No matter what.
When doing playground duty at school, I would often have to tell students to stop running recklessly all over the place. Their response always was, "But he's chasing me!" To which I responded, "He can't chase you if you don't run." They looked at me as if I had just arrived from Mars. Not be part of the chase? What fun is that? He is chasing me because I am running. I am running because he is chasing me. If I stop running, he will catch me...and then who wins? What will happen to me then?
Over the years, I learned that the immature brain does not understand that blame-placing doesn't make sense. The person blamed will argue in defense of self. Heck, I do it, too, to a degree. But I understand my own intent. Others don't alway think of me in the same way that I do. So...as I was raising my own pre-teen, then teen, and sometimes even adult daughter, I decided that the only way to take the sting out of the Blame Game was to accept culpability, no matter the issue. It tends to knock the slats out of a brewing argument. You got up too late to do your hair properly for school because your alarm didn't wake you up, so you blame me for not waking you sooner? Oh...sorry. I should have done that. I dropped you off at the football game too close to other kids who could see me? Oops! Guess I haven't perfected invisibility yet. Sorry. My fault. I didn't really feel responsible for all that was wrong with the world, but I understood that by not engaging in the argument about who was at fault for whatever bad things happened--by saying yes, it was my fault--I was disarming the potential argument-to-come. "If you had blah, blah, I wouldn't have blah, blah. No, it's YOUR fault, blah, blah, because YOU should have blah, blah." See how that works?
Which leads me to the t-shirt. I swore, many years ago, that I was going to have a t-shirt made that said, "Just so we understand each other, EVERYTHING IS ALL MY FAULT." When I announced on Facebook that I was going to do that some day, I had a couple of defenders who told me that I wasn't at fault and shouldn't take blame for things I didn't do. Bless their hearts. They didn't get my point. At the same time, there were at least six people who wrote to me to say, "I want one of those t-shirts, too"!
It also applies to conversations (recently) about politics and religion. I had an online discourse with a former student--now a mother in her own right-- who home-schools because she has a major beef with public education that teaches things that are different from what the Bible says. She had posted a very negative meme about public schools. I called her on it. This gal was one of my honor students way back when, but I had no idea she was a Bible-thumper. (It boggles my mind that intelligent people can be so blind!) In any case, in the short order of our online discussion, I came to understand that it was pointless to continue to reason with her. She believes that the earth is 5,000 years old due to things the Bible says...that carbon dating is flawed...that evolution is poppycock. In the midst of it, I just bowed out of the conversation. I have also done so with politics. There is no reasoning with the unreasonable...so that's my fault. It's ALL my fault. Get it?
If I ever decide to actually create the t-shirt that declares my innocence by way of fault, you will be allowed to put yourself on the list of people who want one also. I will celebrate your guilt-acceptance with you. We blame-recipients need to stick together!
At what price is peace? I found out somewhat early in my learning curve that sometimes we get horribly embroiled in self-propagating arguments that are meant to place blame on the other guy for things that go wrong...to deflect our own responsibility for our share in it...and it never ends well. When we were a whole lot younger, my little brother would build intricate card houses right smack in the middle of the living room floor where the family would have to pass it in order to get to other rooms in the house. It irritated me because sometimes floor vibrations or tiny breezes from those who passed would cause him to get nervous about the stability of his card house. He would place a new card with less security than the last, and the house would fall. If I happened to be the one who passed, he would yell, "Now see what you made me do?!" It was an accusation, as if I had deliberately tried to ruin his happy little project. I would try to protect myself by saying, "If you would put that somewhere else instead of right here in the middle of things, that might not happen." You know the outcome. I was wrong, and he was right. Every. Single. Time. No matter what.
When doing playground duty at school, I would often have to tell students to stop running recklessly all over the place. Their response always was, "But he's chasing me!" To which I responded, "He can't chase you if you don't run." They looked at me as if I had just arrived from Mars. Not be part of the chase? What fun is that? He is chasing me because I am running. I am running because he is chasing me. If I stop running, he will catch me...and then who wins? What will happen to me then?
Over the years, I learned that the immature brain does not understand that blame-placing doesn't make sense. The person blamed will argue in defense of self. Heck, I do it, too, to a degree. But I understand my own intent. Others don't alway think of me in the same way that I do. So...as I was raising my own pre-teen, then teen, and sometimes even adult daughter, I decided that the only way to take the sting out of the Blame Game was to accept culpability, no matter the issue. It tends to knock the slats out of a brewing argument. You got up too late to do your hair properly for school because your alarm didn't wake you up, so you blame me for not waking you sooner? Oh...sorry. I should have done that. I dropped you off at the football game too close to other kids who could see me? Oops! Guess I haven't perfected invisibility yet. Sorry. My fault. I didn't really feel responsible for all that was wrong with the world, but I understood that by not engaging in the argument about who was at fault for whatever bad things happened--by saying yes, it was my fault--I was disarming the potential argument-to-come. "If you had blah, blah, I wouldn't have blah, blah. No, it's YOUR fault, blah, blah, because YOU should have blah, blah." See how that works?
Which leads me to the t-shirt. I swore, many years ago, that I was going to have a t-shirt made that said, "Just so we understand each other, EVERYTHING IS ALL MY FAULT." When I announced on Facebook that I was going to do that some day, I had a couple of defenders who told me that I wasn't at fault and shouldn't take blame for things I didn't do. Bless their hearts. They didn't get my point. At the same time, there were at least six people who wrote to me to say, "I want one of those t-shirts, too"!
It also applies to conversations (recently) about politics and religion. I had an online discourse with a former student--now a mother in her own right-- who home-schools because she has a major beef with public education that teaches things that are different from what the Bible says. She had posted a very negative meme about public schools. I called her on it. This gal was one of my honor students way back when, but I had no idea she was a Bible-thumper. (It boggles my mind that intelligent people can be so blind!) In any case, in the short order of our online discussion, I came to understand that it was pointless to continue to reason with her. She believes that the earth is 5,000 years old due to things the Bible says...that carbon dating is flawed...that evolution is poppycock. In the midst of it, I just bowed out of the conversation. I have also done so with politics. There is no reasoning with the unreasonable...so that's my fault. It's ALL my fault. Get it?
If I ever decide to actually create the t-shirt that declares my innocence by way of fault, you will be allowed to put yourself on the list of people who want one also. I will celebrate your guilt-acceptance with you. We blame-recipients need to stick together!
Thursday, August 4, 2016
MIA: The Truth
John 8:32:And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Simon and Garfunkel from the song The Boxer: Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
If someone were to ask me what I seek in a relationship, the first word out of my mouth would be "honesty". The second would be "respect". The two go hand-in-hand. A relationship founded on untruths, whether they be lies of omission or commission, robs both parties of making life decisions based on what is real. Real is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". Lying (the act of telling untruths) happens for a lot of reasons, but the bottom line is that it says, "I don't respect you enough or trust you enough to tell you the truth about a situation because I'm selfish. I'm ashamed. I'm afraid. I don't want to take responsibility for the truth." Me, me, me. It is difficult to reason with that. People who are so steeped in themselves don't see (or care?) about what they do to others. If they can lie to you, they can cheat on you and steal from you and treat you, otherwise, as if your needs and desires are secondary to their own.
Reasons for lying are many:
1. To avoid punishment. Children will lie about their misdeeds in order to escape the wrath of Mom and Dad that will surely come if they tell the truth about what they did. This is the immature brain speaking. Parents are much less likely to be angry with a child who fesses up to wrongdoing than with one who will look them in the eye and lie. (Been there.) A prisoner of war will lie because his captors require it, and the punishment for not complying can be swift and treacherous. These lies are forgivable in the right circumstances. Caught by the police with drugs in your car? The traditional answer--and one the police hear many times a day--is "It isn't mine. I didn't put it there. I don't know how it got there." The same as for driving drunk. "I only had a couple of beers."
2. To save someone else's feelings. As altruistic as this sounds, telling a woman that her jeans don't make her look fat when they do gives her false information on which she bases her future decisions about those jeans, that style, that fad...whatever. There are ways to tell the truth without hurting feelings. If I asked my mother if she liked something I was trying on to purchase, all she had to say was, "It doesn't do anything for you." That didn't mean I was fat or stupid or even that she didn't like it. She was saying that it wasn't flattering to me. (Even with the perfect body and the pocketbook to buy whatever you want, some articles of clothing just don't work right you. Fact of life.) It saved an argument and a lot of feelings. Before you lie in order to save someone else's feelings, consider whose feelings you are really trying to protect!
3. To save face. Humiliation is an extremely powerful factor in the lives of humans. Hundreds of times a year, people will commit suicide rather than face the consequences of something shameful that they have done. Murder followed by suicide is a common occurrence. That's how strong an impulse saving face is! If humiliation equals willingness to die before facing the music, imagine how hard people will work to prevent others from discovering the truth in a less-than-suicidal situation.
4. To convince others to think the way that you do. Here's where things get iffy. The Internet--and in particular, Facebook--is rife with people posting memes with quotes and statistics (mostly political in nature), but they post these things without researching to see whether or not they are true. In that regard, I have become a source of irritation for many of my FB friends.
Addressing #4 here, when I see a meme that quotes someone that people like or respect, I research to see if it is accurate. Honestly, 90% of the time, it isn't. The quote wasn't said by the person pictured, or it was doctored and undocumented...or just plain made up. Yet people post it as if it were truth. When I call them on it, they respond that they just liked the idea...or they didn't trust the research I did...or were directly quoting from biased websites. (I've been a de-bunker since early childhood. Even my mother called me "Peggy De-Bunker.) Worse yet, when these things are posted, sooo many people believe them as Gospel without checking first. If I'm going to post something that has my name on it as the poster, I want it to be true and accurate. Someone's opinion is someone's opinion, but posting a quote attributed to George Washington needs to be accurate since people place some semblance of honor to what the father of our country said.
So...what if you suspect you know the truth, or really do, yet are being lied to? If you ask the liar if he/she did the deed you are questioning, that gives him/her another opportunity to lie. You may think you are giving him/her a chance to come clean, but more often than not, it just creates more drama. More lies. You want to believe. It helps you to believe. But when the real truth comes crashing down, you are more hurt than ever because these lies are coming from people you love.
My problem right now is not that I am being lied to by family but that I am being lied to by politicians. The truth doesn't matter any more. Donald Trump, for example, has been caught in dozens of lies, yet his followers deflect and deny and are convinced that the rest of us who don't support him are "sheeple". If the truth is no longer important, then our lives in the United States mean nothing. Load the courts with judges that think as we do. Don't consider the international ramifications of closing borders and rejecting immigrants. Discount women as trophies. Further victimize the victims. Mock the disabled. Say the words with no understanding behind them, then sit back and watch the ignorant among us respond in kind. I'm scared, boys and girls. I'm really, really frightened.
I had a beloved aunt, once, who was so stubborn that there was often no reasoning with her. She said Mattoon, IL, was north of Chicago. We told her it wasn't. She insisted...so a map was produced to prove the point. She said the map was wrong. And that's what we are dealing with in today's world. The truth is missing or ignored. What is the source of your truth? How much do you value it? Whatever happens in the future depends on how you deal with it now.
I'm trying to find truth in my own life, so the challenge I make is not all about everyone else, so God bless you in your quest!