Political angst

My high school graduating class has a dedicated person who will forward along to all of the over 200 graduates anything class members choose to share - except when one of us is soliciting funds for a charity or trying to sell something.  I think that's appropriate.  And most of us know not to get "political" even though some of the snarky comments are borderline.  

Anyway, someone posts a story from 1985, mind you, about a hometown ball field, (one he grew up playing on, and he's 75 years old now!) Seems it was in such bad shape, county commissioners were proposing it be closed. Thirty years ago! And my former classmate goes on a mini-rant about when the government gets involved in "anything dealing with kids they really mess it up."  I just wanted to scream.  Who the hell does he think builds, maintains, and staffs parks (for kids)? The government!  City, County, State, National government. When was the last time big business built a park for kids?  Are we living in alternate universes?  And besides, that park has been absorbed by a nearby school athletic association.  Not exactly unavailable to kids.  Arghhhh.

My dad was a disinterested worker bee for the U.S. Government for thirty years, and he retired to be continuously taken care of by the government for the rest of his life.  Multiple surgeries, hospital stays, etc. etc.  Not one thin dime out of his pocket.  

I walk into a doctor's office and get essentially free care; my husband's last surgery probably was over a hundred thousand dollars - not a penny from us.  Who do all the government haters think is taking care of them/going to take care of them forever?  Not capitalism, not free market economics, not major corporations. The government. 

Medicare was supposed to run out of money by 2016 - wait that's now, right? And the Affordable Care Act along with lower healthcare costs (lowest since 1960) allowed the trust fund to stabilize until 2030.  Hmmm.  But isn't that "Obama Care?" Give me strength.  

Who makes sure the air we breathe, the food we eat, the roads we drive on, and the water we drink are safe? Who employs law enforcement?  Does anyone really believe that private enterprise would do that?  I know there is waste, I know there is corruption, I know the system is fraught with problems and bloat, etc. but I would hate to try to exist watching  the lowest bidder provide all those services.

But that's just me.

Good stress. Bad Stress. All still stressful.

Stress level charts rate life events that cause stress and say that if one has several of these at one time, it exacerbates the stress considerably.  No one died, but I’ve had so many life changes lately that I have whiplash from trying to adjust to them all:
1. We moved from a one bedroom apartment in a senior citizen complex in south Florida within five minutes of every commercial establishment one could name, including good restaurants and conveniences galore to north-central Florida into a modest home on five acres of land in a small town with one restaurant and several antique stores.
2. We adopted a dog – very sweet but with some anxiety issues from former owners’ less than compassionate care.  A dog.  Nervous and insecure.  Haven’t had a dog for probably 15 years.
3. I’m getting fat.  At “home” I walked in a nearby park most mornings for twenty minutes or I swam in the heated condo pool, so I got exercise at least four days a week.  Now I stomp around on the five acres hoping to avoid a limb to trip on looking for snakes.  No cardio is involved.  
4. I quit my job (12 years at this one, but it was at the same place I had a 20 year career – that’s over 30 years in one location). I had money coming in from that job – “pin money” I spent without thinking about it.  I’m still doing that, but I don’t have the money coming in any longer.  I worry about that but don’t change my behavior.
5. I live 24-7 with my husband now.  I cook for him – and myself – and I eat too much. (See number 3).
6. I left the social contacts and friends from both the job and from being born and raised there.
7. I became a grandmother - a hands-on grandmother, babysitting two days a week.
8. I went from being four hours away from my grown kids to having them within minutes away.

The stress scale admits that some of the stressors in one’s life can be good things, happy things, and certainly some of mine are – actually most of them are, but they still create stress.  Change is difficult.

My life goal remains the same: Be kind, be engaged, and make a difference.

Or: No complaining, no criticizing, and no condemning.

We did it!

Deciding whether to move to Gainesville was easier when our daughter decided to have a baby; that was a true deal breaker.  Then our son, who is now in Dubai as the director of a new royal project, "Deep Dive Dubai," decided to sweeten the deal by purchasing a piece of rental property that he wanted us to live in - a red ranch house on five acres of land in High Springs, about six to seven minutes from our daughter and her husband and the new baby.  He was born on July 31, and as he grows and changes daily, I cannot imagine not being here.  When we go "home" for a week to catch up on people there (Ed's mother is 102 and in a nursing home there), I am amazed that he has changed so much when we come back.  And now, what is "home?" Is it here or is it there?  South Florida, I suppose, will always feel like home to me, but this place in the woods is so homey and comfortable and lovely.  There is quiet, and solitude and birds and trees and an owl family and cows next door and it is beginning to get cool and there is a front porch with a swing to die for.  I love it here and I love being near the baby and his mommy.  My daughter and I are getting closer; I think it helps that her consciousness has been raised by becoming a mother.  One can never know love like the love of a mother for her child until one has a child, so now she knows how I felt about her brother and her.  If I could earn some money, if I could be inspired to write regularly, if I had just a couple of peers here to hang out with and be "Pat" instead of "Mom," all would be perfect.  Maybe in time.

And I will get to "the rest of the story" with my friend's death, I promise.  I think about her every day.

Death of a friend Part I

January 20, 2015
Chapter One of Caroline's Story

A friend of mine took her life last week. Our lives had intertwined when my now 46 year old boy child was not quite three years old. It was 1971, and my husband and I had sold our home and purchased a mobile home in a lovely mobile home park because we had plans to travel to Europe and live there for a while (three to six months) and wanted a place we could close up and leave easily. Jamaica Bay had all the amenities, including a communal pool. My little one had been swimming before he could talk, so we went to the pool - a lot. One day as we entered the pool, there was another tow-head nearby but outside the pool area playing in the sand box who looked to be perhaps a year younger than my boy. We said hello, and he looked up and gave us the sweetest grin. He was completely dressed, including socks and shoes, something not terribly common in south Florida. We went in and saw a woman doing graceful laps up and down the pool.  I settled onto a deck chair and my little one went into the water. The woman noticed him and how young he was (everyone did) and they struck up a conversation, as much as a child his age was able to.  I heard him tell her his name - Jarrod. She seemed enchanted by his skill in the water and asked him lots of questions. I tuned them out, and eventually she got out of the water and plopped herself down next to me and sprinkled water on the magazine I was reading. When I looked up (not without annoyance) she asked, "What does one do for intellectual stimulation around here?" With more than a little coolness, I haughtily replied, "I go to school." Undeterred by my disdain, in fact probably amused by it, she laughed, easily and musically. In fact, her voice when speaking was quite melodic - a ringing soprano voice in a largish woman with long, black hair and clear turquoise eyes. 

Over the years from that auspicious beginning grew a deep and complex love/hate relationship that at times defined me, at times infuriated me, and certainly at times kept me honest - with myself. 

She was from New York - an Italian by heritage, married to a man who was working to finish up a job in New York in preparation for a position as a project manager for a large construction project nearby. He was gone for weeks at a time, then "home" with his family for some brief time, but nearly ready to move down permanently. She had another boy besides Kevin, the sandbox dweller, who was in in Kindergarten half days, whose name was Chris. I learned that the fully-dressed imp with the sweet smile, Kevin, was terrified of the water, thus he would not come with his mother to the pool unless she agreed to dress him completely. His logic was that he would never be expected to enter the water without a bathing suit. He was still in diapers under all that clothing and stubbornly clung to the idea that they too protected him from having to swim. Over time, as he and my son became childhood friends, he gradually became something of a swimmer in order to play with Jarrod, but he never learned to love it. He did learn to love me, though, and thought of me as a second mother, a role I was proud to claim. That sweet toddler grew into a very, very bright young man with a secure self concept, an ability to laugh at himself, and a skill with writing software that led him into a fine paying position and the respect of his peers. He took good care of his mother - his real mother - until he was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 40. From that moment, her decline began.

To be continued...

Coming Soon!                                                                                                     

Pat has written a book!

Briefly, here’s what it’s about:

A young woman, after graduating from a nearby university with her master's in English Lit, moves back home to her little South Carolina mill town, gets engaged to her high school sweetheart and goes to work in the local museum. And then she gets dumped by her fiancée. And then her father dies of a heart attack. It’s a lot, right?

The book opens at her father’s funeral, and the reader gets the hint that in addition to these two awful-enough experiences, she has endured as-yet-revealed family tragedy as a child. Consequently, she wants to move away to avoid being the town’s “poor thing” any longer.

She moves to Asheville to start over. It gets lighter then; she finds a cool place to live, and she makes friends - a woman with a cop stalker and a gay barista. Both of them are co-workers she meets when she gets a job in a café-bookstore. She has romance, she runs into some danger, and she contracts with a true crime writer who wants her to read his first effort at crime fiction. He emails her some pages and she begins to get the eerie feeling that he knows what happened to her family when she was a child. There are diverse characters in the work, including a motorcycle riding, Cherokee roommate and a cat named Stuart.

Ø  Does anyone want more? Tell me what you would like to see included in my book.

Ø  One of my readers has a favorite scene:

She was invited by the kind man to say her last goodbyes, but she declined saying she wanted to remember her father striding out to his truck with an ever-present toothpick in his the side of his mouth. She surprised herself with the sentiment, and as soon as she said it, she knew it was true. Only then would she permit herself to cry real tears, which gave the funeral director permission to do what he did best – comfort her.

I will keep you informed, and I definitely appreciate support and feedback: patjab40@gmail.com

After a short break...

Okay, so it's been a couple of years since I've visited my blog; clearly I'm bad at this. I need to think of it as a journal and share my pondering more often, but I suppose natural modesty creeps in and forces me to think, "Who the heck cares what you have to say?" Well, that's hardly an attitude for a budding author to have, right? 

So, in the last couple of years, I took my writing a little more seriously and finished up the one I have been living with for many, many years, Background Music. It was a tribute to several people: my college roommate, Marsha Rae, who died of stomach cancer just before her sixtieth birthday, my tireless mama, Sis, who surrendered to breast cancer, way, way too young, Patrick my BFF (male-type), and then the final kick in the pants, Judith Lee Ann (Lee to me), whose irreverent voice I hear every day. We always thought we would have more time. Background Music is about the strength of female friendships. Next, because I wasn't sure anyone would want to read that one, I just got busy and wrote a suspenseful story - Carved In Stone - about a young woman with a lifetime of tragedy who got tired of being "you poor thing," and moved away from her small town to start a new life in Asheville. Her adventures as a barista, a manuscript reader, and a solver of family secrets were fun to reveal - to me as well as to readers. I wrote another one, Separate Ways about a couple of hard-driven professionals experiencing empty nest and career choice dissatisfaction at a critical point in their marriage. It's being edited as I speak, and I look forward to adding it to the Kindle and Create Space library. I'm not thinking I'll have a third career as a well-read author; I'm just having fun doing what I love. If anyone enjoys what I've created, so much the better. 

If anyone reads this, please, please, please start a conversation with me. Ask a question, make a comment, share your opinion, anything!

A Thought!


So, I'm so bad at this that I wrote a lengthy new post trying to bring anyone up to date who happens to stumble upon this blog by accident. I'm only half kidding. It was chatty and filled with wry wisdom and observations made on the fly (whatever that means) and somehow I lost it! And along with losing that post, I lost my energy to post anything then or for the next few days. But here's the thing: my friends tell me I have to promote myself. If I want anyone to read my books - two now and the third before Christmas, I'm hoping, I have to let people "out there" know I'm here and that I've written a couple of stories that might, just might, speak to some "contemporary woman" or maybe even a man. I'm having a crisis of confidence right now and honestly don't think I have any skill at all for this, but I'm forced to carry on because I want to tell stories! It's not for nothing that I've lived all these years loving to watch and absorb and then to think about what I've seen and heard and want to make sense of it. I've read so many good books! I've read some that I just couldn't finish because they were not engaging - at least for me - and I don't think either of mine fall into that category, but I can't be sure.

So, here's the thing: if you are a new writer and are willing to give me some feedback, I'd love to hear from you. And if you want me to read what you've written, I'll be happy to do so. I think manuscript swapping is the way to go, as long as the writer's ego isn't dangerously frail. If so, maybe that's not the way to go.