Crazy

Complacency

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 4 Comments

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Throughout almost my entire life I have often taken on what I have “perceived” as injustice. I have fought to change things within the school system for my kids.I have tried to protect my patient’s autotomy and rights. I have stood alongside like-minded people as we protested for change. I have said the “unpopular” thing that has needed to be said but few wanted to. But all of this concern comes with a price. It extracts a huge part of the stillness and the gentleness that you need to go through life without going crazy.

When I was younger I used to look at older folks and wonder why they had gotten complacent and just accepted the status quo. I swore I would never be like that…but I am becoming that way and frankly I think that I might want to. Because the amount of energy I expend trying to right the wrongs is tremendous and I just can’t afford to do that anymore if I want to stay sane and live a peaceful existence.

This reflection is a result of last night when I attended the annual contract signing meeting for our diving club. Sure it’s a small blip in the scheme of things but I had concerns that the owner was not coaching our children as much as was expected/promised and she is the expert as well as a judge. She knows her stuff but she has a habit of blowing off parental concerns or saying things will change and she is not held accountable so nothing changes. So in the meeting I stated that she had missed at least two rotations of 50% of the practices which caused a big to-do with some of the other parents. We are paying a lot of money for these lessons and I want to be sure that what is promised is actually being delivered…which it is not.

Needless to say, I went home totally stressed and disappointed. Some of the parents who felt the same way did not have my back like promised. Sadly, in the end I accomplished nothing and pissed off some people because they are YES men to the owner of the club. And of course there is the unspoken feeling that if you say something it will effect your child’s coaching.  SIGH.

Last night I didn’t sleep well. I tossed and turned for hours and I woke up feeling stressed and unhappy that I took on something that needed to be said but will be paying a price for it.  My peace of mind is disrupted and the “happy place” I have been cultivating inside me for the past year feels anything but. And if I am honest, when I look back the amount of time I have spent fighting the “system,” whatever it may be, has most often not produced the results I had hoped for. And so I have concluded that I must stop fighting the fight because it is so disruptive to my own soul.

I would like to think that despite all of this I will do the right thing if called upon. I think we all do. We like to imagine that we would be the ones hiding our fellow Jewish citizens in our attics should the need arise. But yet, I have to wonder if complacency in the small areas of life soon reach into the larger and more important ones. I wonder too if complacency makes us lazy, afraid, and unwilling to risk our own comfort for a greater and far more important purpose; if it becomes our new a comfortable norm.

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And so today, I am leaning towards incorporating complacency in my life which essentially to me means putting my comfort ahead of everything else and sticking my head in the sand.  It means not rocking the boat, not championing a cause and not trying to fix things. For it appears to me that if you want to cultivate some sort of inner peace you can not do these things.

Frankly, complacency scares and disappoints me, but at my age, unfortunately, so does the fight.

 

 

 

 

Halloween Hooters

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 11 Comments

Sigh. Today I was invited to a Halloween party. Usually I wait to the last minute to get a costume and as  result I get to choose between two: this and that.

But this year I am getting a jump on things. I’m shopping early and there are so many choices when you don’t wait until October 30th to find something to wear.

In case you haven’t guessed, I am not a big fan of Halloween. I don’t like dressing up in funny costumes. I don’t like slogging my way through drunken people with sharp tails and dull wit, being haunted by Casper the Ghost, and smelly vampires who are dressed as blood-sucking politicians. I also don’t like the fact that evil is personified in the face of an 8 yo slasher who comes to my door. But what I really distain is the fact that woman are objectified no matter what the costume is. Frankly, I don’t know if I am just jealous that I will never look like these women again or if it really does offend the feminist in me. For instance take a look at these halloween designs.

Now, I don’t know about you but the history books I was taught from stated that pirates had scurvy, rickets, no teeth, poor hygiene and lice. Lots of them. And frankly, I don’t know how these poor pirates would make it out on the high seas with such skimpy clothing. Looks like a guarantee for deathbed pneumonia and burial at sea to me.

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I suspect that B would like this one and what man wouldn’t?

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Having a woman grant your every wish followed by a wide eyed “Yes Master” is probably every man’s dream.Of course, this also encourages that harem/polygamist idea that has been  floating around in the back of their heads since they were six too. But frankly, if Jeannie is suppose to represent a Middle Eastern woman she needs to put on more clothes.

The Angel vs. the Devil on my shoulder thing seems to be another men’s fantasy.

 

And one can easily see why they are such popular characters. I don’t know what Bible the designers are reading but it certianly isn’t the King James. Yet, the most gruesome thing of all about these particular costumes is being forced to wear 7 inch heels to a Halloween party…now that is just worse than burning in hell!

I have recently noticed the candy bar costume has come into vogue. The first thing I will say is that she looks like a Mounds Bar not a Snickers. But what bothers me more is that this is obviously the kind of outfit should come with a warning that every leering weirdo guy will hit on you uttering the words “I enjoy eating snickers” as a part of them melts while imagining that they are removing your chocolate coating.

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I also have a problem with the action figure costumes. While Wonder Woman may be able to get the job done I suspect it would be twice as hard when you are having to constantly worry if your nipples are showing and pulling up your bustier between punches. And the cape? Well, it isn’t made of ermine to keep you warm as you are flying through the night sky. And how does she avoid gigantic goosebumps when being photographed in the middle of New York in 32 degree weather?

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Next up…the animal costumes.

 

Okay, as far as I know all of these creatures can give you rabies. That’s bad enough but that zebra tail looks like something out of an S&M show. That rabies/S&M combo seems just as terrifying as ebola. Cat’s or bummies are both very soft and furry…the benefit of wearing these…I don’t have to shave for several months.

I know there are many men who think that women look good in a uniform and these certainly don’t disappoint. I suspect if the Armed Services used these woman as recruiting tools that we would have an overflow of dedicated new soldiers.

Of course there are always those in the SERVICE industry. I tell you what, if all the hospital nurses looked like that they would be filled to capacity (the hospitals that is)

Yes, Halloween costumes for women this year look like what you would wear to a masquarade ball at a sex club. So I decided to take a gander at the men’s dress up gear.

 

Appears that they only have the penis costume which comes in large and larger. I like costume this because it makes it easy to spot the biggest dick in the room very easily and steer clear.

Which leads me to the costume I have picked out. It seems appropriate for a 55 year old woman…not to frilly, not too fancy, it comes in a very slimming color and I don’t have to wear heels or panties!

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Superheroes And Fish

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

California has little water. What we do have are high mountains onto which snow is suppose to fall, building up a snowpack, which then melts during the warming temperatures of spring. This water is then stored in lakes and reservoirs where it is released into canals from which farmers draw the water they need for their crops. It least it is suppose to work this way but climate change appears to be messing things up a bit.

Off of the “MIGHTY” canals are many small ones that divert the water to specific locations. I live along one of these smaller canals. Usually, the canal is dry except for the months of May, June and July when the water flows from farm to farm and eventually out to the ocean. But it wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1800’s the area from Bakersfield to San Francisco was pretty much a big lake. People traveled by boat up and down this HUGE swath of water that was many hundred of miles long. Then man decided to tame the waterways and all of nature that went with it. I suspect this area was much prettier before man’s intervention.

One of the highlights of my day involves walking along the canal and visiting with my wild neighbors. Every day I see Henry the lizard who darts out from the bushes to give me a hello.  Sometimes I see the graceful white egrets dipping their bills deep into the silt looking for bugs and other delicacies. And on every stroll, I always hear the THA-RUPM of the gigantic bullfrogs which live around the banks of this soothing waterway; its quiet gurgling sounds washing over me and cleansing my mind .

But then the inevitable happens they crank down the trap door which stops the flow of the water. One day I’ll be walking and notice the waterline has lowered. The next it is lower still. Finally, around the pipes, all that are left are small shallows, minuscule bodies of water which the sun is unable to reach and suck dry quite as quickly as the rest.

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And so yesterday, as I took my walk, I went to take a look under the small “bridges.”  To my surprise there were about one hundred 3-5 inch long fish swimming lazily in the rapidly vanishing water. An unfortunate few were floating on the top an impending sign of danger to all that remained. It reminded me of the times in my past, when my life as I knew it, suddenly dried up and I was left  slowly suffocating and gasping for air. I ran home in a panic.

“Come on kids. Let’s go. We have something important to do!” I shouted as I came bounding through the door. “Get the swimming pool net, get the ice chest, get a water scooper and some shoes that can get wet….we are going to save some fish!”

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Of course, the kids looked at me as if I was crazy, like tweens and teens often do. Eye rolls soon followed.

Then Paul asked,” so what will we do with them after we catch them?”

Frankly, I was stumped. But after a few seconds a plan begins to focus in my mind.

“Why, we will drive them to the MIGHTY canal and release them. That’s what we will do!”
And so we headed off to the shallows armed with everything we needed to become the super heroes that we knew we were capable of being. But there was a problem as is always the case with superheroes in these types of dicey situations. In our case …the fish were not cooperating. Every time the net would come towards them they would flit away into the pipe and hiding from our super herculean efforts. Ten minutes went by. Not one fish. Twenty minutes…one floating fish was netted. Thirty minutes…it was so hot we were ready to swim in the slimy shallows ourselves. A hundred fish and we could not catch one.

Finally, like all great superheroes. we decided to look for other good deeds to do elsewhere but we learned an important lesson …you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. I guess fish are like humans in that way and stupidity knows no bounds.

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Hatred Has No Place In Politics

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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*I usually don’t do political commentary but today I felt I have to as the primary for my state is this Tuesday. If you don’t like it don’t read it.*

There are many times in my life that I have struggled with religion. In fact, when picking a church I have been known to call and interview the pastor about issues such as homosexuality in their church, Christians practicing hatred, and women’s rights. Inevitably, I would get a “Well, we tell people that homosexuality is a sin so we do not marry THEM in our church” to which I would reply that any church that teaches exclusion based on gender, race, ethnicity and sexual identification goes against the teachings of Jesus. I would thank them for their time, scratch them off the list, and then try another.

As a person who has children who are “minority” citizens of this country I have always had a concern about people who hate. Whether its Mexicans, homosexuals, or uppity women; haters don’t just hate one group they are equal opportunity haters against anyone who is “different” from them. I don’t tolerate it but I am surprised by the numbers that do. While this week it may be gays that are the new target group, next week it will be African Americans who experience more than the usual amount of racism that they have to deal with on a daily basis. Somehow, it always feels like we as a country are just a step away from my children being the next group that haters will descend on. This is why Donald Trump is such a concern to me.

The President of the United States is “suppose ” to represent and look out for the interests of all persons regardless of who they are and where they come from. But this week Trump sunk to a new low stating that the  judge who is presiding over his case should be removed only for the fact that he is Mexican American. But it is not the first time The Donald’s bigotry has risen to the forefront. During his campaign he has called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers. In 1973 and 1976 the Justice Department sued Trump’s company for not providing equal opportunity to African Americans who were trying to rent apartments. He has also proposed a blanket ban on Muslims entering this country. His casino in Atlantic City was fined for removing black card dealers from the floor when a certain high roller arrived because the gambler did not want to be around black people. There are so many instances of Trump’s racist ideas and comments going back decades that it truly amazes me that anyone is surprised when a new attack against some group is uttered by the man.

As a parent I have an obligation to protect the rights of my Asian children. As a human being I have the same obligation to promote the rights of all of my fellow beings on with earth. I might even argue that as a person whose ethnicity has been provided the greatest protections and has been given greater opportunities; my duty is to ensure that those who have not had those chances should be entitled to rights equal to or greater than my own. So when I see a man who promotes hatred, bigotry and racism trying to ascend to the presidency I get uneasy. I get uneasy for my children, for my family, for people of color and those whose religion is different from my own.  I get uneasy because it seems incredible to me that we as a species have still not realized that hatred begets hatred and while you are now “safe” there is no guarantee that you always will be. And having visited an extermination camp, I have seen first-hand what the end results of hatred can be.

A leader who promotes hate of any sort is not a person who will bring unity to a country so torn by diametrically opposed ideas. Unity is what we need in a country as vast and diverse as ours and Trump will not bring it. So if you are thinking about voting for Trump I urge you to think about my children and all the children whose differences may make them vulnerable to attack because the Republican nominee is promoting an agenda which makes being “different” from the white establishment undesirable and if history is to be believed will end up limiting their opportunities. So it is time to take a stand against hatred by using your vote to show that you will not accept a candidate whose platform is mirrored in hate. I thank you as do the millions of families who will be negatively effected by a Trump presidency.

 

 

Gone Missing Two

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

One of the most beautiful cities in America has got to be San Diego, California. We spent the weekend here because Gracie had a swim meet. The city is warm, clean, and has a wonderful mass transportation system. Architecture here is widely held in esteem and The Gaslight District teems with great places to eat and shops that beckon you in to spend those hard-earned greenbacks.

The aqua blue water sparkles and when you head out onto the open seas often you will find yourself surrounded by super pods of dolphins who love to leap up as if in a synchronized ballet as they chase your boat. Big yachts and little dinghies all line the piers and make me sea sick just watching them as they bob up and down. Yes, unfortunately, I am one of the Dramamine girls.

I had picked up B at LAX airport and we headed down to San Diego together. He had flown in from Florida where he had been on business. The next morning we had the car brought up from the valet so we could put our luggage in it and head off to the event which was a ten minute walk away. When we returned five hours later the car was still sitting there…strange.

B goes up to the valet stand.

“Can I have the keys to my car?” he asks handing them his ticket.

“Is that your car?”

“Yes it is”

“Well, sir, you have the keys. That is why we did not move it.”

“No, I don’t have the keys. You do. You brought my car around so we could put our luggage in it. I never had the keys. Your valet kept them. They were never in my possession.”

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And so it went. No one had the keys to the car. Not a soul. All 200 sets on the board were checked. All 200 sets were pushed so lights would come on. No keys for 30 minutes. ANYWHERE. I emptied my purse just in case. That was a major ordeal but I did find a pair of missing eyeglasses, a coupon for a free car wash, and $7.38 cents in change; so it was not all in vain. But still no keys. Just as the discussion turned to hiring  a locksmith the trunk suddenly popped open…seems the keys had fallen on the floor and had been kicked under the desk. Keys found…crisis solved.

We headed back to LAX where B had left the car. The day he left Los Angeles he was almost late after being in standstill traffic for close to an hour. He raced into the airport,found a rooftop parking space and ran inside but now five days later there was no car to be found. ANYWHERE.

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You have to understand there are a total of seven parking garages at LAX.  Each garage consists of approximately five floors. We started at Garage 4 the one he swore he parked at. He turned white as a sheet when it was obvious that his car was not there and started muttering under his breath. I remained calm.We went through each and every floor hitting the horn button on the key fob. Nothing. Okay, well maybe it was Garage 6. He was in a hurry after all and it was also a garage that served American Airlines. I began to silently meditate.

We drove to the top open air parking where he swore he had been. Nothing. Same procedure…hitting the horn button as we went up and down floor after floor. Again nothing. B is more distressed while I remained calm and murmuring words of love and support. We have now been searching for 45 minutes and racking up fees as we go through each gigantic garage.

Garage Number 5 was our next place to explore. It didn’t have a rooftop but we went through it anyway. No car. B insisted that it was in the area but we had begun to wonder if perhaps it had been stolen by this time. We went to the attendant and inquired if they had anyway of checking what cars were parked where. Seems they did…only you had to know the license plate number and B did not since it was a company car.

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Enough was enough. By this time we all needed to pee. Badly. So we got out of the car, found our way to the bathroom and then joined B as he re-traced his steps. He swore he had come in through a walk-way over the street and when we took the escalator up there it was. We walked back through it and came to an open air parking garage and after searching a minute or so we located the car in a space that seemed to be inaccessible from Garages 4,5, or 6. There wasn’t even a proper marking of the space. WTH?

I have to say I was proud of myself. Whereas in the past I might have gotten frustrated and upset matching B’s angst as it rose. Instead, I made a point to be supportive and calm. While in the past I may have said something I may have later regretted like, “This is why you always take a picture of your parking space so you can find it again,” I remained mute of the helpful advice. So while pieces of me have gone missing (read the post prior to this) perhaps this is a good thing. And when trying to find and put the pieces of ME back together I think some empty spaces may be prudent so they can be filled with some kinder and gentler fragments to complete the puzzle that is the new and improved ME. The ME I CHOOSE to be.

 

Gone Missing

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 7 Comments

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I recently realized I have no idea who I really am. That is a hard thing to write at my age.

If you had asked me last year who I was and what I stood for I could have given you a laundry list of my good qualities, the bad ones, my likes and dislikes, my truths, my foibles, the things that I tolerated and the things that I could not. Now I have few clues. I am left holding a bag of pieces, a rope and flashing sign which reads detour ahead.

Sometimes I wonder if this is the definition of  a mid-life crisis because it seems as if I am wiping clean the slate and starting over. Only problem… the cleaner doesn’t do its job and all I am are left with is grimy streaks that just muddy things all up and make clarity a rarity.

Supporters of Sigmund Freud believed that a mid-life crisis was brought about by a fear of impending death. I will confess that thoughts of dying do not keep me awake at night but what I want written on my tombstone does.  I guess that is the writer in me wanting to make sure the final sentence of my life is THE perfect one.

Or maybe this loss of “ME” is as simple as early onset dementia. I cannot seem to remember ANYTHING anymore. In fact, I took one of those on-line memory tests and the outcome was SEE YOUR DOCTOR SOON… at least that is what I think I remember. It used to be that I remembered every telephone number in my head nut now I can’t even find the phone. Maybe who I was is now crammed into the junk drawer in the kitchen between the batteries and the eyeglass repair kit. Who knows…but I do know I cannot find myself anywhere.

When Grandma was 85 she told me that when she would walk by a mirror she would think, “Who is that old lady?” because what she saw didn’t match who she saw in her head which was a 25 year old girl. I laughed when she said it but maybe now it is my issue too. What I see doesn’t reflect back who I think I thought I was…that is before I went missing.

It is shocking to me that his has happened. I mean it took so long for me to “find” myself, a self that I was finally pretty comfortable in, only to lost myself again in the prime of my life. I had gotten used to salesgirls ignoring me, the total absence of wolf whistles and having to buy compression socks when I flew. But this…arriving home to a perfect stranger…  I wish I knew her better…it would make life a whole lot easier for all involved.

 

 

Shut Down…307 Days To Fix This

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment
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The other night you accused me of shutting down after discussing the “Gwenniferr” incident. You asked me why I shut down. I have been thinking about it and I think I have some answers for the two of us.
I feel crazy when I talk to you and you deny saying things like “I never said I didn’t talk to Gwenniferr or that she never comes to the gym.”
And yet when I talked to my friend she said,  “Yes, that is absolutely what you told me he said the last time we discussed this months ago.”
And then you change your story so that NEVER means every two to three weeks.
And I wonder if Webster would agree with that definition?
I feel your anger or your disgust/disappointment at me and in me for bringing up things that make you uncomfortable. And I feel those feelings you carry so deep inside you and they touch me, strangle me at times, without you even being aware that they are doing so. I am slowly realizing that it is not my job to carry around your feelings but I have been doing it for so many years that I am not quite sure how one just stops. Is it like walking the dog and letting go of the leash? Is it like giving you a lit match and walking away? Is it like pulling up the anchor so I can sail away?
And tonight
I felt your anger in your footsteps that suddenly hit the pavement harder
and I watch as you move out ahead of me, moving faster, as if trying to get away.
I felt it in your physical avoidance of me. I feel your disappointment/disbelief in me and later the words come that I have felt going around in your head all along:
“What’s it going to be next time?”
Accusingly…as if I should not have had these feelings or thoughts
Regarding a woman that you obviously have admired
And that I should not talk about these emotions when I have them
Because I brought up the two most painful things for me in our marriage
On consecutive days
One intentional, one not
And you can’t deal with the feelings of one
Let alone two
I knew you felt the “what’s it going to be next time” long before you said it
I shut down because I feel the heat your words even though you don’t always say them
And I don’t know what to do with your feelings
That I shouldn’t be carrying around at all
And I don’t know what to do with my reactions
To all those unspoken feelings and words
So heavy on my shoulders
The ones that I have lugged around for so long
So you can be free
And I can be burdened
Guessing what these emotions mean
Confused in their context
Trying to put together a picture
With pieces gone
Missing, lost and fuzzy in our memories
Knowing that someone has done something hurtful
But not really sure what it was anymore
Just knowing that the pain has not ended
And I need to stop
Shutting down
(Alternative ending)
And I need to stop
And just kick your ass!