Lisa P Writes

My mother mentioned that my ex-boyfriend from high school, Doug, had a surprise birthday party planned for him the next weekend. Doug had been my first love. We dated for two years, until we graduated high school and moved off to college. He picked a college a couple states away that specialized in engineering. I chose a nearby state school because it was cheaper and I didn’t know what I wanted to study. Our relationship basically ended when we parted ways to college. We said things like, “I’ll love you forever” and “One day we’ll be together.” But we shifted our focus and grew apart.

We saw each other throughout college only on breaks from school. Both of us dated others and then I moved to the west coast after graduation with a couple of my girlfriends to seek adventure. Doug moved home and worked for his father’s engineering firm. My mother constantly monitored his movements and kept me up on his life. My parents and his parents frequented the same social circle. Then one day she told me he had gotten engaged. My momentary sock in the stomach passed, not that I wanted him. I was supposed to get married first . . .

I left work a couple hours later than usual. My boss asked me to stay to finish a project that he, in his round about ways, blamed me for the inconsistencies. I blamed him. He stayed late to avoid his kids and wife, and he dragged me into it. They paid me well and I rarely stayed past five, but I was too tired to look at it in a positive way.

My coworkers left for the day so I resigned to take the Chicago “L” train. A cab would have been about twenty dollars, too expensive. Three of us took turns driving to work to avoid the dirty underground train filled with various loony and business commuters. The train had been my transportation up until this year, but now I felt spoiled that I didn’t have to ride it. No more lousy sitting on the tracks, pushing back my arrival time, or men in dingy clothes preaching the gospel shaking a tin cup. No more fart smells or overbearing lemony clean scents. No more catching colds from those sneezing and coughing on or around me . . .

“You okay? Can you stand up?” A man in uniform had opened Meg’s car door. He knelt down beside her. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so,” Meg huffed. Meg’s sobs had stopped but she hadn’t caught her breath. “My baby . . .” She turned to look in the backseat and took a few deep breaths.

“He’ll be fine. Just call the manufacturer.” He held out his hand to help her up. “We can check you out, if you’d like,” he motioned to the ambulance. “What’s your name?”

“Meg . . . what I am going to do? I think I’m okay, but . . .” She put her feet on the road and then slowly stood up. She was so confused. The old man from the car in front of her was arguing with the young man from the car behind her.

“What the h$#^% is wrong with you? Are you f@#%^ blind?” he shouted. “You’ve ruined my day. I’m late for an appointment which throws my whole f#@$%^ day off! I should just go back to bed!” He shook his fist at the young man. The young man kept apologizing and finally resigned to throwing his hands in his pockets and looking at the ground. He looked like he was going to cry. Meg felt bad for him . . . after all, it was an accident and could have happened to anyone.

“Alderman, it’s okay, we’ll get you out of here. A car is on it’s way,” the police officer was trying to calm the old man down. “We don’t want you to have a heart attack, you’re very important to this city.”

Meg stared at the old man, red in the face and realized that he was a popular politician. Wow, he was pissed . . .

“Look mommy, it’s short and fat!” Caleb was a normal 4-year-old, curious and observant about all things, especially animals.

“No honey, the giraffe is tall and skinny,” his mother, Meg, shook her head, exhausted about trying to correct the way that Caleb saw things. “See look at those wild boars, they’re short and fat!”

“They’re skinny!” Caleb’s brown eyes lit up. He ran over to the fence to look at the boars. Other kids, were shouting and pointing because the boars were running around, chasing each other. Meg overheard a few other kids telling their parents that the boars were skinny. One dad turned to look at Meg and shook his head as his daughter kept repeating what she thought she saw. He took her by the hand and walked her out of the city zoo. Meg knew that she was a special child, just like Caleb.

Oh that poor dad, Meg thought. She didn’t know how to make it stop either. From the day that Caleb came into her life she had been training him the way that the parenting magazines had advised. Her husband did, too. They were doting parents. She thought she had done everything right but once he started speaking they were constantly at odds. Caleb saw the world in opposites. If she said the water was wet, he would say it’s dry. He was a different kind of child but becoming more common. They told her that Caleb would lead a normal life . . .

I haven’t been very motivated to write my blog lately. It’s not that I haven’t been doing interesting things lately. Like last Sunday I went on an urban forage walk (www.spontaneousvegetation.net) in which I learned about wild plants that you can eat . . . and they’ll help with headaches, colds, allergies, depression, etc – no prescription needed! I’m a natural girl, so this was fascinating to me. I won’t even go into how much the drug companies drive me crazy with the cost and treatment, not to mention the addiction to these drugs (see Michael Jackson). I thought I’d have to go to the forest or jungle to find these plants, but no, they WERE the ones growing in my backyard that I mistook for weeds. I now have a new vision for my garden. Hopefully one in which the bunnies will share with me (they’re eating my garden right now). Sy actually caught a little bunny in the yard and started running with it until Stacy grabbed her and made her drop the cute little thing. Pheww!

Anyway, sometimes I’d rather make up stuff so I’ve created a new category called Coffee Break Fiction. Short stories that you can read while on your coffee break at work. Hope you enjoy it!

Last Friday night, we took dad to see a comedian for father’s day. I had no idea who Danny Bhoy was and my expectations did not rise above the height of a monkey. But he delivered! It was fun fun fun! I found the Irish comment hilarious because I know an Irish guy and when he says words, they sometimes come out like sound effects. This video is not from the show we saw but it was similar.

She might look like a witch in the photo with my dad and I, but looks are deceiving. Grandma Agnes passed away quietly in her sleep in February. Luckily, she was healthy and took care of herself up until she entered the nursing home last November. This weekend, the family is getting together to bury her ashes in Cottonwood, MN by my grandfather (her first husband). She was always goofy and had a sense of humor. My mom said that she wanted to be cremated – she didn’t want to ride in the hearse all the way from Moorhead, MN to Cottonwood because she got car sick!

I’m grateful that I got to see her last November. While on our visit, she had to show us her Halloween costume. Kids were invited to the Halloween Party at the nursing home and grandma told us of a little girl that had squealed, “Look, a witch!” when she noticed her. She was tickled, thinking about the kids.

A few years ago I had my grandma fill out a book about her life. This tickled her, too, because her brother and her second husband both had books on their lives. Turns out, she’s led an interesting life.

Click here to download the Grandma Agnes book.

Check it out – Stacy filmed Ray Bradbury’s commencement speech at Columbia College at couple of weeks ago. He is inspiring and has led a very interesting life . . . and encourages everyone to do the same!

I’m very excited – Ingrid asked me to sing at her wedding! In Puerto Rico! Well, I’ll be singing backup with her sister as Ingrid sings the lead. Pheww, I’d rather sing backup.

Last Saturday, I went to my dad’s choir concert – Lutheran Choir of Chicago. It was fun to watch them sing the peppier songs and especially in harmonizing a cappella. That’s my specialty – harmonizing! I’ve always had a talent for singing. It started with the lead role in the junior high musical. I can’t remember the name of it but I do remember singing a song about becoming thirteen and going on to fourteen . . . la la la. I’d cringe if I saw it. I don’t think it was very good and I say that I have a natural talent for singing but not the training, so there was no passion or umpf behind it. And I didn’t have the confidence. I’m sure that I hit the notes but it probably came out a little squeaky. My music teacher continually tried to get me to sing after that, but I refused, turning to the trumpet instead. I wasn’t all that great with that either . . . because I didn’t practice. But it was fun to be involved with music even though our band teacher was a lunatic and would throw the baton, sweaty towel, the music stand or anything in the way of his anger when we wouldn’t listen . . .

Archeworks is an alternative design school where students work in multidisciplinary . . . . and so on and so forth. Anyway, I see it as a really cool program open to anyone, any age that wants to help communities. The students are presented with challenges so they work with locals to implement solutions. For instance, this year one group was involved in working with Little Village residents in Chicago (a lower income neighborhood) to design and build parks in some of the vacant lots (pocket parks) – they planted vegetables and flowers and developed spaces for people to socialize and to deter gangs. Another group worked on creating new ideas on how to link communities (lower income) that don’t have access to the train. Can you imagine being trapped in a small radius around your house because crime could be lurking around the corner? This group not only included adding bike lanes and electric trams but suggested closing streets on certain days so children could ride bikes and play in the street. Both of those bind communities – people work together to create safe neighborhoods. Stacy’s group worked on water shortage – they came up with a plan for a comprehensive website – www.waterpressures.org that will inform people about this issue and how to reduce usage. Did you know that eating meat contributes to one of the greatest uses of water? How about the water used to flush toilets? As I heard quoted from a speaker at a home show last year, “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down” . . .