Tag: funny story

The Lesson of the Curls

Quotes about Psychological projection (26 quotes)
The ego loves projection,... | Quotes & Writings by Your Voice | YourQuote

This is how my mind works: For some crazy reason, as I was folding some laundry earlier this week, I started to think about a girl who I was friends with, in middle school. We were in a lot of the same classes and we played on the basketball team together. One day, we were being driven to practice by her mother, and I distinctly remember my friend turning around, from her front seat, looking at me, and saying how much she hated when people didn’t comb out their hair. Now, this was back in the early eighties, when a lot of us girls set our hair, in pink foam curlers, at night (you know the ones). Lovely. Just lovely. Ha! Anyway, my friend and I were no exception to the pink curler habit. Now, my friend, was a really cute girl, and she had really cute, short blond hair that she set in these pink foam curlers, every single night. And truth be told, my friend seemingly never really completely combed out any of those curls. It was something that I had actually noticed about her many times. Even that day, I had noticed a row on the back of her head, of uncombed out, blonde curls that could have easily still been molded on to the pink foam, that’s how perfectly and distinctly those curls sat, perched on the back of her head. But really, she was an adorable girl, she was my friend, and I figured that she liked to wear her hair that way.

At that moment, when my friend decided to announce that she hated uncombed hair on people, I kind of froze. My first go-to move, as any insecure, gawky, middle-school age girl would do (and honestly, probably the first go-to of any woman, of any age, who feels a little insecure about her own looks and persona, on any particular day) was to quickly finger my own hair, to make sure that I had combed it out sufficiently. My next go-to, which is always my go-to move, to this day, was to start panicking and to start over-thinking about the situation. Was this a test? What would a true friend do? Should I tell her about her own uncombed curls? Does she know about her curls, and is daring me to say something? Would this turn into an argument? Would she start counter-attacking me? Could I handle that? Was our friendship doomed over uncombed curls?

I remember deciding to just meekly agree with her and then quickly change the subject. “I know, I hate that, too. How’d you do on the English quiz?” I must have said something to this affect. But obviously and pathetically, this is an exchange that I still go over in my mind, from time to time, forty years later. (Am I alone in remembering some of this crazy, random stuff? The amount of stuff that I don’t remember scares me sometimes, but these kinds of seemingly inconsequential, quirky memories are the kinds of situations that my mind likes to catalog, and then send frequent pop-up reminders, like pop-up ads on the internet. And next, my mind goes, “Hey, this could be a blog post.” And then, here we are . . . )

As I pondered this situation, in my mind, once again, earlier this week, I thought to myself, “It really is true. Whenever we really have a visceral reaction to something, or when we decide that we have to announce that we “hate” something, there most likely, is a hint of whatever that thing is, inside of us, that we have decided to disown.” The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. If we are indifferent to something, we really don’t care about it. The things that we are indifferent about, have no meaning or interest to us. Love and hate evoke passion and strong feelings. We feel attached to the things which we love, and yes, it is true, we even feel attachment to the things which we say that we hate.

I decided that I might finally be able to put that silly memory about my friend to rest, if I memorialize it, by playing sleuth on my own self. The next time that feel the need to announce that I hate what someone else is doing, I must look for that same action in myself. I must humble myself to find it, try to correct it, and to forgive myself for 1) doing it, and 2) for projecting it completely on to someone else. I am the only “project” that I have to work on in this world. And oh my, what an eccentric, complicated, interesting, goofy, fun, intriguing project I have been assigned! The project of “me” is enough for any one lifetime. This I know.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

No Fish Pucky – A Fish Story

I had a “first time in over twenty years” moment yesterday. I had to spill out a gallon of milk because it had gone bad. I think I am going to have to start buying the smaller cartons of milk. Life sure is different with just our baby girl at home.

Speaking of over 20 years, I have another “no horse pucky” story (see previous “no horse pucky” stories in my blog, if you end up liking this one) to lighten all of the somberness of the news lately. Over the summer, it turns out that I was only the second person to ever fall out of my fly-fishing tour guide’s upgraded canoe, in his over 26 years of being a guide. The water was cold – breathtakingly cold. Let me give you some background.

My husband loves to fly fish. He loves all things outdoors and the biggest highlight of our summer vacation in Montana (and in celebration of his 50th birthday) was to be his treating of the rest of his family, to fly fishing lessons. He set up three tour guides, each equipped with upgraded canoe-type boats that were going to drift down the river, and by the end of it all, we were going to be expert fly fisher-people, with all sorts of pictures of our catch and release beauties, to prove our proficiency. Now, at dinner parties, when I have told this story, people usually interrupt me to say, “Oh, I always thought that you did fly-fishing on the side of the river, in waders and cute hats, with those old-school wicker baskets for your fish.”

Well, where we went, they preferred the row boat method because the water is cold – breathtakingly cold, even in June. (plus, there are grizzly bears, but that is for another blog) Anyway, we got divided into twos. My husband and my second son (the most outdoorsy child of ours, the one who counts Bear Grylls as one of his idols, the one who has mused more than once, about chucking college and living “off the land”) were, appropriately, in one boat. My youngest two children, both good fishers and extremely competitive with each other, jumped into another boat and already started betting each other (and their zany, also hyper-competitive guide) who would catch the most fish. That left my eldest son and I, to the final boat. My eldest son and I are the ones in the family, who get bored with fishing, the quickest. (usually within the first fifteen minutes) We’re the ones in the family who rent the “out there” indie films that the rest of the family groans about, and we talk about the movie, after it is over, for longer than the movie lasted. I felt sorry for our guide. I was already calculating, in my mind, a large tip for him.

Our guide, it turns out, was a very serious, quiet, Thoreau-type guy who after being an English major in college, decided to spend the rest of his life in nature, teaching people alternately, to fly fish and to ski, depending on the season. We were the same age, 48 years old. My first question to him, as I entered the boat, was, “Do you have any good juicy stories about any mishaps with your clients?”

“No, I don’t,” he said with a little tone of puzzled disgust, in his quiet, slow, hard to hear cadence, with already, an annoyed look on his weather-lined face. “Most people who come out here are just so relaxed and happy to be in nature – one with it, so to speak,” he said as he waved his hands to the beautiful horizon with the towering mountains in the distance.

Our guide was very patient. My son and I got our lines tangled together more than the average clients, I suspect. Our guide was an expert detangler. (I kept thinking that I wish I had brought that old ball of costume jewelry. He would have had that thing detangled, in no time flat, with no broken necklaces, to boot!) One time, I got my line tangled on the anchor. I thought that I would discreetly pull the anchor up, and detangle it myself, so as not to add to the tally of his detangling efforts. Of course, that was an epic fail because the boat starting flying down the river, so fast, you would have thought that it had a motor.

Still, thanks to our guide’s peaceful centering, and patient instruction, my son and I started to get the hang of fly fishing and my son, even, started catching fish. I really enjoyed the constant action of fly-fishing, and my instructor kindly stated that while my casting form was getting to be very good, I must remember that the fish are in the water, not in the air. I decided that sitting on the bench seat was probably impairing my abilities and I asked my guide if I could stand.

“Yes,” he sighed. “You can stand, but you must remain in the middle of the boat in the guard area.” This area he pointed to, looked kind of like a pulpit, jetting out from the middle of the boat, so for now on, I’m just going to refer to it, as “the pulpit”.

I loved standing in the pulpit and casting and casting and casting and casting and casting my line. I, admittedly, would get excited from time to time, and move out of my pulpit and lean a little too much on the side of the boat and that is when our guide would say to me (a little more firmly each time), “Remember to stay in the guarded area, or you will fall out of the boat, and be sorry. The water is breathtakingly cold.” I think one time he may have even said (and rightfully so), “Stay in the center guard area, dammit.” I can’t be sure, though, as he was a very quiet, serious man.

Towards the end of our excursion, all three of our boats were in sight of each other, on the river. My daughter had beat her brother by catching one more fish than he had (9-8, or something like that) and I was enjoying watching her amazing form, while fishing. My eldest son, had caught at least 5 fish and had even offered to stop fishing, so that I could catch one, instead of him. My husband and our second son, had caught a couple of fish each. I hadn’t caught any fish. None. Nada. Our guide didn’t like that fact.

“I’m fine. I’m just enjoying watching my kids fish,” I said to him, with an earnest smile.

“That’s not good enough,” he said to me. He anchored us at his favorite fishing spot and told me to cast away. I casted and casted and even let the fly sit on the surface for more than a minute and then, for the first time, all day, I felt a bite.

“You’ve got one! You’ve got one! Bring it in!” my guide exclaimed, in the loudest voice that I had heard him speak all day. His voice startled me. It was the first time all day, that I didn’t have to lean in, to hear what he was saying. He was so excited. My son was so excited. I got excited and all instruction of what to do next, completely blanked on me. I started to jump up and down. I jumped out of the pulpit. I backed up against the edge of the boat. When, the guide reached over to grab me, I leaned back . . . . the next thing I knew, I was gasping, desperately for air. The water was cold – breathtakingly cold. Still, I had my rod in hand and the fish was still on it. Much to the relief of my guide, I started laughing. He smiled, handed the rod to my son, pulled me into the boat, handed the rod back to me. And I brought in my first and my last catch of the day. Freezing, soggy, but triumphant. I would post the picture of the fish that I caught, but my phone was in my pocket when I fell out of the boat.

“You’re welcome,” I said to my guide, as we were leaving and saying our good-byes, at the end of the excursion.

“For what?” he said, looking at me, quizzically and piercingly, at the same time.

“You’ve got your story.”

True story. No horse pucky.

Hello Washer, Is That You?

My husband and I have been in the market for a few appliances. We recently bought a water softener and we’re looking around for a new washer and dryer set. What we are finding is that there is quite a premium on appliances with features that we don’t want or need. It may be an age thing, but we don’t feel the need to communicate with our appliances, remotely from our phones. At all.

When the water softener salesperson came over, the final price came in freakishly high, somewhere around $6000. When we scoffed, he said, “Wait, wait, I may be able to bring the price down. Do you need the Wi-fi option?” Uh, no. All that I want my water softener to do, is to do its job of bringing Florida’s ridiculously hard water (We’re talking chunks of brick. Our regular water here feels like some of the beach is being hosed into the house. On a positive note, it is good for exfoliation.) down to something I actually want to drink and to bathe my body in. I don’t even want to have to remember that my water softener exists, let alone communicate with it, on my phone. My husband would ideally like to chuck his cell phone all together, so no, we don’t need the Wi-fi option. Great, because that brought the price down by half.

A sweet young worker (the smart reader, see previous blog), working on renovations here this week, excitedly espoused about the washer and dryer that he and his girlfriend just bought. He grabbed his phone, told Siri to launch the washer app and showed me how he could turn his washer on, from his phone. Hmmmm, when I’m away from my home, it’s by design. I’m escaping my chores. I don’t want to think about my chores at home. That is why I leave my home, from time to time. Escape. Further, I’m not good at turning things on and off, on my phone. I have trouble getting my phone’s flashlight to turn off, when I accidentally turn it on, somehow. I can only imagine the fiasco of me not being able to get my washer to turn off remotely and having to race home from my “Escape from Home”, to deal with the situation manually, which is all that I want to do in the first place.

I never wanted to become an old curmudgeon. When I was younger, I told myself that I would always remain hip and up with the times. Ha! Those are the things you tell yourself, when you are young. I remember my grandfather exclaiming loudly that he would hang up on us, and hard, if he ever heard an answering machine on the other line. When garage door openers first came out, my parents called them the “epitome of lazy.” Of course my grandfather got an answering machine and who doesn’t have a garage door opener these days? So, probably within a few years my water softener and my washer/dryer will be on my phone’s Contacts list. We may even have a Home Appliance group chat with each other. Never say never.

Where Did I Come From?

I had to clean out a closet yesterday in preparation for more renovations. I was dreading it. It was one of those deep closets that I wasn’t sure what I was going to find beyond what had been stuffed up in front, holding the avalanche of rest of the stuff, at bay. It was actually like going through a time capsule of our family’s lives. I found a darling picture of my soon-to-be high school graduate riding his tyke-sized John Deere tractor around. (brought a tear to my eye) I found a collage of pictures made for us by friends when we had to move from our previous home, from our previous state, from our previous lives. (brought several tears to my eyes, mostly nostalgia for our friends and a different era, but also nostalgia for my younger face and body) I also found our paperback copy of “Where Did I Come From?” (this one just brought a chuckle to my heart)

“Where Did I Come From?” is a most user-friendly, easy-to-read, straight-forward, clinical, yet cartoon-ish book that explains “the birds and the bees” to your kids. It was published in 1973 and this book is how I got my knowledge about the “birds and the bees” from my mom. I couldn’t find a better way to go about “home-schooling” human sexuality, so I kept the family tradition up. Basically, all you have to do is hand the interesting, curious book to your kid, let them read it, ask a couple of probing questions to make sure that they have actually read the book and then ask them if they have any further questions. The only question one of my sons had after finishing the book was, “Ugh, is there any OTHER way?” Keep in mind that he was probably in the 4th or 5th grade.

My kids were always a couple of years older than most of my friends’ kids (we got an early start), so when the time became necessary, I lent the book out quite often. I think that this particular copy of “Where Did I Come From?” taught most of our play group, the neighborhood pool club kids, and even perhaps most of our local elementary school all about human reproduction (in an age appropriate manner, with parental supervision, of course). In retrospect, I should have had everyone sign it, on a specialized book plate, after they had read it. It would probably have made this copy even more valuable and interesting. I threw away a lot of clutter yesterday, but I couldn’t come around to tossing out this funny little book. It might come in handy to give to my kids, when they have kids who are starting to question certain things. Family traditions are precious and amusing and usually have good stories from whence they came.