Thursday, February 24, 2011

Steven Tyler Part 1


I've always loved tattoos. When I was a little girl I often begged my dad to get one. I remember asking him many times why he didn't have one. I thought they were swell. Of course in those days the only people who had them were former sailors and bikers, but I didn't care. Oh how beautiful, naughty and forbidden they were! My eyes lit up like Christmas everytime I was around an uncle (my mother's side of the family of course) or anyone else that had one for me to examine. My dad has a bad scar on his hand and it is shaped a bit like a seagull in flight. It's got a bit of a blue hue to it so I pretended that to be a tattoo and knew that would be as close as I was going to get; at least for a long while.

Sometime in the mid 1990's when I was past 30 years old I decided I was ready for my first tattoo. But it wouldn't be just be any old tattoo, it would have to be something that meant something to me. After years of deliberating it, I finally decided to replicate the one found on the forearm of Steven Tyler from Aerosmith. Steven Tyler was someone I had always liked very much, and having read the symbolism behind the tattoo I decided that was the one I wanted. The tattoo is of flames in the shape of wings and there is a lace heart in the middle of them with a musical note inside. Over the top it reads "Ma Kin", the title of a song on their first album. Steven believed this would be the song that would rocket the band to stardom. Of course the album also contained a little ditty called "Dream On", but that's beside the point. Even though only die hard Aerosmith fans have even heard of "Mama Kin", Steven Tyler believed in it so much that he cemented it on his body forever. I loved that notion. Believe in your dream so much that you are willing to have it tattooed on your arm! So Miss Pamela and I headed to the tattoo shop and that was the tattoo I got. In those days you couldn't just go online and find a gazillion pictures of someone's tattoo. In fact, I had quite a time finding a good shot of it. In retrospect I guess it wasn't original for me to steal someone else's idea, but I didn't care. I loved my tattoo and still do.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Don't Give Up On Me

My apologies for the recent lack of posts. I've just felt like a blob lately. I can't think of anything to write in my journal or on Facebook. Usually my mind is flittering with things I want to say and feelings I want to express, but not lately. And as always, I'd rather write nothing at all than to just write for the sake of posting something.

Please don't give up on me. Stay tuned. Surely this dry spell will turn around shortly.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Get To Know Your Food

The following is a transcript of a conversation my neighbor had with the lady at a local Chinese fast food joint:

Me: What kind of meat is in your Hot & Sour Soup?
Lady @ Double Dragon: It's sort of like pork.
Me: I don't eat pork.
Lady @ Double Dragon: Oh, it's ok, you can eat. It's only SORT OF like pork.


Yet another reason I have not eaten at any type of Chinese Restaurant in a couple of years now. It's been six years for my boss. Do we really have any idea where the meat we consume every day comes from?

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Bridal Shop Scandal


Last weekend my neighbor took her step daughter out shopping for a prom dress. They went to a local, family owned bridal shop near our home. Trying on formal dresses can be a big ordeal, so to make them comfortable, the sales girl helped my friend "set up camp" in one of the dressing rooms. She told them they could leave their purses in the dressing rooms and take their time shopping.

When they arrived home, my friend discovered $300 was missing from her purse. There was no question in her mind who took it. After two or three days of phone calls, the police became involved. It seems the woman who owned the shop has a drug addicted daughter. The woman broke down and told my neighbor that she was trying to help her daughter get back on the right foot and had been letting her work in the shop. The woman wrote a check to my neighbors and apologized emphatically. My neighbors said they walked away from the experience feeling the business owner was an upstanding woman just trying to run a small business, and help out her daughter. They felt very sorry for her.

Unfortunately the damage is done. Numerous posts on Facebook and tons of bad publicity via word of mouth, will probably cost this business owner a lot more than $300. I have to wonder how far the codependent mother will go to save her drug addicted daughter. How many chances will she give? How much money will it cost?

I can't stop thinking about that mom. I hope she'll do the right thing and attempt an intervention on the daughter. If that doesn't work, I hope she'll cut her off before she costs the lady her business, or something worse happens.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today would have been my mom's 77th birthday. A couple of people have asked if I'm going to the cemetery today. I don't think so. Instead, I'm going to pay tribute to my mom by doing things she would enjoy doing all day. I'm having the cleaning lady come to clean my house, I'm going to get my nails done this afternoon, and I hope to fit in an afternoon nap. Later this evening, I will have something chocolate. It's what my mother would have wanted.

One day when I've moved on from this world, I don't want my children to feel they have to go to my grave site on my birthday and other holidays. I won't be there. Instead, I hope my children will tell their children a funny story about me and spend the day doing things I would have enjoyed. Hopefully I'll be able to see them somehow, just as I hope my own mother will see me today, paying tribute to her wonderful life.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Thought For This Sunday

Atlas wasn't forced to hold up the world. He was convinced that if he didn't, the world would fall.

Often the one child in a family who is softer than the rest, who is more sensitive than the family is used to, is the one selected to deal with what no one else will deal with. It's an odd fate. This is usually the person who needs to shoulder the family sadness with the brunt of their heart.

Somewhere along the way, this person must learn that there is a huge difference between sharing someone's pain, and bearing it. Too many times, those in pain use the concern of loved ones as a way to ground what they don't want to feel themselves. People like this....people like me, and maybe you identify, so let me say people like us, frequently feel responsible for the emotional condition of others.

It is delicate and never-ending work, this sorting of what is truly ours and what is not. We become codependent, never feeling at peace until the emotions of everyone around us are managed and tended--not so much out of compassion, bust as the only way to quiet our anxious burden as carriers of sadness.

Though some of us were trained to carry the sadness and pain of others, the fiber of the one heart we were givin is strong and light enough by itself to carry us. Let down, let go, the world will carry you.

Adapted from "The Book of Awakening"
-Mark Nepo