Pocketful of Sunshine

Earlier this month I spent a brief weekend in Southern California. I just dropped in to visit my friends and then check in on my "little" cousin on my way to a conference in Arizona. The thing about my little cousin: he's not so little anymore. He just started grad school in Santa Barbara. He's creating quite a life for himself and it's been so cool watching him grow up.

I told him the story about what I did when he was born -- I don't think he had ever heard it. I was 13 when he was born and I was so excited to have a new cousin. I'm an only child and Aaron's big brother is a lot closer in age to me so I wasn't as excited when he was born when I was 3 (sorry Seth!). I made a poster to hang on our front door announcing that there was a new baby boy. I'm sure our neighbors wondered what my mother had done with her invisible baby.

I spent a long morning on this visit driving through LA, north up the Hollywood Freeway, to UCSB to see him. I had the windows down and the music turned way up. If I'd been in a convertible I could have pretended I was in an episode of The Hills. It was a gorgeous day and even though I spent 6 hours driving there and back for a 2 hour visit to see Aaron, it was worth every minute.

Once I got back to OC I took my two favorite little people out to dinner and to play video games at the mall (on a school night!). All in all a pretty awesome day.

Can you imagine going to school here?

No More Words

Everyone has words that drive them a little nuts -- the fingers on the chalkboard, if you will. For a lot of people it is "orientated" -- which most of us know as "oriented."

Mine is "webinar." Anytime someone wants me to sign them up for a webinar I want to tell them I have no idea what they are talking about.

I host a lot of online meetings and training sessions at work. We used to call them "WebEx's" but that's really a brand name like Kleenex or Q-tip. It is an online meeting/seminar/presentation/whatever. When did we get so lazy that we have to shorten everything?

It's Been A While

I've been away awhile. I've spent most of my free time the last few weeks either in an airplane or with my nose in a book, studying for accounting exams. I have lots to say and 10 half-written posts that will likely never see the light of day. I'm going to try to turn a few of them into complete thoughts and post them. It's odd that I've been so silent during this incredibly interesting time....

The End of the Summer

It's going to be 76 degrees today. I couldn't be more excited about that. My favorite time of year is autumn. I fell in love with North Carolina in the fall. I fell in love with a boy (or two, or....three?) in the fall. I made new friends and started a new job and have had all sorts of things in my life start in the fall. This year I even went back to school. It seems like more of a beginning to me than a new year or the first warm day in the spring.

There was a big football game yesterday and even though I don't care even the teeniest bit about it, I probably watched because, well, that's what you do in the fall. I count down the days until Canes camp starts (it started Friday!) because I love nothing more than to be in a big room with a huge sheet of ice. I'll get a glimpse today and then I have to wait and wait and wait until my first real game on November 1st. That's practically election day -- I'll have to adopt those election countdown tickers as my own.

This summer has brought back so many long lost friends. It's really been incredible how many people have come back into my life in such a short time. I have my girls in California, more contact with my cousins and their better halves, my college roommate and now another treasured friend just this week. Of course, none of them live here so it's easier and at the same time harder to maintain. When your whole friendship exists through emails and texting and this very blog, how easy it is to put off writing and then the person just slips away. That's really not good enough.

Now that the season is changing, people are going to start to leave too. J will go back to work somewhere else is the world and my standing companion for any and every movie will be gone. L needs to go be with M, they have a wedding and a new life to plan. My nights will go back to revolving around sticks and pucks. Things will calm down and go back to normal. Whatever that is.

One Sweet World

Can you imagine a world where no one needs anything? There are 46 million people in the US who don't have health insurance. 17 million people need food in the Horn of Africa. People in Texas still can't go home. It's overwhelming to think of all the people in the world who need something. Sometimes it feels like it's just too much and that one person could never make a difference. Thank goodness that isn't true.

I've talked in this space about Kiva before, but it's been a while. In the "old days" you and several other people would each loan someone out in the world $25 and over several months they would pay it back in little bits. Once you had your $25 back you could lend it to someone else. For Americans, $25 is dinner and a movie. Recently they stopped waiting for full payment before you could loan the money out again. Almost every day I get a notice that I have $2.08 available or $3.47 -- once it adds up to $25 I can use to help another person.

Here's the thing, since they started turning over the money so much faster, they are funding their loans faster too. More and more people are lending money and more and more people are getting the help they need. In the last week more than $675k ($25 at a time!)was distributed around the world. It's just fabulous, except....they've run out of people to help. I logged in today and all of the loans have been funded. Very cool. I'm sure by Monday there will be more, but for one day it's nice to think everyone has what they need.

You Get What You Give

I spent most of this evening at a charity fund-raising event here in Raleigh. I saw something so unusual and so heartwarming I just had to share it.

The event was to raise money for Crohn's disease and Colitis. After dinner (thankfully not during) a doctor got up and made a speech about the diseases and how they really take an emotional toll of people who are afflicted and their families. It can cause depression and impact so much more than just the person's health. This definitely brought mood of the room down. The doctor then introduced the "teenage ambassador" to the group. A very poised 13 year old girl got up and made a joke about the doctor stealing half of her speech and then went on to talk about her diagnosis, hospitalizations, and eventually surgery.

This summer she got to go to the Victory Junction Gang's camp (victoryjunction.org) where she got to ride horses, go to their water park, learn archery and go fishing. In her words, for a week "she didn't have to be a freak." She asked us all to give money so other kids could get to go there too.

As she walked back to her chair she waved at the crowd and looked downright giddy. I'm sure speaking in front of 200 people was scary and she was relieved to be done. So relieved that once she got to her chair she, her sister, her mother and her father all burst into tears. Sobbing, heart-wrenching tears. Tears so messy the girls eventually had to leave.

Before she left, our MC for the evening, the incomparable John Forsland of the Carolina Hurricanes (I'm a little biased) commended her for her opening line. He said the first words you say are the most important and the way you blasted the doctor had this room in the palm of your hand (he was right). He also invited her and her family to a hockey game as his guest. That was not yet the coolest thing.

After the speeches there was a live auction, hosted by John. A lot of the items were trips and there were a few Canes things (all immediately out of my price range). One of the items was a package to visit John in the press box during a game, 2 lower level tickets and a signed jersey. Two men got into a bidding war and the price got up to about $2000. John said that if they would each give $2500 (to raise $5000) they could BOTH have the same package. Sold. Still not the coolest thing.

One of the packages was a trip to DC. One of the doctors in the room bid $500. John looked at the other bidder and asked $600? The same doctor said yes. John looked again at the other man and said $700? The doctor again said yes. John realized the doctor was upping the bid on himself and tried to stop him. The doctor acknowledged this and raised his bid to $1000. The other guy (who had last bid $400) dropped out immediately. The doctor walked to the front of the room and took the microphone from John and said that he'd happily pay $1000 but that he didn't want the trip. He gifted it to the teenage ambassador so that she could have one more good day.

That was the coolest thing I saw all day. I love that there a such kind people in the world.

Goodbye Earl

Late last night I heard the clickety-clickety-clickety of tiny feet on my wood floor. When my dog Zoey walks across the floor her claws make a similar sound, but this definitely was not her. I looked across the room and saw the biggest, ickiest bug I've seen in a very long time. It disappeared under the TV cabinet.

I thought to myself, "That was the scariest bug I've seen in a while. I hope he stays under there."

He did not.

I did what any rational woman would do and I ran upstairs and grabbed all of my big clunky shoes. To squish the bug? No. To throw them at him. This bug was so big I thought for sure I would lose a finger if I got within arm's length of him.

A few minutes later I saw him scurrying towards the couch, a trail of shoes in his wake. Now, if he had stayed hidden under the TV I would have left him alone, but there was no way I was going to go anywhere near my couch with that monster hiding within it.

I did what every bug hunter would do. I tipped the couch over on it's back and chased the bugger into the kitchen.

We were now on my turf. Better lighting. Fewer places to hide. He went under the table. I moved the chairs. He went behind the trash can. I lifted it up and put it on the counter. The cat and mouse game (or girl and bug game) moved into the foyer and eventually, the coat closet.

I created a border -- just high enough so that if my foe escaped the coat closet he would never make it back to the kitchen or living room. I opened the door and held my breath.

He wasn't behind the vacuum. He wasn't behind the steam cleaner. He wasn't behind the windshield wiper fluid or hiding under the ladder. I know this because I removed them all.

He wasn't under the folding chair. Or behind the box of painting supplies. He was running out of places to hide.

There were only 2 boxes left. I lifted the first; still no bug. I turned around to place it on the table and when I turned back he was sitting in the middle of the floor, taunting me with his bugginess. He quickly scampered back behind the final box. I slid it out of the way -- I had him cornered.

Somewhere during my chase I had picked up the 2x2 plank I use to bolt my glass doors shut. It was now my weapon and I knew how to use it.

Once the bug was on to the next world and his body had been returned to nature I surveyed the damage: the contents of the closet dragged out into the kitchen, the overturned couch, the scattered shoes. To the victor goes the reconstruction. Isn't that how it always works?

Heartbreak Town

Today I am watching it rain a thousand miles away. All weekend long I've been, well, worried. One eye on my studying and one eye on the TV. Sleeping with the TV on. Glued to the computer. I have been remembering places that I know are three years gone.

I remember wearing the absolutely wrong, hot, bulky sweater to go dancing on Bourbon Street after a long day of traveling in a van with a bunch of people I didn't know (long story). Brown Eyed Girl was playing in almost every club that we went to and Hurricanes were in every blender at every bar. One of the girls we were with lived my nightmare and sang a karaoke song that got booed. I always thought that if put on the spot I'd sing the exact same song.

I am missing a man who decided one morning he wanted to have lunch in New Orleans, so we piled in the car and drove over for the day from Diamondhead, Mississippi. After we ate we turned around and drove straight back. He's been gone for six months already. That hardly seems possible.

I know people who live there now and I'm praying they are all safe today. I guess I'm feeling sad for a place that has given me some very nice memories.

I'm Not Sleeping

A couple of weeks ago I was trying to go to sleep in Kay's bed in Southern Cal. That day I had flown across the country, gone to our reunion, out to dinner...just a very long, long day. I was so tired I couldn't sleep.

At approximately (or exactly?) 9:35pm I heard the familiar pop pop pop sizzle of the Disneyland fireworks. It almost made me cry - it was so familar and yet made me feel so old and like I had gotten so far away from who I used to be.

Sleeping in that little girl's bed, I wondered if she paid attention to those sounds of her childhood and if they were things she would remember later in her life. Will she always live in the shadow of the Matterhorn or will she explore someplace else where the night doesn't explode at precisely 9:35 every night?

No One Ever Is To Blame

From Kim after my last visit to CA: Hey there - According to Kay, YOU left fruit roll up wrappers on her floor, an empty Capri Sun container and a plate with chips and salsa!!!!!!!! LOL! LOL!

From me: That is SO funny -- when we were driving to the airport you said something about her not eating in her room and I thought -- then I wonder how that plate and cups got in there? They've been there since at least Monday -- but I didn't do it!

So...is it wrong to rat out your Godchild? I felt guilty about it for a week.

Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me)

This week I am becoming a college student again. Starting Wednesday I will be an East Carolina University Pirate. I got a booklet in the mail for new students that included a 10 item list of what to do (and not do) at ECU football games. Apparently, I am supposed to hate NC State (sorry Beth) even though the feeling isn't mutual. There were cheers listed that I'm supposed to learn and traditions to upload. It was a fun reminder of all the other things you learn that aren't in books.

I'm "attending" online so this will be a lot different than my days at Fullerton and Sonoma. No roommates, no dining halls...no ditching class, no one to pass notes with in class. Should be interesting -- or at least as interesting as accounting can be.

Rainy Days and Mondays

I really did have the best of intentions. I was going to get up this morning, go to the gym and try running on the treadmill (in general, I do not run). I was going to sleep in a little, get there at 10 and do something until 11, then come home and tackle my day. But you see, early this morning there were rumbles of thunder, and then the pitter-patter of raindrops. There was a dog snuggled up next to me who is afraid of the rain. It is one of those mornings where, had it been a weekday, I would have thought it was a lovely day to stay home in bed. So I am.

Besides, somehow in this day I need to finish my laundry, make a couple of necklaces, run to the pet store, paint my toes, write about 10 emails, upload some pictures, start making piles of things to pack for Vegas (work, not play), watch the Olympics (since when do I like basketball?), watch last week’s Mad Men, watch this week’s Mad Men, and tackle the pile of work I brought home from the office. Isn’t that enough running?

Wake me up when it’s Monday. I’m going back to bed.

Photograph

Look at this photograph

Every time I do it makes me laugh

So I worried for nothing (of course). I think we all did. We spent an afternoon laughing at our former selves, the boys we used to like and gave little snapshots of who we are now. Living in NC, single, job (why can't my job have an easier name???). That's all. That's enough.

It was amazing how everyone was really the same. I didn't go to my 10 year reunion but after this weekend I think it's likely I will go to my 20th in a few years. It was just one day, but it was one day that hopefully reconnected the threads of my past and my present, and maybe those threads will reach into the future. I go back to CA often enough that I should be able to keep in touch, though it is harder from 3000 miles away (everything is).

I don't know if it's my only-childness, or my nomadic childhood, or my horrible friend-keeping skills, but it was astonishing to me that anyone remembered anything about me at all. It's completely irrational -- I remember so many details about other people it's completely normal that they would have to remember me too. It's just that I've been gone so long and was there for such a short time...it just seems like it would be forgettable. But a couple of the girls remembered my car that smelled like maple syrup, and singing Debbie Gibson songs, and there were pictures of me that I've never seen, and the core group of girls who I spent several years with were all just who I remembered them to be. I'm so glad I made the effort -- it was so worth it.

Absolutely (Story of a Girl)

If someone asked you to sum up your life, could you?

I'm headed back to So Cal in a day and will be seeing about a dozen girls I haven't seen since high school, longer ago than I care to admit. When I think back to the rose colored days of after school practices, crushes, biology tests and (really unfortunate) big hair, they were all there. It was high school, so of course it was difficult, but there were lots of good times too -- bus rides to Mt Carmel, winning gold medals (I still have mine), initiations, proms...the bad things all fade until you only remember the good.

Ever since this reunion plan was hatched, I've been trying to think of how I am going to explain who I am to these people who knew me once but now don't know me at all. Will I bring up the days at the bank that dissolved into FBI interviews and police tape? The multiple breakups with the guy they all know (and may still talk to?) or the long relationship with the one they don't? How do I explain the years of solitude? (My heart really was just that broken...) How about how I lost my sense of smell last year? How I adore my dog, bought a house, love my job, and live to watch boys on skates? How about my lack of baby pictures to show off but a love for travel that has taken me all over the country? A stronger family than I had 10 years ago and a bunch of friends I'd go to the end of the Earth for....what really is the sum of a person?

I just don't know what I'll say.

American Baby

Driving home tonight I was flying down Capital Blvd, just about the only car out there. The clock struck 9 and the sky lit up. By the time I got home I had driven past 7 different sets of fireworks from Franklin County to Wake Forest to Raleigh. It was kind of cool seeing all the small town celebrations from a distance and the bigger ones in Raleigh. Mix that with the lightning from a pretty powerful storm that just blew through and you had dueling light shows. Little dandelions of colors and then blinding white lights. Very cool.

Happy birthday America!

Bye Bye Boyfriend

Happy Canada Day everyone! Or more specifically, to the little hamlet called Edmonton, Happy Cole Day! Today my favorite hockey player was traded to a team far, far away. I wish him well and hope that he has plenty of defensemen to protect him and his precious neck. For those who aren't in on the folklore, Erik's neck was broken during a game in the spring of 2006. He recovered enough to come back a few months later in game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. A legend was born complete with heroes and villains (boo, Orpik, boo!). Be nice to him, Edmonton.

Wherever You Will Go

I've spent the last week on vacation, basically checked out of my own life. I tried to stay up late, tried to sleep late, hung out (briefly) at the beach and spent a lot of time at the hotel pool. I had wonderful weather and really got to relax and just be quiet. It was a little lonely, but I enjoyed myself.

Driving home from Wilmington, I got on the opening onramp to I-40. The first mile marker sign I passed said Barstow 2554. Soon after I passed another that said Raleigh 123. The shorter path would take me home, but I quite liked knowing that if I missed the exit and drove and drove I'd still be headed towards home.

No Sacrifice

I listen to some music that no one else I know listens to. I am often sad that great bands who aren't celebrity driven don't always seem to make it into the public consciousness, so I buy album after album so they will know they have at least one fan out here. Sometimes, my little secrets end up turning into the Next Big Thing (see John Mayer five years ago).

Anyway, I recently got the new Theory of a Deadman cd (Scars & Souvenirs, barely in stores now). I first became aware of them several years ago during the hockey playoffs when reading a song listing on a Canadian hockey website (I really, truly am a dork when it comes to hockey. I told you.*). As a result, their music tends to put me in a hockey mood. The last track on the new cd is an absolutely perfect hockey song. Some of the lyrics:

Everybody expects me to break but I'll never break down again
Everybody expects me to give up but you'll never see me giving in
Everybody wants me to lose but I'll never lose who I am
No I'm sorry to say There'll be no sacrifice today

Really athlete-ish, isn't it? I even thought about emailing the Canes and suggesting they add this to the rotation during games (they play the same 20 songs every game and I'm a little sick of Cotton Eye Joe). I was so happy today when I saw a commercial for the OLYMPICS that used No Sacrifice. Someone else with a little pull must have heard the same thing. It just brought a smile to my face. Maybe I'm not their only fan.


*Please note it has been exactly 2 months and 1 week since my last hockey mention. I am trying. However, I'd like to point out the Canes drafted two guys named Zach this weekend, and one more named Michal Jordan. I suspect he'll play his minor league hockey for Carolina, then be traded to Chicago as soon as he makes the big team. He'll end his career playing for the Caps.

Good Stuff

In searching for the perfect post title I sometimes have to dig through my cd collection of my mp3 player. Because I was posting about girls I knew in high school I was looking for something time and place appropriate. A little web searching brought up a lit of the top 100 songs in those years (1989 wasn't such a bad year). I was horrified to be reminded of such lyrical magic as "The Humpty Dance," "I Wanna Sex You Up," and "I Touch Myself." Good times. There is also a whole lot of Mariah Carey, Paula Abdul and New Kids on the Block. Everything old is new again.

Deadbeat Club

I read an article recently that discussed how school reunions (and as a result, alumni fundraising) are hurting because of sites like My Space, Facebook, and blogs. If you don't lose touch with people in the first place, there is no mystery to push you to go to a school sponsored event, where they can then pump you for money. It's an interesting problem but I always thought reunions were more of a high school thing, and not necessarily about fundraising. Then again, I didn't go to mine and don't know if they passed the hat. My college doesn't do them.

This morning, a friend I haven't seen in 15 years or so proposed the idea of a bunch of us getting back together. (Of course, we all found each other again on My Space.) I think it would be fun -- except for the 3000 mile trip to get there -- and hope it comes together and that I'll be able to go. Most of us were in different classes so we wouldn't be going to the same reunions anyway.

It's an interesting idea, getting together with a bunch of people you haven't seen in so long. How do you catch up 15 years in one night? Or more importantly, how much weight can I lose first?

[Note: High school was all about the B52s (for dancing) and Depeche Mode (for kissing) -- I think I've since seen them both at least 5 times. The most memorable was a trip with Eddeane and Michele and 2 other random people to someplace in Hollywood. The opening act was Love Tractor. We had to leave early for my mom to drive us home. I think I got in trouble because we were late meeting her at the car.]