Live and Let Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 39)

Thirteen Thursday Thirteen Topics You Will Never See On My Blog

1. Thirteen adorable things my cat did this week. (I don't have a cat and cat-related blogs disturb me.)

2. Thirteen of my favorite Scrapbooking pages. (Scrapbook is not a verb, never should have been one...and I have iPhoto.)

3. Thirteen things I can see on my desk. (Ugh...so overdone!)

4. Thirteen random thoughts. (I have seen so many of these and they always make me wonder if that person would have done better to just take that week off!)

5. Thirteen reasons I will not become addicted to Sudoku. (Thanks Karen, for making that one impossible!)

6. Thirteen of my favorite NASCAR drivers. (Driving a car is NOT a sport, IMHO...and I may take an extra ration of grief on this one since my cousin is a funny car driver in the NHRA.)

7. Thirteen things I love about Tom Cruise. (Could have done this in the Top Gun era. He may have had Renee Zellwegger at hello, but he lost me with his inflated ego, assertions about Brooke Shields' use of anti-depressants and couch-jumping.)

8. Thirteen of my favorite tattoos. (Just not my thing...seems too painful and too permanent.)

9. Thirteen favorite camping locales. (I don't camp.)

10. Thirteen steamiest romance novels. (The genre just doesn't grab me.)

11. Thirteen adorable things my kids said this week. (They have passed the point where their every uttering is adorable. Most of their utterings are sarcastic, insolent or undecipherable.)

12. Thirteen funniest YouTube videos. (Every time my kids ask me to watch a YouTube video, I feel like the precious moments of my life are slipping away the way they would if I read all the forwards I receive.)

13. Thirteen reasons to trade in your Mac for a PC. (Convert for life here...and every time I say something like this, I feel that I MUST apologize to my parents for converting them to PC before I found Mac.)

Di

Endings and Beginnings

This picture says it all...even though it's posed...it shows you the faces of some of my favorite people in the world. I will never know how we got so lucky to have found this place , Bentwinds, almost 8 years ago. There is no one in this picture that I wouldn't bring matzo ball soup to if they were sick (although probably only me, Hurley, Billy and Karen have any idea what Matzo Ball soup is!) There are lots more people who didn't happen to be in this picture who would do anything for me and I for them.

The event was a send-off party for our golf pro of 24 years, Stan. The tears flowed as Stan talked about us as a family, sticking together through one member's bout with cancer, listening to each other's golf stories, being there for each other, having friendships that span generations and now having second generations...kids who learned golf in clinics that Stan taught...joining with their families.

Front: Joe, Sharis, Stef
Rear: Suzanne, Tracy, Hurley, Di, Stan, Robin, Karen, Tim, John, Billy

I know in the deepest part of my being that friends and family are all what life is about. I was blessed to be born in to one wonderful family, to marry into another and to be part of creating another. My Mom once told me that if through your life you can count your true friends on one hand you are very fortunate. I need more hands...and no one has been more fortunate than I have been when it comes to friends.

I love you all...we'll miss seeing Stan every day, but look forward to hanging out with him and Robin as members goofing off on the golf course, rehashing our golf rounds on the deck and enjoying our friendships!

Di

The Phantom Blogger

I know I have not been my usual uber-blogging self...but summer has enshrined itself in my soul, my body and my brain. Days start when they start (sometimes 7 a.m., sometimes 11:30), end when they end (anywhere from 9 to midnight...OK, occasionally 1 a.m.), kids sleep where they sleep (rarely all neighborhood kids in their own beds on any given night) and time seems both fleeting and endless.

So here are some quick things to tell you why yesterday was a wonderful day:

1. Woke up around 8 and sat in the yard. The heat and humidity of the last few days had fled leaving lots of shade, moderate temperatures and a lovely breeze.

2. My morning cup of coffee sitting on my Adirondack (still unpainted, but at least primed) chair was silent except for the birds chirping, the breeze in the leaves and the occasional distinctive PING of a titanium driver head meeting a Titleist Pro V 1 at just the perfect sweet spot. (We can see the men's tees on the 6th hole from our backyard.)

3. My husband went to Bojangles and brought home biscuits! Yum. We sat and chatted...I love these rare times...especially in the summer when we are living in two different states.

4. I got to spend several hours with my friend Barb as we drove to pick up our girls from camp.

5. My daughter Haley got home from camp. I missed her. But she had a great time and I wouldn't take that week back from her for anything. I only wish we could let all the girls go back and do it another week...but it's only one week a summer.

6. When I got back from picking up Haley, Hurley and Rory had just finished 9 holes and asked me if I wanted to play. So I got to golf with my two favorite guys.

7. My son is golfing GREAT with his new clubs...he probably outgrew his old ones two summers ago.

8. I shot a 47, I believe that's my best 9 hole score ever. My Dad pointed out that if I had double bogeyed the 9th hole (when I was realizing that I had a good score going and started to think too much) instead of quadruple bogeying it, I would have shot my age!

9. I got to hang out with two of my favorite golf pros...Evey and Martha. And Martha agreed to be my partner in our upcoming Ladies Member/Guest. Should be fun if she can golf hungover from the Kenny Chesney concert the night before.

10. I met two new people at the club...one a new member who is probably at least 10 years younger than me and one an older member who is almost 30 years older than I am. Enjoyed talking to both...but my husband will tell you that I have never met a stranger, so it's not all that surprising.

11. We had dinner at Sharis's, hanging out with friends, Stef and Tim...kids hanging out, good food, all that stuff that I hope I never take for granted.

So, all in all, a perfect day...spent time with everyone in my immediate family, played golf, spent time with several friends and even talked to my Mom and Dad on the phone. And did a few Sudoku puzzles (Karen, you know that you have ruined my life with this, right????)

Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 38)

Believe it or not, I did actually once hold a job that did not involve chauffeuring children, blogging and golfing whenever possible...so when one of my faithful readers...a hard-working guy from Boston...submitted the following, I blew off my plans for a TT with pictures from my trip to New York. This all sounded way too familiar!!! And for some strange reason, he asked that I withhold his name...hmmm, maybe his boss is a Di's Book Blog, Etc. afficianado???

Thirteen signs that you need to leave your job:

1)      Your boss calls you a “fucking idiot” as a term of endearment. (ed. note: in my case it was the salesperson calling the operations people "fucking ingrates" because we couldn't deliver a product he/she came up with on the fly during a sales pitch.)
2)      You and your co-workers come up with theme songs like, “I Will Survive,” by Donna Summer and “Que Sera, Sera,” by Doris Day, as a means of inspiring, motivating and empowering those who are uninspired, unmotivated and unempowered.
3)      “Bonding” isn’t about teamwork; it’s about being permanently glued to your chair to deliver everything your boss wants.
4)      Your boss is out of town, calls you every day and talks to you on the phone for up to two hours because he/she can’t imagine that the office could possibly continue running in his/her absence. 
5)      Your boss returns from his/her trip and decides that you haven’t been doing a #$%!&#@ thing in his/her absence. 
6)      Your boss returns from his/her trip and shares every brilliant idea he/she came up with while in the plane/car/ship and wonders why you aren’t already doing it. Many of these brilliant ideas are written on airline cocktail napkins with rings on them that smell suspiciously like scotch!!!
7)      Your boss refers to your most significant, laborious and time-consuming effort as “a nice try” to motivate and inspire you to work harder, longer and better the next time.
8)      Your boss tells gives the same instructions to every one of his/her direct reports, each with a slight variation, to give him/her license to call anyone who doesn’t understand exactly what she wants a “fucking idiot.”
9)      You have panic attacks at the thought of going to work and convince yourself that it’s just little butterflies that are reminding you of the challenge and excitement that awaits you at the office. (ed. note: 911 is on speed dial because of the heart attacks and strokes suffered by co-workers due to those "little butterflies.")
10)   You find yourself feeling lucky when your boss is calling one of your colleagues a “fucking idiot” because it means he/she isn’t calling you a “fucking idiot.”
11)   You are proud to welcome others into the ever-expanding circle of “fucking idiots.”
12)   Being a great employee means that you are absolutely and totally attuned to your boss’s every thought at every moment of every day and have a complete strategy and the necessary funds, staff and resources to make it happen, while, at the same time, implementing every brilliant idea he/she came up with while in the plane/car/ship to make him/her look/feel/sound better.
13)   On a regular basis, you check the number of days until your retirement, research the requirements for being tagged as “permanently disabled,” try to get pregnant so you can take off the three months of maternity leave, and/or hope you’ll get fired so you will have time to look for another job while on unemployment.

Hmmm...the more I read this, I wonder if I could just substitute "husband" for "boss" and pretend it's mine! Kidding...love you, honey (she writes as if her husband ever reads her blog!)

Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 37)

Thirteen Things about my iPhone

1. The countdown to the iPhone has been on my dashboard for months reminding me to continue to accumulate justifications for the expenditure.

2. I almost changed my mind when I heard that Cingular/AT&T was going to charge $39.99 per month for internet access on the iPhone...but it turned out to "only" be $20...I HATE it when my kids say something "only" costs whatever...but I can do it.

3. I have since come up with all kinds of potential "widgets" for the iPhone...like wouldn't it be cool to have a built-in iBodyguard, iVibrator, iName Rememberer, iExcuse Generator, iCorkscrew, etc.?

4. The day after the iPhone was released, after hearing about long lines and diminishing inventories, I walked into the Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, walked into the Apple store and walked out with my iPhone within 10 minutes.

5. Texting and e-mailing is SO much easier than with a regular cell phone because the iPhone works with a regular keyboard.

6. The regular keyboard takes some getting used to because one's fingers (at least mine, and I don't think I have overly big ones) are bigger than the keys, so occasionally you will get the letter next to the one you intended. But this happens less and less as you get used to it.

7. I haven't figured out how to sync my calendar yet. Apparently there's a glitch. I've read some fixes online, but haven't had time to work on it.

8. I've read that when I do learn to sync my calendar, the to-do's won't sync. Oh well...what do I really have to do anyway???

9.  As I'm golfing, I must pick up on whoever's wireless internet is unsecured in the houses on the course, because I get e-mails as I'm playing. I generally don't read them on the golf course unless they are from Tiger Woods or Morgan Pressel (maybe Phil Mickelson, but he's a lefty, so whatever advice he has I would have to turn around and that would be too confusing) and they don't usually e-mail me.

10. The internet thing is pretty cool. When you click on Safari and it loads the home page, if you turn the iPhone clockwise, the screen turns with it so that it is wider and easier to read.

11.  I now use it as my alarm clock...well, it's summer, so I don't use it THAT much...but it's much easier to set than the regular alarm clock.

12. Battery Life...the talk of all the iPhone naysayers. Well, mine definitely gets me through the day but I do have to charge it each night. I forgot to charge it Saturday night and then ended up having to make over an hour of phone calls on Sunday morning and pretty much wore it out.

13. Even though my husband doesn't read my blog...if you know him, tell him that I said that I appreciate him putting up with my various obsessions over the years. Right now it's technology and golf. He'll tease me about both, but I think he secretly thinks it's cool that I'm more into technology and golf than handbags and jewelry.

Di

Am Not!!!

I am NOT the most obsessive person you know! There is a blogger who created this:

From scratch...and using fondant and everything!!! And lived to tell about it. And FYI, it's supposed to be like that, a la Dr. Seuss's hat. Kind of like this one:

on an acid trip! Love ya Rockstar Mommy!

Di

Off and running for a few days...

I'm afraid that I am going to be off and running for the next few days and unless I get an unforeseen block of time and a surge of creativity, I will be missing my first Thursday Thirteen in 38 weeks!!!

Tomorrow is golf, book group, packing for NY PLUS packing for Haley for a week of camp which starts the day after we return. Then, brace yourself, I am flying to New York WITHOUT MY MAC!!! Yes, it is going to be painful...like I'm missing an appendage...but I do have my iPhone to comfort me and keep me at least somewhat connected to my Mac World!

The week that Haley is gone, Rory will be in half-day camp doing golf, tennis and stuff, so I will have lots of time to golf blog. We desperately need some rain here. I think I heard that if we don't get rain in the next three weeks, the pond from which we get our golf course water supply will be completely depleted. So I'll forego a day or so of golf for the improvement of the water supply. But since the course is closed on Mondays anyway...maybe the rain could just come then!

I may be able to get that burst of energy and do 13 Things about My iPhone...I'll see if I can work on that. Otherwise if any of my writing pals (Mom? Linda? Vicky? Shirley? JoAnn?) wants to contribute a guest Thursday Thirteen, I believe I will be able to get computer access to post it. Come on Vicky...how about 13 things you did in Vegas...no, not THAT.

Di

Not a Happy Camper

Since I never experienced the institution of “sleepaway” camp, Not a Happy Camper by Mindy Schneider allowed me to live vicariously through the memoir of a girl at camp in 1972 when I would have conceivably been a camper…had anyone in my town even heard of such a thing…other than the one week Girl Scout Camp that my homesickness wouldn’t have allowed me to endure.

After two summers at Cicada (the camp her father went to…her mother’s camp taken out of the running by going out of business the year before), Mindy insists that she wants to go somewhere else. Her parents’ insistence that the camp have a kosher kitchen limited her choices to three camps, but after eliminating two in the Catskills that sounded snooty, she chose Camp Kin-A-Hurra (which Andrea, one of my Yiddish gurus, tells me was certainly a pseudonym and the definition provided by BubbyGram tells me is the equivalent of my mother-in-law’s “poo poo poo” which I would loosely translate as “knock on wood”…as in, “the baby is healthy and beautiful, poo poo poo”). In addition to archery, photography, heated cabins and the requisite kosher kitchen, camp owner Saul Rattner promised “a cartload of Mindys”. Mindy was less concerned with the activities and accommodations and more concerned with finding a boyfriend at the boys’ camp across the lake and getting her first kiss.

After being dropped off and meeting the other girls in her bunk, Mindy discovers that Saul had a gift for exaggeration. The cabins were not heated. The meals were questionably kosher (prepared by Walter, a 65-year old black man from Panama who could make an incredibly challah bread!). The food supply was determined by train derailments that allowed Saul to purchase items at a deep discount and some of the cereal and other staples dated from the year of the camp’s opening! Other campers had been lured by the “fact” Moshe Dyan and Golda Meir had been counselors at Kin-A-Hurra! Bathroom facilities were in short supply and often required a cold middle-of-the-night scurry to the only cabin whose bathroom worked!

Throughout the summer, Mindy pursued her goals of boyfriend and kiss while surrounded by a plethora of Mindys, hippy spawn Autumn Evening Schwartz and the elusive Philip Selig. While Mindy’s experience and her cynically nostalgic recollections of it may not have been the universal experience of campers of my era, it certainly must be the funniest. And somehow it left me wishing that for one summer, I might have been one of the Mindys!

Casey's Blog

Some of you may remember when I first told you about Casey. My blog readers responded with well-wishes for Casey from all over the world. Casey relieved some of her boredom on one of her hospital stays by guest-blogging for a Thursday Thirteen, letting us know What Foods Casey Will Eat When She Can Finally Eat. A subsequent Thursday Thirteen by Casey and my daughter Haley let us know (from the perspective of a 13-year old and an 11-year old) 13 Things That Are Really Easy To Make Fun Of. And for the record, I was one of those 13 things!

Part three of this post described how Casey, at the age of 11, got up in front of her 5th grade class and gave them a detailed explanation of her ulcerative colitis, the multiple colonoscopies she had to have and the surgery she would be undergoing during the first part of the summer. Here is how her 8-year old twin brother and sister were getting along through all of this and how they gave me a chance to revisit mothering 8-year olds. And this one tells about Casey's mom and one of my dearest friends, Stacy, and how she has dealt with all of this.

If any of this sounds depressing...trust me, this is one family that can provide comic relief in any situation. Casey is mature well beyond her 11 years. She's a funny, acerbic and candid writer. And now she has a blog!!!!

So, I am adding it to my favorites on my sidebar as well as my iGoogle reader which has changed my blog reading life. If you would like to visit, click here:

Life as an Ostomate

I especially urge you to share this with anyone you know who is dealing with colitis or dealing with colostomy surgery. There is nothing like an 11 year old's perspective to keep it real, funny and occasionally a little gross!

Di

Kids Learn Spelling Too Soon

My friend Karen and I were sitting in a golf cart with her 6-year old son Will on the 4th of July watching fireworks. The fireworks were done by two different groups of friends a couple houses away from each other across the lake. It became somewhat of a competition as to who had the best and most amazing display.

Karen: Isn't it cool the way they look like they are coming right at us?

Me: Yeah...it would be awesome if we were S-T-O-N-E-D.

Karen: I don't think Will got that...but he can spell now.

Me: Oops!

A few minutes later as each blast by the group at one house was outdone by the group at the other.

Karen: Boy, this is really a P-E-N-I-S contest!

Will: Mommy, what is a pen contest?

Whew, that was a close one!!!

Di