Something that caught my eye while we were touring the National Naval Aviation Museum. Wish I could tell you what it was!
I meant to go back and photograph the sign describing it…
Something quite feminine about it from this angle…but no idea what it is…
One of my “areas of expertise” as a Psychotherapist is relationships, but do not take the following as professional advice. Certain decisions are 100% personal.
Something I have seen so many times is outright lying, and I still don’t understand it.
It’s one thing to engage, for example, in “cheating” in a relationship. It’s a whole different level of yuck to lie about it, straight to someone’s face…even AFTER you’ve been caught!
I can almost understand the act of being unfaithful…there is almost always a perceived element of being carried away by something bigger than oneself, feeling helpless in the face of something, etc.
But the lying part…willful…crazy-making…calculated…that’s the part that would do me in. I couldn’t cheat because I would suffocate under the incredible crushing weight of the having to lie part.
And the lying part ends up to be the most damaging part of the whole thing, not the act of infidelity itself.
People who do finally do tell the truth about cheating can rarely offer good explanations.
Even my own former husband, after 13 years of what I thought was wedded bliss, only had this excuse to offer when I asked him why.
“Well, I thought I could get away with it.”
So if you wandered and did not get caught, think long and hard before indulging in that guilt-relieving dump some people feel compelled to do under the guise of total honesty, or “coming clean”. It is usually just for the cheater to get out from under the hefty guilt-weight of his or her actions. Or worse, it’s a passive aggressive move to make sure your indiscretion is known so it can actually hurt your partner.
That is your shit to carry…possibly forever. So shut the fuck up and live with it. Deal with the real issues!
But if you have been busted, tell the truth, for God’s sake!!
Don’t gaslight someone you supposedly love.
End of obviously biased lecture of the day!
There ain’t no use in me trying to tell you how I feel
’cause what I feel ain’t what you’re feeling
I don’t know what we did wrong
I just know if you come home
I ain’t gonna let you break my heart again
There ain’t no use in me trying to find out where you’ve been
Where you’ve been ain’t where I’m going
’cause if I ask you where you’ve been
The hurting starts and it don’t end
So I ain’t gonna let you break my heart again, no
I ain’t gonna let you break my heart again, no no
Tears don’t become me
Pain ain’t my friend
It seems like you enjoy my crying, baby
You always said that I was strong
But I believe that you were wrong
Lately, God knows, I have been trying
There ain’t no use in you trying to kiss away the hurt, baby
’cause it hurts where it’s deep down inside of me and it’s hiding
If you decide you’re coming home
You walk in, it won’t be like before
’cause I ain’t gonna let you break my heart again, no
Ain’t gonna let you break my heart again, no no
https://helenswordsoflife.com/2017/08/05/song-lyric-sunday-theme-for-8617/
This is going to seem like a post about dis-satisfaction but it is not, honest.
At my house this week, we are experiencing the frustrating, man-made phenomenon of absolute waste.
Next door to me, there is a perfectly lovely home, built in the late 1980’s.
My neighbor had to sell. I understand that. But she sold to a builder of McMansions…(look it up)
Many of us tried for months to get permission to salvage what we could from the soon to be demolished house, for recycle, reclaiming and re-use. I’m talking about perfectly good appliances, beautiful hardwood flooring, lovely tiles, great carpet, two complete sets of kitchen counters and cabinets, shelving, French doors, and beautiful bathroom vanities!
That process was so political. So slow!! Like molasses! Before she moved, we, at least, were able to get the brand new refrigerator out of my neighbor’s student apartment. Perfect timing as we have just moved into our own basement apartment so that Son and Grandsons could move in. But the rest of what would have furnished a sweet kitchen, bathroom and bedroom for us downstairs, well, we just couldn’t cut through the red tape fast enough.
It’s been frustrating to say the least. Especially because James is a custom home designer and builder and is a master at reclaiming older reusable parts and pieces for new homes. Oh, what he could have built us!
At least, several neighbors showed up to save a whole mess of strawberry plants and a stunning long row of Lavender!
So at this point you are wondering what in the world this has to do with Satisfaction.
I’m almost there…
Well, the backhoes showed up yesterday. Here’s what James wrote in his family email.
We watched as the machine ate the neighbor’s house like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, gobbling and crunching it like so much soft meat.Â
I could not have said it better…except maybe to add the word Bulimia in there somewhere! Chewed it up and vomited it right back out!
In a matter of hours…destroyed…consumed…
the offending backhoe in its “food coma”
OK, OK Satisfaction already!
Trying to ignore what was happening next door yesterday, we focused on fixing up our little apartment, mostly the tiny kitchenette. I was grumbling because the carpet in there is destroyed from a burst pipe earlier this year and has been covered with ugly throw rugs. James was grumbling because he had recently finally thrown away a piece of good carpet he’d kept for years that now, would have come in handy in this kitchenette.
Next thing I know, he is tearing across the lawn between us and the house destruction project. He grabs the project manager, has a quick talk (over the backhoe noise) and literally minutes before the Tyrannosaurus bites into it’s next gourmet house section, James rips out a whole room full of brand new carpet and hauls it across the grass to its new home…our kitchen!!!
Take that, you lazy, wasteful developer!!!
Now THAT was satisfying!
PS I have to admit I also found it very satisfying that there was a clandestine project for the last several nights. After the work crews left and after it got dark enough, a young family, Mom, Dad and 3 little kids, showed up night after night, and for hours, dug out the brick driveway pavers, one beautiful brick at a time. The young man told me they have a place where they can sell them for a lot of money (which they desperately need). And just so you don’t think I support theft, the project manager told me yesterday, they knew it was going on and ignored it. Also satisfying!
OK, here’s a story for you about Bridge, not a bridge or the bridge, although there are significant bridges like that in my life. I have even posted about some of those.
No, this is a story about the card game, Bridge. But be warned! There are three tragedies in this story and only two happy endings.
For many years, I held onto a beautiful treasure that belonged first to my grandmother and was passed down to my mother. It was a lovely novelty set of China, used only for Bridge Tournaments! A set of 4 plates, one shaped to represent each suit in a deck of cards, and a tea cup to nestle on to each plate. The plate below is a “Spade”. The beautiful shades of silvery blue with goldish orange accents always grabbed my attention.
There was also a clever stacking teapot, creamer and sugar container.
Tragedy number ONE: In my 30’s while moving, a well-meaning helper placed the very special treasure box containing my mother’s Bridge china set, as well as a pile of antique handpainted, glass Christmas Tree ornaments, on the trunk of my car. My friend was sure I would see it there before driving off to the new house.
I didn’t.
TOPPLE, CRASH, SMASH, CRUNCH, and all that was left was a huge box that when lifted, made that nauseating, tell-tale sound of broken glass. (Silent, major profanity here remembering the event. I did NOT keep those swear words to myself at the time though.)
I was as crushed as all those shattered heirlooms!
The happy ending for that tragedy is two-fold. One plate (the “Spade” in the photo above) and two teacups were unscathed! AND, a few years later, I met this woman, a talented potter, who took all the broken pieces of the Bridge Tea set (of COURSE, I had not thrown them away!!) and “mosaiced” them onto small clay flower pots, so I could put lovely, growing things in them.
(As I write this, I am remembering one of my favorite novels called Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos. A great read partly about broken china and wonderful concept!)
Tragedy number TWO: I have been complaining on my blog that I lost my camera. I even let this loss prevent me from blogging for several weeks!! (I mean, what is a post without visual aids, right?)
I did try last Wednesday to use my phone to photograph the above plate for this Bridge Post. Lousy shots so I was grieving for my old friend even more.
I loved my camera. Just a very small, simple point and shoot Canon, but with the best telephoto and macro capabilities of its generation. I had become intimate with this camera, familiar with all its quirks and loving it anyway. And it knew all the most moving moments of my life, first hand. So the loss has hurt. No idea where it went to, but we have recently moved from the top half of the house to the bottom to make room for my son and grandsons, so I kept thinking I had just packed it somewhere and that it would turn up…but it didn’t! It was nowhere! Another heartbreak.
The happy ending? Just yesterday, while facilitating my new Women’s Art and Support Group, I was presenting the day’s activity: “crafting art out of things you already have around your home”.
I LOVE photography. I have since I was in the 4th grade, snapping away with my little Brownie camera. I didn’t get to be any good at it until these more modern digital options came around. But that’s only because I can afford to take a million pictures now, knowing that somewhere among the plethora of lousy shots, might be a surprise.
Anyway, one of my favorite hobbys for gift making and the occasion Craft Fair is to use my favorite photos for handmade greeting cards.
Three examples of cards I’ve made.
Well, I opened the box I keep the finished cards in and Voila! There was my camera!! It had been hiding right there where it belonged!! I cried and had to excuse myself from group to go tell James I found it because I knew he’d been plotting to buy me a new one.
I LOVED this happy ending!
Tragedy number THREE: My Mom died when I was young so her keepsakes still mean a lot to me. Those China pieces are precious, not just because they are beautiful, but also because they are a reminder to me of the amazing woman my mother was.
The first half of my life with her, my Mom was all involved in motherhood, house-wifing, PTA, her new church, and her favorite, playing Bridge at her Women’s Club in La Jolla. Apparently Mom was a secret Champion. Taught by her church upbringing that she should never brag, we didn’t even know the trips she was taking up the West Coast were because she kept winning huge competitions in Tournament Bridge! (She did finally tell us shyly about beating Raquel Welch’s Mom at Bridge at her local Women’s Club though.)
She would bring home souvenirs for her daughters from her mysterious trips. The hotel rooms were loaded with soaps, lotions, sewing kits, etc) and from the tournaments, lots of Cracker Jax-type charms. Tiny metal and plastic animals, cars, crowns, keys and little people. I never understood the charms and figured maybe they won them or used them to bet with or something?? Anyway, she seemed happy and lots of folks were drawn to her!
The last half of my time with my her was painful. To my sisters and me, as her children, we suffered from her depression and alcoholism, but it must have been unimaginable for her. Her last few years alive, she just really did not want to be here…period.
When I was a youngish teen, she tried for that big “Final Check Out” twice, only to be rescued from her pill-induced coma’s. The third time, she wasn’t taking any chances and used a much more reliable method, a gun. She finally succeeded. Gone from her pain.
No happy ending there…bridge burned! Period.
But I do have to say that her life, the way she knew who she was, and the courageous way she tried again and again to find a way to be herself in a world that repeatedly stomped on her, have been a non-stop inspiration to me. She left the church her family was adamantly committed to. She joined the navy in the 1940’s, almost unheard of for women. She tried being the domestic handmaid she was programmed to be in her family. And finally, she struck out on her own, still determined and still searching, until her own chemistry got the better of her and she finally succumbed to the only answer she could find. To me her life shines brightly, full of examples and lessons to learn.
As Don Henley says in his wonderful song, “My Thanksgiving”,
“Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge.”
Maybe that’s my THIRD Happy Ending!
The word Delta, for me, has only one meaning.
I guess my world is pretty small.
I blame (and thank) my father, who taught us the only real sin in life was boredom. All other transgressions were lessons we just had to learn, but boredom was an insult to God.
Dad taught us that at any moment, in any setting, we could simply use our senses and become aware that we are always surrounded by miracles!
So…though I have seen many places, I have never needed to travel very far to be completely captivated by my surroundings.
Therefore, in my small world, the word “delta” immediately brings to mind the area of the Deep South that I lived in. (Well, that and maybe the airline that could get me there…)
For our WPC theme this week Nancy Thanki wrote: “Whether it’s water or some other reflective surface, what have you seen recently that has changed your perspective on the view?”
Here’s my take on it. It is my mission in life is to learn how (and teach others) to   Choose a Perspective.
There was no sunrise yesterday morning. I’m not kidding. The sucker just didn’t come up!! No Sun. Just continued darkness…inviting the kind of depression that comes with S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder).
This is the chair I fight the cats for each morning, when the sun comes up and is streaming in from all sides, but not yesterday!
Then I remembered three things.
3. Since my other posts this week were on Reflections, I wanted to do one on   Reflecting, so I did that. I Reflected for a while…most of the day actually…and   sure enough, true to its reputation, the Northwest Spring changed it’s mind about  everything!
So I went for a walk…just one block…and here’s what I found!
OH, and THIS!!!
And then THIS!!
And lastly, THIS!
If all that glory, on a single block, is not enough to shift your perspective, then I suggest you reflect on this; with whom will you be doing some psychotherapy…and how QUICKLY!
Delta
