Contrary to Popular Belief........

Contrary to popular belief, I do not subscribe to your type of music, Mr. windows open booming Ford Explorer guy! Contrary to popular belief: I don't care how many drinks you had at the bar last nght, Ms. young executive type walking in the mall with your buddy. Contrary to popular belief: I really don't need to know the intimate details of your marriage, Mrs. Produce Picking lady on the cell phone, in the supermarket!

These are a few of my contrary to Popular Beliefs for this week........

Sorry to be a negative woman today, but well, it just gets to me that these things have become part of the social norm. I just can't understand when it became "un rude" to share your personal tastes, conversations, and other intimate details of your lives with everyone around you, strangers, older folks, and children alike! It just bugs me, I can't wash my dishes without that guy driving by with his music shattering the glasses, I think that I can sing the song that he has on all of the time, in whatever language that it is blaring in. Usually I want to tap the woman on the shoulder and say something to the effect of "Please, I don't need to know what Tequila and beer do to you on a party night out." (Although I don't think that I will be as kind as I have written here. The lady in the produce section, well, I think that no matter what was said to her, she won't stop talking about her terrible marriage, it won't matter that she is sharing her intimate details in public, we all need to know!

If you would like to add your "Contrary to Popular Belief" and help me take back decency and privacy, please contribute!

Kids

I know that it is normal for a teen to rebel. I get it. I did it, but I really don't think that it was this bad. Both of my teens are boys, and boy oh boy they are driving me insane. School seems to be so difficult for them both. Not the actual work, but the responsibility of actually doing the work. Progress reports read, needs to study more for tests/quizes. Homework assignments missing or late. Frequent bathroom use. Projects late or missing. I am finished at this point. I am tired, I have exhausted punishment. The oldest, at 16, has infuriated me to the point where I just want to beat him! Not that I will, but the thought has crossed my mind. There is about a week left to actual classes, then the exam schedule takes over for about a week. We ahve Regents exams here in NY. They are and have been given in many subjects and are required for the kids to pass the courses in math, science, English and social studies, not to mention, foreign language. The oldest must take these type of tests or he is doomed to summer school or worse, repetition of the 10th grade. He is struggling in math, always has, and he does try in that course. He has been going to extra help in math and in earth science regularly. HOwever, he has been blowing off assignments and test corrections(which will increase his overall grade) in SPanish. He seems to just have the Devil may care attitude when it comes to this, right now. It used to be in social studies and English! I think he picks a subject each quarter to just watch me blow my top! He waited until last week to begin to make up the stuff that is missing! KILL ME NOW! He cannot understand what the problem is with that.....

The middle child, my second teen, at 13, has been making me crazy since November. He has been punished on and off since then too. Last month, he only used 11, yes eleven, minutes on his cell phone, because it was taken away for so long! Privledges have been suspended for so long that I don't know what to give back.

Is it a boy thing?

My daughter comes home every day and gets her stuff together and just does her homework. She rarely uses homework passes (elementary school) and just feels that it is important to do what is expected of her! I hope this continues, the boys were a fight from the beginning.

If I were a drinker, yesterday would have been the day for me to "tie one on." My oldest pushed me so far over the edge at 7am that I really thought I was going to hurt him. It has been insanity around here with him. He will sit at the table in the kitchen, and stare at the wall with a paper in front of him, for hours, the same page.

I am sorry, just venting about the trials and tribulations of the year end blues, spring fever etc. Trying to get thru the end to make it to summer. HOping not to have to sign up for summer school..........UGH! That won't be fun!

OH well that is all for now.....thanks for reading!

Life, Death, Greif, Processing....

Here you go....another reflective post.............



AS we age, so do our parents. We watch changes that they go through, we watch as their medications get increased, discontinued, added, and decreased. It becomes our responsibility to worry about them, to help them and to make sure that they make and keep appointments. If we can't be there to do all of that, we have to make sure that someone capable is there to help them. Life moves very quickly when a parent is ill. Everything is hyper-clear, focused, and there is no stopping the progression of the illness. There are many questions left unanswered, many things left unsaid. The focus seems to be on time, time spent with one another, on the illness, on the life that was and the quality of life that is.
When a parent dies, life is put into a strange perspective. THe child no longer is a child, but an independent being. Adrift without the wisdom of the older adult. (Let's not even go to the place where a minor loses a parent) There are so many times that I want to pick up the phone, almost 2 years later, to ask my mother what to put in this dish, how do you make that, who is the lady who.......and then I realize that I can't. When both parents are gone, there is a sense of emptiness. Well, nothingness. Life as you know it changes, but most of it stays the same. It is an odd way to see things, to move through your days. The days leading up to, and of, funerals and wakes, they seem to stand still, or go in slow motion. After leaving the cemetary or burial place, then the film begins to speed up, to resume normal fast moving pace.
Then one is left with those pesky feelings. Raw feelings, un nerving feelings, or just plain nothingness. Greif or not, it is left to the person to pick up the pieces and to try to re exist in the life that was before. It is tough, it is hard, to say the least. It isn't the same though, even though people want it to be, it isn't the same. As an adult with children, the needs of the children outweigh yours, they are greiving too. They cannot grasp when, why what, but are expected to see things normally, to feel things normally, and to resume life normally. They don't express their grief or their anger the same way that an adult will or can. There are times when they seem so normal, and then they explode, in school, in a baseball game, or their grades take a tank to the bottom of the ocean. They lost someone too.
Being able to talk to one another helps, when those explosions happen, to let it all hang out, so to say.
It isn't a sin to tell children that you are grieving too. It isn't dammaging for them to see the adult cry. It is human. Sadness is a part of life. Watching a parent deal appropriately with their grief is healthy for children who have lost a grandparent or another person in their life.
Giving them as much room as possible to grieve is also a good thing, a healthy thing. They will be better able to deal with life if they can deal with the reality of death. Choices are important. When kids are small, they need not be exposed to the wake, but when they are older, they should see that this is normal and a part of the process. When my Dad died my boys were young, I didn't subject them to the wake, but wanted them at the funeral mass, and felt that they should have a little closure. When my Mother passed, the kids had been visiting her at the nursing home, they knew that it was comming. I asked the boys to choose a night to go to the wake, they were older and should see the process. I didn't subject my daughter to it, as she was much younger. All three went to the funeral, but just the oldest chose to go to the cemetary. The children know and knew what they could handle, and I allowed that to guide me. Honesty is always the key. Tell them what is going on in the language and terms and capacity that they have. For example(for the 14 year old, at the time) "Grandma has brain cancer. It isn't going to get better. We need to visit her and let her know that we love her. Let's enjoy what time we have left."
(for the 5 year old, at the time) "Grandma can't take care of herself at home. She is sick. The doctors have helped her and are giving her medicine. We need to visit her and let her know that we love her."
So there you have it, the process of life, death and grief, as I know it. The process from a personal point of view.

My little Reflection.....

Here it is, as promised, not perfect, but it is mine.........



Reflections of Patchogue: My Neighborhood.


Patchogue, a small town, located in the middle of Long Island. Roughly the middle. Located on the Great South Bay, across from Davis Park, and Watch Hill, Fire Island. In its heyday, it was home to large populations of "summer people," who rented homes, or hotel rooms in the large hotels located by the bay or along Main Street. Main Street, home of a famous four corners in Suffolk County. Everyone who was anyone came to shop in this town. George Washington visited a tavern on the west end of town. A tavern that no longer exists, but an historic plaque commemorates its location and the fact that Washington was there. The site is where one of the oldest and historic cemetaries stands, nowadays.
This is where I grew up. Although it wasn't in the "village," I did grow up in the location, and became intimate with my surroundings. I knew how to get to the village from where I lived. My bicycle was an easy way to get around. I knew that Phannimiller's served ice cream sodas on "Medford Ave." I knew that there were several lunchonettes where fries and burgers could be purchased. I knew that the Lace Mill was a bustling manufacturing plant. I knew about the playgrounds and the small beaches, not to mention the ferry to take us to the mythical place(as a child anyway) Fire Island! This was my home, this was my place.
We drank well water from the hose on a hot summer day. The town put down tar and bluestone on the road, and the adventure of riding our bikes on it afterward, in the hot summer. Learning to walk barefoot across those roads, ouch ouch ouch! These were part of my constants. Basketball hoops nailed to telephone poles, baseball on the corner, this was where I grew up. Everyone didn't have a pool, one or two dotted back yards, with no fences, we ran through sprinklers when our mothers or fathers turned them on to keep the grass green. We went swimming in the stream at Stirritz. It was over 6 foot at the "pipe." A concrete pipe that had been placed there long ago to help the flow of water to Swan Lake. The water was cold, so cold that your feet went numb if you stayed in too long. Sledding at the hill on Stirritz, walking there when it was dark. Feeling safe and protected in the knowledge that everyone in the neighborhood knew each other. Knowing that fences didn't really matter, that we could walk in and out of each others' yards or houses and just be accepted. Neighbors borrowing each other's lawnmowers, hedge trimmers, snow shovels, garden rakes. Halloween was safe, apples and other fruit were accepted from the houses where our neighbors lived. One house always gave us plastic necklaces, all the girls would wear them to school the next day. Many families never used a key to enter their homes. Our doors were left unlocked, our windows open, our cars in the drieways unlocked and windows rolled down. We left the house in the morning, rode our bicycles all over the place, listened for the whistle for lunch, the fire whistle went off at noon, then would regroup after, and stay out until Johnny's Dad whistled for him to come home for dinner. We ate over each other's houses, called the moms "aunt" and the dads "uncle. This was my place, a street with 32 houses built exactly the same, with the same sized rooms, basements and garages. Cement driveways, on a tree lined, sidewalked street. We learned to ride bikes on those sidewalks. We played hopscotch on them too. We had boundaries, go to the end of the sidewalk, heading north, and to Mr. Reed's house heading south.
We raked leaves, planted flowers, and vegetable gardens. There was a Mulberry tree in the back yard, staining our barefeet if we walked by it. The huge Maple tree on the front lawn and on the back lawn provided cool shade when we needed it.
We walked to school, and home too. One of the neighborhood Moms was the crossing guard in front of the school. She taught us 3rd or 4th grade religion in the den in her basement. It was a big deal if someone in the neighborhood got a new car! Those of us with older brothers and sisters knew what was going on in the high school and the middle school. We saw them go to prom in fancy dresses and in boys' cars. The whole neighborhood watched as they married and moved away. Sometimes whole families were invited to the weddings. The whole neighborhood was invited to my wedding, all the parents of folks that I grew up with, played with, and even babysat.
I always called that Neighborhood, "Home." When my Dad passed away, I started to realize how small my world was, growing up. When my Mom got sick, it got even smaller. When she died, it became a tiny spot. The house, when empty seemed so small to me. A high school friend came by to pick up some furniture and knicknacks that we would have otherwise donated to Goodwill, and he looked around the living room, and said,"Was it always this small?" That made me realize that when we think that things are so big and so wide, we actually see them as our mind pictures them.
There were certainties. There was safety. It was a good place to grow up. I could ride my bicycle anywhere, and get a good bagel on South Ocean Avenue. If I wanted a hot chocolate on a chilly morning, I just had to ride "up" to the diner, or cross the street from the bus stop, The Island Grill Diner was right there. My Dad had a friend who would visit us once or twice a year, they were in the Navy together. He could always find our house because the diner was on the corner of where he needed to turn. When they moved the establishment to Hospital Road, and tore down the old building, Mr. K. got hopelessly lost and Dad had to go out in the car to find him. We had our landmarks, yes indeed. Knowing that the streetlights were going to come on was comforting too. We built snow forts, snowmen and had bad snowball fights. Once, the plow came down the street and had to back up twice to destroy the fort that we had built. It had benches in it and everything, a floor, walls, heck if we could have we would have made a roof! It seated 12 comfortably! What a blast we had with the snow shovels that winter. We had a week off to build the fort, there was that much snow. Playing "ring and run," on a hot summer night, or ball tag, hiding in each other's yards hoping not to get found by the person who was "it." Hearing Mr. Devita opening the upstairs window, sneaking out from the shadow of the shrubs, and getting doused with a bucket of water, while he was giggling like a school boy, that too was magic. I guess what we always knew was that our neighborhood was a magical place, no matter what your circumstances were at home, if your Dad was drunk again, if your mom was sick, if your parents weren't getting along, or even if they were getting divorced, we ran together, and laughed together. We had each other.
The next door neighbor was my "little brother." I was the 6th child of 6, so at times I was lonely. Sean and I were three years apart, so we naturally protected and watched over each other. His parents trusted me, so he was able to play baseball at the corner, and cross the street, and just hang out with the other kids, if I was there. I babysat, for him, and for his sister, on summer mornings when his mom returned to work. They were my extended family. They were my siblings when mine had grown and married and moved away. They were special to me. They were special to my parents. Sean's sister, Heather, said that when my parents died, it was like losing grandparents. We went to every special event and birthday.
This was my world, my little piece of reality. When my mom's house was sold, I told the couple that bought it, "It was a nice place to grow up, to play and to grow." My Patchogue, my "block," my childhood.

Some Recent Pictures

Thought you guys out there would like to see some of the images that I have taken over the past month! The flower is an Iris in my front bed. (it was originally planted by my mother in the 50's or the 60's at her house, and it was a very pale lavender when planted there) I took a few before we sold the house, and a few years before that. The bud is the same stalk of Iris before blooming. The burgundy bloom is a Martha Washington Geranium that blew off aftera windy rain storm into a pot hole in my front walk. The next is a bunch of debris on the beach at Smith's Point County Park in FIre Island, a beach about 15 miles away from my home. And the sign explains itself! Cool fact about a beach that I had gone to since I was a child.

Still Working

I am still here, sorry I have been absent. I have been working off line on a "reflections" type post. I am not finished withit yet, but will be soon. I have to edit for spelling and content, and grammar, but it is almost complete. It will be long, so bear with me. I hope you all think it is worth the wait!

Visit to the Ecology Site, Near Home

these are just a samplong of the animals that were rescued or donated to the animal preserve near our home. It is on the site of the former landfill, and not only is there an animal preserve, but there is a greenhouse complex and a walking/running/cycling track. What a great way to recycle a garbage dump. I remember going there with my Dad when I was little, before the current landfill was purchased and opened. The fitness track was one of the first of its kind here on Long Island, and the animal preserve (WE cal it the Ecology Site) is FREE, yes, I said Free to anyone who lives in our township. My boys loved it when they were younger, and took field trips there in Elementary School, Cassidy loves going there anytime of the year. We went today, couldn't waste a beautiful SPring afternoon, even though I really should have been cooking for Easter, but it was so worth it. So many folks must have felt the same way, it was crowded!!!!! It was worth the crowds too! Nice way to spend a vacation day with my daughter.