I'm noticing an increasing incidence of people in Florida feeling the need to BACK UP into parking spaces and frankly I am quite bewildered by this phenomenon. The ONLY plausible explanation for this, considering we ARE living in the state of Florida, is that there has been a sudden increase in the number of felons roaming the streets who are all in need of making fast get-A- ways. Other than that I can't possible see the reasoning behind the necessity to hold up traffic while you maneuver your 8 ton pick up truck that you really can't drive, into that tiny parking space that is meant for a Volkswagen bug. (First rule of thumb, IF YOU CAN'T DRIVE IT OR PARK IT, DON'T BUY IT !)
All this backing into spaces seems to not only to be annoying me but the city of Boca Raton . They have now put in a law banning folks from backing into parking spaces in certain areas of their city. It has caused so many traffic accidents that the powers that be actually had to legally ban folks from being stupid. ( Once again we deal with the survival of the fittest and if only we took all the warning labels off of products we could "Thin the Human Herd" in a matter of years. )
If you're not getting where my annoyance is coming from consider this. You follow a car into a parking lot. They STOP!. There are 2 spaces open, one to the left, one to the right. Right or wrong you assume, (I know, never assume anything!) the person in car one is going to park in one of the two places. (This actually happened in the church parking lot last night so I figured it was a fair assumption that the person was in the parking lot with the intention of going to mass.) OK. Person stops ! Now, because we are in Flori- DUH there is no chance in hell that I would be given a clue with a directional signal from car #1 as to which spot they were aiming for but that's just par for the course. Maybe they didn't even know. Maybe they were just going to start going back and forth and see which space the car seemed to slip into easier? I have no idea, By now there are 3 cars in back of me. Car #1 is still at a dead stop with no sign of movement, OH, wait, she, (YES, it WAS a woman.) is slowly starting to back up, heading to the spot on the right. Wheel is turning, aiming the back of the car into the right hand spot, (there are now 7 cars behind me.) WAIT ! She's pulling forward into the spot on the LEFT ! By now I am so agitated that I just want to get past her and head to the back of the parking lot where it is quiet and I can pull in head first nice and easy when a car zips past me on the right, swings to the left, backs up behind me and backs into the spot directly behind me avoiding my back bumper by a hair.
And they are gone before I return to my car after mass. I guess they weren't felons after all, just good Catholics trying to get to the Early Bird Special for dinner.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Saturday, December 5, 2015
WELCOMING CHRISTMAS TEARS
Everyone always says the holidays are a difficult time when you have lost a loved one and although I knew that must be true I didn't quite understand the complete reasoning behind this. I mean there are the obvious reasons but it's much more subtle than all that. For me it's all the "silly" little things that I am encountering as I am decorating the house and preparing for Christmas. With each box of decorations that I open there is something that Gerry had influenced. For you see, Christmas was the one and ONLY time of the year that I could get this man involved with the decorating for the season.
It was a mammoth production of taking 2 cars to the storage unit or "lock up" as Ger liked to call it. Numerous trips to load the boxes of decorations into the cars and bring them home to the garage. Ger's job was then to find the Christmas lights and get them sorted, working and hung. (Never done in less than a weeks time and always with help.) But the boxes of decorations were my favorite. Ger would dig through the boxes to find his favorite things and once he was SURE he could put them ANYWHERE HE WANTED he was on a roll ! Retirement got his decorating juices flowing and he had great fun placing each item throughout the house.
Thinking about it now, this was the first opportunity Ger ever had to do anything like this. Retirement gave him the time and Christmas gave him the canvas to let his creative juices flow. There was one particular little Santa decoration that tells how many days till Christmas and each day you rotate 2 small wooden cubes to keep it up to date. Trouble is the cubes never had all the numbers we needed and Ger would anguish over that Santa each day, gluing on small pieces of paper on which he had written the correct number. That was his mission! GUESS WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING I UNPACKED THIS YEAR ? Yup ! Right at the top of the first box I opened ! HI GER !
THAT is what I am finding each day this Christmas season. Little things that are bringing me to my knees with tears that I am laughing and smiling through remembering this silly man that shared so many Christmas's with us. But so often I was so busy I didn't see the little things going on right in front of me that made this person I married so special. It isn't until the fog clears and the memories sift out only the good things to remember. And that's OKAY ! It's good and I am enjoying this bittersweet feeling.
This is a real Christmas this year. Ger is gone from Earth but no where near gone from any of our hearts and minds. Last year was a make believe Christmas of us all pretending that everything was "normal". That this shriveled old man in the wheel chair was Gerry. That Christmas would go on just like always and that even though he couldn't help with the decorations or put up the lights, or trim the tree or drink tea from his silly cracked bright blue Christmas flamingo mug EVERYTHING was normal. But it wasn't. And we all knew it and we could pretend all we wanted but it was sad !
This year Gerry is at Peace. I KNOW this ! I am so happy for him every day of the rest of my life that he doesn't suffer, that he is someplace so wonderful and I will see him again. And for now, Life is real again for me. No more pretending that everything is OK because everything IS ok. I welcome the tears when they come, I embrace the memories and cherish the past and hope I can make some new memories to leave behind for those I love.
It was a mammoth production of taking 2 cars to the storage unit or "lock up" as Ger liked to call it. Numerous trips to load the boxes of decorations into the cars and bring them home to the garage. Ger's job was then to find the Christmas lights and get them sorted, working and hung. (Never done in less than a weeks time and always with help.) But the boxes of decorations were my favorite. Ger would dig through the boxes to find his favorite things and once he was SURE he could put them ANYWHERE HE WANTED he was on a roll ! Retirement got his decorating juices flowing and he had great fun placing each item throughout the house.
Thinking about it now, this was the first opportunity Ger ever had to do anything like this. Retirement gave him the time and Christmas gave him the canvas to let his creative juices flow. There was one particular little Santa decoration that tells how many days till Christmas and each day you rotate 2 small wooden cubes to keep it up to date. Trouble is the cubes never had all the numbers we needed and Ger would anguish over that Santa each day, gluing on small pieces of paper on which he had written the correct number. That was his mission! GUESS WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING I UNPACKED THIS YEAR ? Yup ! Right at the top of the first box I opened ! HI GER !
THAT is what I am finding each day this Christmas season. Little things that are bringing me to my knees with tears that I am laughing and smiling through remembering this silly man that shared so many Christmas's with us. But so often I was so busy I didn't see the little things going on right in front of me that made this person I married so special. It isn't until the fog clears and the memories sift out only the good things to remember. And that's OKAY ! It's good and I am enjoying this bittersweet feeling.
This is a real Christmas this year. Ger is gone from Earth but no where near gone from any of our hearts and minds. Last year was a make believe Christmas of us all pretending that everything was "normal". That this shriveled old man in the wheel chair was Gerry. That Christmas would go on just like always and that even though he couldn't help with the decorations or put up the lights, or trim the tree or drink tea from his silly cracked bright blue Christmas flamingo mug EVERYTHING was normal. But it wasn't. And we all knew it and we could pretend all we wanted but it was sad !
This year Gerry is at Peace. I KNOW this ! I am so happy for him every day of the rest of my life that he doesn't suffer, that he is someplace so wonderful and I will see him again. And for now, Life is real again for me. No more pretending that everything is OK because everything IS ok. I welcome the tears when they come, I embrace the memories and cherish the past and hope I can make some new memories to leave behind for those I love.
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