Author: Sharon

The first night at the first campus went well enough even though I had fumble tongue and stumbled through all I had to say.

Step two on Thursday.

There have been a few things around here that have deserved a countdown.

The first would be all the families who are finally getting their power back after Hurricane Irene went through the area on August 27-28th.

The second would be the Baltimore Grand Prix that just happened over the weekend.

The third would be my return to rehearsals and another chorus year, which will occur tomorrow.

I was ready for Irene and I was ready for the Grand Prix, but I can’t say as I’m ready for rehearsals to begin. I am looking forward to another year with the kids and great music to be sure, but I don’t have all my paperwork in place and I honestly don’t know why. Thus, a very short blog for you today and a crack of the whip for me to get back to rosters, uniform check sheets and orientation speeches. Yay?

You were born with potential.

You were born with goodness and trust.

You were born with ideals and dreams.

You were born with greatness.

You were born with wings.

You are not meant for crawling, so don’t.

You have wings.

Learn to use them and fly.

~Rumi

I’m dealing with a situation that has alerted me to a few thought processes that I’ve either developed recently, or have always had. There is a distant family member who has been in contact and is demanding, in a degrading and aggressive nature, that we do what she says, only what she says and when she says to do it. This has triggered a few responses from me.

1. This woman doesn’t know me very well because invariably, my first response to an aggressive demand is some variant of ” No.”

2. There is no quicker way to entrench me in a test of wills than to tell me what I am going to do, how and when to do it, with no thoughts or consideration, nor opportunity for discussion.

3. What is it that causes this response in me and why?

4. Am I being stubborn and formulating my response solely on the way the demand was presented, or is the demand truly unreasonable for my current situation.

5. Why does someone ever feel that bullying,  degradation of others and guilt would make anyone WANT to help them, even if it’s understood that the place they are coming from is fear and lack?

6. Is this all just semantics?

Isn’t a request defined as something you are asking someone to do, with the possible response, of “No”,  “Not now”, “I can’t” or “Can we discuss this?” as opposed to a demand with the only response being “yes, I’ll do as you say and in your way without regard to anything else nor the impact it may have on me.” A request is respectful of the other person and shows a concern and willingness to  work through any friction the request may cause. A demand is aggressive, selfish and self-centered with no respect or consideration shown for the person being demanded of. Basically, the message is “My needs are greater than yours. I don’t care what your situation is. I don’t care how this will affect you and I don’t want to discuss it.”

Um… wth?

I’ve seen parents do this to their children, employees to employers, friends to friends, and never have I seen a positive outcome without someone feeling hurt and belittled.

So, on to my situation . This is the 4th time this person has aggressively demanded money from us for something we don’t owe her, but to which she believes we should contribute. She made the financial choice to set things up as they are and she could make choices to change those circumstances, and truly, that’s her business, but I’m not sure why she thinks we have to give her money for something she chose. If it were my own children in this situation, I’d tell them no. Go ahead and ask them, because they all know – or have experienced it.

Of course, if you come to me and explain what’s going on and ask me if there is any way I can help out… well…. it might not be exactly what you wanted, but it would be better than nothing, right? Too bad people don’t understand that at times.

The first demand I had to deny. The second demand I denied initially, but then contributed to when I was able to make arrangements that we can work with. The third demand, less than 10 months later,  was for more. The fourth demand was for even more. If we’ve told her every time we doing the best that we can, what makes her think that demanding again will change the situation?

What’s that saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Sadly, I don’t think a polite response is going to work this time. It’s ugly.

It’s been awhile since we’ve last seen it, but the boot has finally appeared for a return engagement. That’s right, it’s time for me to hobble around again. Same problem, other foot.

S’ok. It’ll heal if I keep it immobilized for a couple of weeks. Until then, it’s back to knee highs and my lovely gray friend.

Kinda reminds me of the DeLorean.

Same lovely dull gray color… same blunt squared off nose… and if you are even slightly creative, I’m sure you can extrapolate the doors into the wonderful velcro straps. C’mon… I know you can do it!

Me: Been grumpy lately. Been less than patient with some people. Been irritable, tired and not my usually sunny self. Bleh..

Me2: Deal. You have a nice home. You are healthy. You are employed and you have people who care about you.

Me: Yeah, I know, and I appreciate that. Probably not as much as I should, but I’m aware of it all. Still ennui persists.

Me2: Well, what are you going to do about it?

Me: Go back to sleep and hopefully get some rest? Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning? Maybe my joie de vivre will return and I’ll want to write in my blogs, sort my photos and share with people again? Or maybe not.

Me2: Pish posh. Everyone has a down day now and then. You can either accept that and try to think of better thoughts, or you can wallow in it and invite more into your life. Your choice.

Me: You can be so cheerfully annoying, you know that?

Me2: It’s only annoying because you know I’m right.

I had a dream last night that has persisted in my head all day long. It was a vivid, color dream and when I woke up and told it to Hubby this morning, he said I was scaring him and that he felt it best he left for work right away.

Here we go…

I was walking out my front lawn to a garden patch to harvest some veggies, except when I looked up there were trees in front of me instead of the road. I looked over my shoulder, I was in front of a small square blue house. Since I could see my house to the left, I figured this was fine and looked back to the veggie patch. The place where it should have been was nothing but damp hard packed earth. There was some grass around it like it was nothing more than a bare spot in the lawn. At the farthest part of the bare spot sat a hand pump for water, and closer to me was an tool for digging that looked like a comb of some kind, but also looked as though it belonged on a piece of motorized equipment.

As I was standing there puzzling over the hard packed earth and lack of veggies, a movement in the trees caught my eye. I walked to the right of my patch and down a small slope until I could peek around the trees to a little pond. At the end of the pond were some deer. They all looked to be female and where quietly munching on leaves. I sensed a motion behind me and looked over to see a goat trotting towards me and making a beeline for the water. It was gray with two black stripe running along either side of it. The coloring reminded me of a badger. The goat was mumbling something in English, but I was so astounded by a talking GOAT that I didn’t exactly hear what it said. As he trotted by I looked down and saw an egg with what looked to be the fingertips of feathers and frog legs sticking out of it. It was propelling itself in a zigzag awkward patter across the ground and eventually pushed itself up under some leaves.

The egg started bouncing up out of the leaves and then suddenly burst into an owl. The owl was large and flew around me in a disoriented state before it flew towards me, madly flapping its large wings at me and then it flew off into the trees. The scene changed and I was standing by a window looking out at some trees. A simple wooden chair had its back against the wall under the window and kneeling at that chair were a woman and a child. Standing next to the kneeling woman was Jenny. The kneeling woman was teaching the child to “move like an owl” and craned her neck back and forth while flapping her folded arms, made to resemble wings. The child and Jenny were both mimicking her moves.

I moved my head and felt a tightness in my jaw and neck and reached my hand up to feel a double row of straight pins that had been inserted into my skin beginning at the corners of my mouth and running down my jaw, my neck across my chest and down to my rib cage. I started pulling them out and Jenny looked over and helped me. We both were perplexed and wondering exactly how I’d gotten the pins in the first place. Once we’d pulled them all out, I looked to my right to see women trying on custom-made dresses. I had an armload of brightly colored flounced sun dresses and the woman was ringing up my order and telling me what a good deal I was getting on these one-of-a-kind dresses. There were scarves and jewelry hanging around her and fabric swatches everywhere. There was a curtain behind her where people were going in and out to try on clothing and the designer was harried and anxious.

Putting a hand to my jaw, I could feel the little bumps where the pins had been and looked for a mirror. When I looked, I could see the double row of dots running down my jaw and neck and hoped that they would heal without scarring.

This was when my husband woke me up to give me a kiss before he left for work.  I didn’t dream anything else that I remember.

I know it’s strange, but it’s not like the dream I had recently where Hulk Hogan was in a completely black room under a trap door throwing white rocks into a void and the only way to find out what the noise was down there was to descend a black foam ladder that was nearly impossible to ascend once you were on it. Believe me, when Hulk Hogan looks at you and says, ” What?! Is there something you NEED down here??” you want to get back up that ladder, no matter how flimsy it might be!

Oh my, how recalcitrant I’ve been. I know some of you are waiting for my travel blogs so I can update you on the Loo Wars US vs. Italy, but you are just going to have to be a little more patient. It’s honestly taken me almost a month since my travel to even WANT to look at my photos and begin mixing audio and photos to make videos. That and the software I used last time seems to have been a victim of a few crashes I’ve had over the past few years, but have patience.

First things first, I have to want to write again.

As with most things in my life,  it seems Newton’s law of motion – or the bastardized version most of us know – applies in my world. When I’m going, I’m going full tilt and it takes some monumental occurrence to make me stop. When I’ve stopped, I do just that. I stop. If I could find a happy medium then I’d be good. (And I don’t mean a joyous psychic, either.)

But what does this have to do with gooey, I ask myself… probably not much, but I wanted to get that off my chest.

Last weekend, I baked a Flourless Chocolate Peanut Butter cake I’d found online. I think it came out pretty good, but honestly, I was attending a post-trip pool party and the hostess made something that hit me hard and fast. I haven’t been that out of it since I was taken to a steak house years ago. I had to walk around the block a few times in freezing cold weather to keep it together that time, but this time a shady tree was my solace. I tried the cake, but I can’t say I really tasted it.

#4 complained that I’d taken that cake and never left her a piece. It didn’t even occur to me to bring any home, so I told her I’d make another cake, cut her some and share the rest with the neighbors. I love to bake, but time constraints and the fact that I don’t want to eat cakes, cookies and muffins in mass quantities limits my baking unless I think of a way to share it with others. (I KNOW I’d be the crazy fondant lady who spends days and days sculpting sugar figurines if I could get away with it, but I’d never want to do it for a living.  I want it to be fun!)

Look a pretty bird.

I picked up the ingredients, which really aren’t many, and decided I’d make a cake this weekend. $4.58 in chocolate chips, $1.98 in peanut butter, $1.50 in butter and $1.67 in eggs and I was ready to roll.

The whole thing went together really well, since all you do is melt peanut butter, butter and chocolate chips together and then fold in some highly beaten ( they must’ve been really naughty) eggs, and bake the gooey mess. They tell you to use a 10 inch pan, but I figured I’d make mine in an 8 inch pan and have it be taller. You are supposed to bake it for 15-20 minutes to let the eggs firm up. The center should be gooey, but the rest should firm up nicely. Since I did use a taller pan, I adjusted for a longer baking time and left it in the oven for almost 30 minutes.

It looked set… so I let it cool a little before I inverted it onto a plate. That’s where my problems began. Quickly the side started to crack as the heavy gooey center dropped down. No biggie. I’ll fix that with glaze. I made the glaze and poured it over the top of the cake, artfully pushing it over the edges where large cracks had formed. It looked wonderful.

I let it sit for about a half hour before my hubby said he wanted a piece of cake. Hmm… a crack had appeared in the center too, and my glaze had slid into the slot. Uh oh. I was beginning to have misgivings. I took a knife and ran it through the center of the cake… and the cake went with the knife, it was so thick and wet. Darn!

I glopped the piece of dark wet goo on a plate and looked at my hubby who was trying not to laugh too hard.

“The edges are firm.”, I offered.

Hubby will try anything I make, bless his soul. He took his fork and started poking around when I remembered that quite a bit of this cake is eggs and I didn’t want him eating uncooked eggs.

Oh!

I had an idea. Why not scoop the contents from the center of the cake into a bowl and microwave it so the eggs would firm up? I took a spatula and created an interesting ring of firm chocolate cake while I dug out the center gloop and plopped it into the bowl. Heck, it’s all trash if this didn’t work anyway, right?

I gave the bowl a paper plate lid and stuffed it into the microwave for 3 minutes. Sure enough everything firmed up. Rivers of chocolate glaze that had been on top of the cake, had escaped down the sides of the bowl. Hubby eyed the concoction dubiously, but being the good sport that he is, he tried a bite.

Needless to say, it did firm up, but judging by the look on his face, it’s back to the drawing board for now.