Gone...

I was robbed 8 days ago. Thieves broke the back mini window in the back of the Jeep and took my purse while Mabel and I were hiking. It took 6 solid hours of phone calls and errands to close bank accounts, credit cards and get my window fixed. I'm still dealing with the aftermath of re-routing direct debit and automatic credit card payments, and waiting for a new driver's license.

Aside from my cheap, Ross Dress for Less purse and the 20 bucks in my wallet, they did get a free tank of gas of my Visa...which Visa will pay for. Funny, but I canceled my Discover Card waiting for the cops because I could remember their phone number - 1-800-Discover. But I didn't know Visa's... I do now: 1-800-Visa-911. (You must know the name of your issuing bank; then this number can refer your to the proper theft / fraud phone numbers.)

But the one thing I mourn the most is my wallet. My big time Hollywood producer wallet. Those stupid-ass thieves certainly have no appreciation for that wallet, Il Bisonte #C237. And I fear I will never be able to afford to own it again.

I have loved and adored this wallet - mine was black - for two decades. This was actually my second one. I carelessly left the first in a McDonald's bathroom in Anaheim a decade ago. Then as now, I pray that whoever took her, loves and adores that wallet the way I did.

I seriously planned a blog post about my Il Bisonte over the winter. That wallet and a coat with an inside pocket are my favorite way of safely moving about large crowded places. I was so excited to have found a ladies winter coat with an inside pocket at Penney's Outlet. This little luxury is normally saved for men...which is why I wear men's coats. And this purple ladies jacket had an inside pocket that fit my Il Bisonte.

It wasn't that it was made from fine Bison leather that grew so soft and supple with age. The Il Bisonte was the elegant and super functional design. It was a must for any international traveler or production person.

I'm going to blame owning this wallet and my need of jackets with inside pockets on Catherine MacDonald. She was our travel coordinator on the movie I worked on in Argentina. A raven haired beauty from Texas who settled in New York, Catherine moved about the world with such ease and confidence. She prepared well for potentially dangerous encounters (purse snatchers were notorious in Buenos Aires) and then she rolled with the punches. I'm certain she taught me about the Il Bisonte.

Later when I found myself in Manhattan wrapping a job, I made my way to the Il Bisonte store and ponied up the $130 for my first one. The wallet is extra wide - not so much an issue with the advent of the Euro. But in my heavy duty travel days, I quickly discovered that not all currency was the same size at the dollar. Many countries had wider money. It would stick out and people could see what I had and the money got torn. Or I folded it up, which made my wallet too fat to close.

I quickly fell in love with this Il Bisonte for other prodution needs. Keeping track of receipts for the company? No problem...lots of nooks and crannies. Needing a safe place for my passport? It fit in the wallet when it was all folded up. And the Il Bisonte has an elastic band that wraps around the wallet when you put too much junk in it...so it holds together no matter what!

Without fail, everyone in production who saw my Il Bisonte, bought one! I remember being at a dinner with two art directors and five or six production people. When it came time to pay, we all had the same wallet! And they blame their love of this wallet on me!

But sadly, I am no longer grossly overpaid for my time and the now $237 price tag is too much for my paltry income. I bought a seven dollar wallet at Ross. And I hate it. And I probably always will.

Be Happy - Part Two

Well, I certainly got the wind taken out my sails since posting part one of this...in more ways than one.

After coming to the conclusion that I was responsible for my own happiness, it is still a chore to remember that. Life gets me down and I fall into old patterns. But I find it interesting that every single friend I have is struggling with positivity. While this is most likely a sign of the times we are living in (under???), it could also be that we are are all at the age where we are beginning to wonder what life is really supposed to be about.

Without fail, all of my friends are either seeking a job or are currently grossly under-employed or both. It's a struggle to find a way to be positive when you send out resume after resume and nothing happens....or when your business is failing. And while most of us learned a long time ago that our happiness is not tied solely to our jobs, the lack of income definitely plays with the positivity we feel on a daily basis.

Several of my friends have all passed around the cd for The Secret. Cliche? Yes.... but I didn't realize how negative I sounded until I started listening to that book. And I have to say the positivity is helping me mentally and emotionally.

Example - I know I posted a photo of a very large root in my backyard ages ago. I've been digging and hacking at that root - larger than fire logs - for months. At first I enjoyed the challenge, but then it became a source of frustration. I would walk past it and curse. The cherry shrub I bought to plant there nearly died in our wind storms and so I cursed the $50 I spent on that shrub.

And last week, I decided to change my point of view. Instead of cursing that root, I stood there and visualized what my shrub would look like planted there, healthy and growing. The next day, I noticed several large feeder roots that were attached to the large one. I cut them with shears and suddenly the root was moving a bit. A few more whacks with my axe and it was out. And my shrub is planted and springing back to life.

It is a daily struggle to be aware and reject the negative thoughts in my head - to figure out a positive way to say what I mean. But I'm working on it. And, I am making myself make time to do something I really enjoy every day...hiking, torching, beading. And I'm making an effort to be present while doing those things. And maybe that's a start.

Be Happy...Part One

Carmon's post On Choosing Happiness has sent me in an emotional spiral....upwards...but a spiral nonetheless. The last paragraph was a doozy for me. In it, she asks her readers to see themselves on the last day of their life, how they want to feel and reach for that. Or how you want to remember yourself on the last day of a loved one's life.

Both of these really hit home for me. I look at my precious mother, 86 years young, and think of all the unhappiness she's had. She was born a poor farm child during the Great Depression in South Mississippi. She was the only sibling to graduate high school and while she had opportunities, her father forbade her to take them. So, she married the first boy that looked at her funny and nine months later had a baby girl with colic so bad, Mom couldn't put her down for two years. By then that boy had started beating both my mother and my sister.

Mom eventually got away from him...he'd cheated on her too many times and she'd put him in the hospital too many times when dared raise a hand to her or her daughter. Husband number two was a cheater and just weird. He'd hide in a closet to hear what Mom or Sis would say about him. They never talked about him so he'd hide for hours and then just pop out and scare the crap out them. When it became obvious that he would never straighten up and fly right, Mom had his base commander deploy him to Alaska.

My dad, while the love of her life, never belonged to her. I was a shocking surprise seven years into an 18 year affair that ended only when he died. She lost her job after I was born and was the talk of our small town, but she held her head high.

Husband #3 = more of the same. These stories only scratch the surface of my mother's tumultuous life. But she saved every penny she could - paid cash for my education. Helped buy cars and houses for my sister and I. And through it all, we have loved her - worshiped her. And I can honestly say out of our 19 other cousins, none of them are as good to their parents as my sister and I are. But it is not enough.

We have spent our lives to see the light in her eyes...to just make Mother happy. We've heard over and over, "I could be happy if ya'll would just do right."

"Do right" could mean anything from just simply agreeing with her to letting her run roughshod over our lives.

Which brings me to why that sentence in Carmon's blog hit such a nerve. The biggest fight I've ever had with my mother was when I said to her very quietly, "Mom, why can't you just be happy?"

From her reaction, you would have thought I had called her a liar and a thief and a murderer. She ranted and raved and cried for hours on end. OH THE DRAMA! I was in a wheelchair at the time. She was here to help me through some surgeries. I would wheel into my office and call the BFF a/k/a my "Shiny Happy One."

She would tell me over and over, she's a child; approach her as if she were one. Tell her you love her. I did. Mother picked up the phone to call the airline to book her flight home. She was going to leave me here all alone in a wheelchair with surgery impending! I called the Shiny Happy One again....lather, rinse, repeat.

As I wheeled into the living room one last time to again tell my mother how sorry I was, I came to a decision. I was going to do what I had to to make sure I got through the next month even if that meant kowtowing to my mother. And after that, I was going to be happy, dammit!

I had spent over 40 years on this planet, never being enough, never being right, hating myself for being born. And as I rolled down that hall one more time, I knew I was done with all that.

I told my mother I loved her. I told her that I was sorry that I wanted to see her happy. I told her that of all the people I know, she deserved happiness, but that she needed to want that for herself, no matter what my sister and I do. I had to fall out of my wheelchair and crawl past the coffee table to hug her, but I did.

To hear her tell it, I begged her for forgiveness for the way I talked to her (!!???!!). Whatever Mom. That day, I stood up (O.K. I knelled UP) for my happiness. That being said, it's still been a helluva hard row to hoe.

Man On the Moon... Clothing Labels

I'm starting a new category call Man on the Moon, as in "They can put a man on the moon, but..."

They can put a man on the moon but they can't create labels for my clothing that don't drive me insane because they are so dang HARD. They irritate my skin and I'm constantly trying to rip them out.

It's no wonder that one of my little nephew's first words was "Tag!"

He would toddle about, reaching behind his neck at the offending tag. He would keep repeating that word, more and more frenetic each time. "Tag! Tag!!! TAG!!!"

Finally, one of us would take pity on him and cut out the offending appendage from his shirt and he would return to being the happy little boy.

As I find myself reaching back behind my own neck, frustrated at the constant scratching, I think of that boy and how I'm certainly not that cute in my own anger at that stupid label.

I have actually ripped clothing from own back to get that label out. And I swear, if I could meet a famous clothing designer, that would be my first question - Why to labels have to hurt?

Hane's no label tees are a Godsend in my book. I just wish other manufacturer's would figure it out.

As the Creek Churns

I've come to the realization that my life is a soap opera. And I'm not even the star...just some "B" character actor in the role of "Nosy Neighbor Lady." What brought me to this conclusion??? I've stumbled on no less that three, three, affairs going on at the creek in less than a weeks time!

Like Sands on the Shoreline...

For ages, I've seen this nice gentleman and his lady walking arm in arm with their two dogs. They are together every morning and I've often stopped to chat with them. It is very clear they adore each other. I thought it wonderful that people in their sixties could still be in love...until I was hiking with the other rottie mom on a gorgeous weekend morning and we both noticed the man was with a different woman. But first we noticed one of his dogs was missing. As we were both about to ask, he interrupted us.

"I'd like you to meet my wife, ____________."

We both stood there looking at him and then her. I know the poor woman had to think we were the rudest women. We couldn't get away fast enough to contain our laughter.

The Biker & the Beautiful...

I've known a beautiful young woman in-the-girl-next-door kinda away (as opposed to L.A. beautiful: fake and plastic) since I started hiking the creek. She has a medical condition that prevents her from working...so she hikes. She hikes for miles and miles, cell phone on her hip and dog at her side. She hikes morning, noon and night.

I quite enjoy her company the many times we've run into one another on the trail. And I know many things about her. She lives with her parents and her disabled husband. I know she adores her dog.

Last weekend, the hiking buddy and I ran into each other on the trail. We both noticed a man in his fifties that we both assumed was homeless. He was hanging out at the end of the levee, holding on to his beat up bicycle. HB thought this was strange but I thought he must be waiting for all us day hikers to leave so he could bed down for the night. Only when we circled back, I noticed him talking to the beautiful girl.

That alone is not unusual. She, like me, knows most all the homeless in the creek. We both talk to them, ask how they are doing, etc. Except, I started seeing them together every day. Once, driving by, I saw her leaving the creek with him and his bike but her dog was no where in sight! She never hikes without her dog!

So, nosy neighbor lady that I am, it was killing me to not know. But he was always by her side. But, one day, he was tossing a ball for the dog. I sent Mabel in to keep them busy and I asked her, "Why are you always with him?"

"I've been seeing him."

"Isn't he homeless?"

"NO, he's not."

"And what about your husband?"

"He doesn't matter."

And then the biker guy was with us.... no more info.


The Young & the Raunchy...

As I was pondering all these events today, I noticed a pick up turn in to the street where I park. It was a dead ringer for the hiking buddy's truck so I waited a bit, thinking the dogs were giving her trouble and that was why she parked so far down the street. The truck sat and we left to hike.

It was still parked there when we returned to the jeep to go home. As we pulled down the street to turn onto the main road, another car pulled in and parked behind that truck. As the car parked a young man in biker attire got out (Uh, Harley, not Schwinn). A young woman in a business suit emerged from the car. She ran to the man who had been waiting there, on the edge of the wilderness for over an hour. She lept into his arms, wrapping her panty-hosed legs around him as he spun and pushed up against the driver's side door of the truck.

Most certainly another affair for the neighbor lady to investigate.

{SIGH} If only my own life were so interesting....