What if: It's A Wonderful Life (A Mothers-versary Story)

Six years ago, I wrote this blog post on my daughter's 24th birthday. But in light of the many life moments that have happened since, this post, it's due for an update. When you realize that a life altering decision made 30 ago was catalytic in so many wonderful things happening, you have to acknowledge it. It's like my own version of It's A Wonderful Life, and really, it is.

It's my middle daughter's birthday today. While our kids "own" their birthdays alone we can't discount how important a day it is for moms, dads and siblings. I have since coined the terms "Mothers-versary", "Fathers-versary" to celebrate parents.

This pregnancy was a journey from day one. Having been insured with one of the top HMOs that fell short on their reputation, I became a number, stranded in a waiting room for nearly four hours and almost miscarried. 

My pregnancy was high risk, so I dumped the HMO.  A friend referred  me to a doctor who specialized in high risk pregnancies. I'll call him Dr. OBG. Dr. OBG is an incredible physician. He's a straight shooter and is always candid and honest.  It's what I respect most about him.

Having grown up in the Marcus Welby era, it only stands to reason that my idea of a great doctor is one that not only practices medicine in the highly unpredictable field of Obstetrics and Gynecology, but also has a human agenda when it comes to his patients. I've always been fascinated at how every pregnancy and birth is like a fingerprint: some similar, but never completely alike.

In one of our consultations, Dr. OBG advised me that a new test I had taken indicated that my baby may not live more than 5 minutes after birth. I had two options: terminate the pregnancy or  move forward. My response was unmovable and pragmatic. "I'll take my 5 minutes." And while I listened to what I was told, I was not going to terminate this life on a "may not".  What if that possibility were wrong? It was like looking up at a mountain peak without seeing over the top, knowing that there was going to be something on the other side.

There is more than enough growth in being a risk taker and I guess you can say that it will be my epithet. For months my pregnancy was wrought with near miscarriages and stresses. Dr. OBG said that I was a challenge to his career! When your doctor says something like that, all you can say is –dayum! I was in and out of the hospital. Each visit became longer than I anticipated and ended with me attached to  a fetal monitor. I was beginning to think of myself as a POW. I wanted to bust out. Oh—did I mention that I was working in a band? 

By the middle of July, Dr. OBG told me that I needed to go back to the hospital because the baby didn't turn in preparation for birth. There would be an intervention to turn her within the womb. So here I was back in Cedars Sinai Hospital with this on staff doctor who had about as much of a bedside manner as a piranha. I had to lay there while he attempted to turn my baby,  applying an inexplicable pressure on my abdomen and hear his conversation with one of his colleagues. Apparently he had almost hurt a baby in utero while doing a procedure. Angered and amazed at his lack of professionalism and being forced to hear his war story, I wondered if perhaps one of his skills was mind reader, because he would have heard my mind speaking. Do you realize you have a patient here?  It was as if I didn't exist.

Next consultation, Dr. OBG told me that the attempt to turn the baby was unsuccessful. Ya think?! In other words, this baby was intent on being born butt first, telling the whole world to kiss her ass! My only option was a C-section.  Dr. OBG wanted to make sure I wasn't intent on pushing a regular delivery and proceeded to tell me a horror story. He really had nothing to worry about because my goal was to have a successful birth. It didn't matter to me how it happened. So he asked me when I wanted to schedule to have my baby and I replied, "Right fucking, now!" I set the date.

I was coming into the home stretch, admitted and prepped for surgery. A C-section is major abdominal surgery, so I can't understand why now days women would want it as an option over a regular delivery. The anesthesiologist explained what he was giving me to deaden the sensation in my mid section. I had never done any drugs, so this was quite an experience for me. And, wow, it felt like someone had taken a huge meat cleaver and chopped off the bottom half of my body. I had to keep glancing down at my feet to prove it otherwise. 

He asked me if I wanted to be put to sleep. Negative on that option! "Absolutely not. I wasn't asleep when I placed the order!" My mother had been put to sleep when she had me in 1956.  I felt a little cheated that she wasn't awake when I hit the planet.  To eliminate my participation in this birth  and wake up from a sleep like a fairy tale and there was a baby  would  relinquish my power. Although I wouldn't be pushing, I wanted to be able to share this story as an integral part of the birth. And indeed, I was an active part, never dismissing the possibility of having only 5 minutes somewhere in my psyche. 

I was used to the fetal monitor and was hooked up to another monitor. I didn't know what was in those drugs they gave me, but I came up with a bunch of one-liners that would have been the envy of any stand-up comic. Dr. OBG explained to me what the monitor I was hooked up to was for. I was high as a kite and having a blast! After the monitor rendered a straight line, I commented, "Well, according to this monitor, I'm brain dead!" There was laughter in the room. I think everyone in the OR knew that this experience was going to be a little different. I had to push a positive agenda.

I observed everything, watched everything. Although prepared for a short entry and exit, I would hold this baby and say goodbye if I had to, but I wasn't seeing that as my vision after I peeked over the top of that mountain. I was getting close to the zero hour. I watched as my mid section was exposed and open. What an unbelievable visual. It was like they were setting a table with my insides, moving things around! Dr. OBG told me I would feel a little tugging as he pulled the baby from my midsection. I told him, "Doctor, just make sure you don't pull a rabbit out of there!" I was giddy about getting to this point, my moment of truth.

I had decided that if it was a girl I would name her Chelsea and if a boy, Keegan, but at 8:33AM on August 3, 1986 when I met her I said, "Your name is Chelkee (a combination of both names) Sunday's child had arrived! She was gray and looked like she had been packed in a sausage casing. It looked like her lips were all over her face. I  started laughing as I blurted out, "This is the ugliest baby I've ever seen in my entire life!" Everybody was laughing. It was a birth experience of pure team work with a great ending.

I was in recovery, coming down from the biggest high of my life. Dr. OBG came in and said, "You did it, kiddo!" I was overwhelmed with nothing but gratitude and respect for him. All I could say was "thank you" repeatedly. Later that afternoon, the anesthesiologist came to visit and said he had never had such an unusually pleasant and relaxed experience and he was just coming to see how I was doing. Nurses visited. Mine must have been the big story that day. Everyone was wonderful to me. 

I had delivered a healthy 6 lb, 11 oz, 19" baby girl. Dr. OBG and I reminisced at my last appointment. I always keep him updated with photos of the baby in utero that was a challenge to his career. We keep each other updated on our kids' milestones on every visit.

Having a great doctor is everything. He did a beautiful job on my body and I have no scars or war wounds to prove I had a C-section.  Dr. OBG didn't believe that this type of surgery should disfigure a woman's body like back in the day. The first time I got up and walked after  having the baby, it felt like all of my plumbing was going to fall on the floor! I look back and relive my birth stories on my mothers-versaries. I always told my kids: never work on your birth day because it's the only day that uniquely belongs to you.








Sometimes my mind goes: what if? What if I had embraced a "may not"? Chelkee would have never been a Girl Scout, won her award for best essay in grade school, never had the most beautiful wedding in the world or become a talented hair and beauty stylist and business owner with a successful salon. And most of all, she would have never have become a mother to the stark humor of my young grand daughter's realization of family ties when at age 3, she said "Mommy, grandma is your mommy?"

All of these incredible people came together because of this one decision. We became a blended family. One of my most incredible accomplishments is that of being a mother. To be able to look back on the 100s of photos of milestones in the hatboxes and remember when I couldn't imagine her being all grown up when I first held her in my arms.

There is something to be said for mother wit and the magical, mystical connection you have with the human being that you carry in your body. It is as awe inspiring as a rainbow. 
_________________________________________________________________________________

So, to my baby girl on her 30th birthday! Wow! Just Wow!  Happy Birthday! This is your unique day and story…It was my calling to protect your life and I will do that until the day I die. 

Love, 
Mom

 

It Ain't No Use

It was April Fools' Day when the covered wagons came to town. They came to town to take over the west in California, the mid west in Texas and Florida in the South east. I didn’t see it coming, like many of us unsuspecting Verizon FIOS customers who had grown with the technology. It was convenient to watch live TV from our tablets or mobile phones and add new scheduled shows to our DVRs without being home. It was a short lived fantasy: hi speed internet, TV and phone: convenience, no complaints. What we thought was a bundle of joy turned into a very bad seed.

For me it all started the  last week of March. My router started acting gnarly. Internet was intermittent and it was taking “walking time” to get a response from queries in Google. I called Verizon, and the tech person insisted that it was the router, knowing full well that it was not. He insisted that a new router be sent out, when the router I already had was a new router. Needless to say, I never picked it up.

In reality, it was  the powers-that-be guinea pigging me before the onslaught of bad service with F/U Communications. Something was going on that just didn't make sense.

So the country jackals at the new company who purchased three territories from  Verizon (  the  expensive call girl) for 10.3 billion bucks, pushed the button at midnight on April Fools' Day. Ever since, customers have been reeling and ranting over what Clark Howard calls it, "customer no service." 

Most of my scheduled programming for recording disappeared. If I went to the ABC app, the hillbilly bears had not straightened it out yet and I would get a message that reminds me of media flat lining. So if I missed some of my episodic TV picks and wanted to watch from my iPad, I was SOL because the "On-Demand" feature was not available.

After a month of broken promises, I decided to bail. I could see it wasn't going to get better. This buffoon of a company, F/U Communications  was clueless as to how to clear up this disaster in blind anticipation that absolutely nothing could go wrong at the midnight hour of April 1.  In their eyes it was supposed to all come together seamlessly with no scenarios envisioned with "what ifs" or back-up plans.

I went on line and exercised my options. I wanted no contract, no TV service and no imitation landline phone, just internet. I ended with a 34 bucks a month plan. No contract! So  that white truck pulled into the driveway from Time Warner Cable (and they're about to be eaten up by Charter), I felt a sense of relief. I know, right?  From bad to worse. At least the sales agent told me about the merger.  All I saw was my internet divorce lawyer  to break the ties that bind.

Amazon Fire Stick

I started my separation by ordering internet only service and then bought my own wi/fi/modem, followed by subscribing to HBO Now, Showtime and Hulu and Amazon Prime independently of any cable company and streaming through my Apple TV. I already subscribe to Netflix. My bill will now be under 90 bucks. Yes! I was starting to see the sunrise on the horizon from Verizon. I also bought an Amazon Fire-stick for my other TV.

I hear the snap of the cable as the technician cuts the cable from Verizon, now F/U Communications.

I breathe like a baby, new into the world, separated from the cash cow umbilical cord of soaring internet, phone and TV bundles. I gracefully embrace my reborn life as a "streaming only"  force of reality. No contracts with my "internet only" and I own my router outright.

Verizon was an expensive whore who got a 10.3-billion-dollar payday off of bailing on three large territories, CA, TX and FL from the Beverly Hillbillies. This new company, F/U Communications is not new and has always been steeped in customer service complaints and issues. 

This is the company that had to settle with consumers over lying about high internet speeds and charging for it while giving them mule and buggy speeds. It is emerging as the next monopoly for cable resources, with no clue with regards to technology. Verizon courted us with FIOS, got as much as they could and then moved on after it got paid by the  john. I have to change my Verizon email to my gmail, even though I bought the email address. Even after government payouts, Verizon FIOS is not available in all areas. 

F/U Communications has been in trouble with regards to customer "no" service way before it acquired the 3 territories from Verizon. Since the acquisition the complaints are rising.

Without all this dead weight moving forward in my new viewing life,  there’s no more service and equipment charges: like the monthly $30 which went to renting DVRs or the other fees and charges which amounted to almost 20 additional bucks a month. We as consumers have to pay the cable outlets’ Taxes, Governmental Fees and Surcharges. That’s right, charges they pass on to us because somewhere along the line, someone told them that we as consumers worked for them.

So here’s a little breakdown:

Taxes, Governmental Fees and Surcharges

· 911 State Tax .08

· CA Relay Svc and Communications Devices Fund .05

· CHCF-Band CASF .05

· CA Teleconnect Fund Surcharge .12

· CA Universal Lifeline Telephone Service .60

· CA High Cost Fund .04

· CA State and Local Sales Tax 4.03

Is it me, or don’t we pay some of this crap in our local and state taxes?

Verizon Surcharges and Fees

· Federal Universal Svc Fee 3.36

· Video Franchise Fee 5.37

· PEG Grant Fee 1.01 

· Regulatory Recovery Fee .08

· FIOS TV Broadcast Fee 1.99

· FDV Administrative Charge .99

I know you’re wondering what a PEG Grant Fee is. Well, here ya go. It stands for 

Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Access Cable Television Channels.

“PEG access may be mandated by local or state government to provide any combination of television production equipment, training and airtime on a local cable system to enable members of the public, accredited educational institutions, and government to produce their own shows and televise them to a mass audience."(Center for Media and Democracy)

The Video Franchise Fee? Well, that’s because they own the franchise and we have to pay them  for owning a piece of the franchise. Ridiculous isn’t it?

I believe that in the very near future, the cable companies (which are struggling right now) will be on the Gone List. The younger generation are into streaming and don’t get bogged down with the minutia of cable fees and charges because they stream. And it’s because they can’t rationalize paying for it. I’m with them. I’m glad there is an open door to walk through. 

I keep trying to explain to those I know who are still thinking that the landline in their cable bundle is the same as the ones they grew up with. It’s not the same phone technology. It’s nothing more than VOIP. It’s about as real as the guy who opens the doors on the subway, but isn’t really driving the train. So, in the event of an emergency and you can’t use your cell phone, well…you won’t be able to use your landline phone either. 

So, basically, start think about getting your ICOE (In Case Of Emergency) planner started and make sure a battery operated radio is in the packet. In the event of a huge emergency of catastrophic proportions, who ya gonna call?

So in conclusion, it's been 5 days since my "transition" and I couldn't be happier. I actually get shorter more quality TV time because there are no commercials. That in itself is worth it's weight in gold.

There's a song that Stevie Wonder wrote that will stand in the annals of music history as the best break-up song ever. Especially, the very last line at the end and how he sung it. "So long, baby..Bye, Bye baby."

Come Together

Here we are in the season of "peace on earth, good will toward men". Yet, we continue to avoid the honesty of understanding, of compassion, of love for each other and a direct unbiased dialogue on the controversies of race relations in this country. 

Until we understand and come forward and talk openly and discuss our fears, hopes and dreams in a candid, non-defensive way will we open the floodgates of understanding and the rational perspectives of love. 

Until we understand that we are cultures more than colors we will begin to break this horrific barricade that divides us. This is not the world I   envisioned for my children and grandchildren. Life threw a curveball. Those of my age demographic were supposed to be the last generation to know these kinds of racial iniquities. 

There is no integrity in keeping our heads buried in the sand when it comes to understanding cultures and people; what inspires us, what hurts us. One man's hurt, should never be another man's pleasure. One man's ignorance should never beat touted as tolerance. 

The wounds that divide us are the decadent human stains of our nation. These are atrocities that we can never take back. The past cannot be changed, but the future can be what ever we want it to be. 

Based on the events that have happened in our country that continue to go unchanged, we can never create the future that we need to create unless we have an open and clear discussion about what divides us and we really listen. As long as we remain divided  through controversies we will never have authentic peace.

We have become a nation that sleeps through our controversies. We ignore our controversies by covering them with a frosting of continued ignorance only to be repulsed by the stench that it creates. This is why our divisions do not go away.

It shouldn't be that a major disaster has to occur before we allcome together and realize that we are all part of one race, the human race. The reality is, that none of us are all one ethnic "thing". We are all mutts in the kennel of life and are all

related.

Our only race issue should be the human race issue. Our understanding of our differences should be expounded upon by 

opening ourselves up to understanding the diversity of our 

cultures. Until we understand these diversities, understand and acknowledge them with clarity and really listen to each  

other instead of skimming through the dialogue, only then 

will we become one.

A Letter to Daddy

My only picture I have of Mr. Johnson
taken Christmas 1966 on my Polaroid camera.

Happy Father’s Day to all.  I would like to take a minute to acknowledge a man who may not have been my father by blood, but was a great paternal influence in my life:  Mr. James Johnson… For the years he was in my life, what he left me was eternal.

My parents divorced when I was about  5 or 6 years old and I saw very little of my father, although we talked often. I didn't see more of him until I was in college. I guess the term you would use today is, "it's complicated." 

In 1964, when I was 8 years old my mother introduced me to  Mr. Johnson.  She called him "Jimmy" and he drove a 1963 powder blue Chrysler New Yorker. Every time I see an old New Yorker, I think of him. 

Mr. Johnson courted my mother for many years. He was a gentleman who nurtured me like a dad through my formative years.  I thought he was the smartest man I had ever met when I was a kid, and in my adulthood, he still remains on an intellectual pedestal. He was a chemist who worked at Howard University. I don’t think that there was anything that he couldn't do.

This man nurtured my thirst for technology and through him, the world became bigger than I could ever imagine. I had a little portable Smith-Corona typewriter and he taught me how to type. Learning that skill enlarged my world even more. Once I had gotten proficient in my typing, he brought home a used IBM Selectric that I now would guess was a cast-off from the school, but for me was my jewel.

I used that Selectric like it was my lifeline. It was for me the most fluid way for me to communicate my thoughts. By  7th grade I was writing science fiction short stories on it  and working on what I thought  would be the great American science fiction novel. 

One day Mr. Johnson brought over an old reel to reel tape machine. I say old because it was around the time the cassette machine had come on the scene shortly after I first met him. He played some tapes of a woman singing. It was my mother! This spurred my interest in recorded music. 

I loved sound and how good sound could sound. Mr. Johnson would take me to the stereo shows  for a few years and I would collect mounds of spec sheets and product information, bounding from one exhibit to the next. He gave and gave of his knowledge and he never had a doubt that I was incapable of anything because I was female. So when some guys say to me, “You know a lot about this technology for a female”, I owe it all to Mr. Johnson.

I started playing piano by the time I was 10 years old. Within a week of taking my first lesson, I was playing complete songs..By the time I was 12, I was writing my own music and recording the songs on my little cassette machine. Mr. Johnson was there for those moments and for all intents and purposes he was my dad.

I tried to find Mr. Johnson after I reached adulthood. After the courtship  with my mother ended, Mr. Johnson and my mom remained friends. He later left DC and married and moved to the south and I never got to talk with him again. I know he's gone now. So this platform in writing is my only way to connect with him and show my appreciation and love for what he gave me. 

He taught me everything he knew and I wish with all of my heart that he were still around so that I could thank him for the wonderful contributions he made to my life and my world.  Mr. Johnson, I will always love and appreciate you for everything. You nurtured my interests and helped me turn them into realities. Thanks to you, I was able to type 80 wpm. Just from the simple typing lesson you gave me so many years ago!

What is my blessing on this Father’s Day? I had the benefit of two dads in my life, both inextricably complementing the other in what they gave to my world.

Tell It Like It Is

12 Years A Slave revealed the most grueling, unforgettable portrayal of the “institution” of slavery that I have ever witnessed and gives us the reality that all of our souls have been craving: a simple real truth. The depiction of the indignities of human cruelty, loss, loneliness, forced captivity, depravity and suffering. For those who believe that it happened so long ago and there should be no open wounds, need only be reminded that for as long as it took to succeed in years of human captivity it may take more lifetimes for the wounds to heal. 

Director/producer Steve McQueen gives us an emblazoned view of real history. The emphasis of truth  which they neglect to teach in American history. I give my applause to all of the actors who were a part of this journey with my entire heart and soul…

Stunning in her  debut  film performance, Lupita Nyong'o gave a wrenching depiction as Patsey whose longing for an end to her torment brought her to find a solution in the unthinkable… Chiwetel Ejiofor  superbly plays Solomon Northrup with dignity, compassion, anger and torment all at the same time.  Michael Fassbender portrays the contorted plantation patriarch Edwin Epps. He characterizes Epps brilliantly with dimensions that were twisted, conflicted and merged with senseless cruelty.  

Director Steve McQueen  (center) with  12 years cast ensemble.

Looking at cast pictures of this ensemble of actors outside of the film shows how seriously these film artists took their roles to give us the stunning reality. The contrast is breathtaking and it’s apparent that these new actors are destined for more great renderings in future. Their performances challenged my emotions.  My emotions went everywhere. 

Evidently, I’m not alone in my impression of 12 Years A Slave which has successfully shown us something that its predecessors in cinema had yet to bring to the screen with this much authenticity. The critics cannot say enough about this film.  I have a natural affinity for ignoring film critics, but this time we’re on the same page.

12 Years A Slave is a must see, a history lesson, a platform for healing, a taste of America’s brutal reality of how it harbored success as a nation: on the backs of free black labor. It is a story of how human beings are stripped of their dignity and identity and forced to accept their plight and believe that they were nothing but chattel.

This isn't Disney with  a former slave singing a happy tune about what a wonderful day it is complacent about his human condition. (What a subliminal message.) This is not DJango, which in comparison to 12 Years reveals a quiet air of buffoonery in contrast. This is not Roots which made prime-time television history  This, 12 Years A Slave, is a film whose time has come.

Black directors and producers lend a better truth and accuracy to period pieces of this genre regarding black history with a lens that allows the viewer to emote just from the genius of presentation.

12 years and the The Butler puts it out there and the viewer, regardless of ethnicity has to come to terms with it in their own personal way.  I like this refreshing bond of viewer and filmmaker. What further seals the bond is the candid portrayals of the actors. And not just the same 5 or 6 black actors we see all the time in films with characters of color.. 

My problem with The Help was the way the backdrop of history was minimized in a “it wasn't that bad scenario” of bogus "what ifs".  (see blog Mammy How I Love Ya) The only thing  that really saved the film was the performances of the actors. 

With more films by black filmmakers coming to the fore with history based works on film we have  hope for a better truth and reality in works like 12 years. We can anticipate future film efforts which  give the history lesson the youth of our nation deserve. You can put away those history books that gave slavery about 1 or 2 pages of text. Real film with depictions of real truths are here and no one, no one, will be able to step away from it.

FALLING DOWN

Disclaimer: Language alert...No Apologies...

I don’t know. Maybe I fell on my head somewhere between my 30s and my 50s because there seems to be a rash of ridiculous bullshit surfacing on the horizon in the world that makes absolutely no sense..And as I always say, when you don’t have common sense, you have non-sense. Welcome to the world of non-sense, where in the world of Life As We No Longer Know It seems to be the rule, rather than the exception. Every morning I have a routine, you know. You get up, you shower, brush your teeth, eat your breakfast,  start your day, check your accounts to make sure that no one has stolen your money through fraudulent means. Screeeeech!!!!! Did I say “make sure that no one has stolen your money through fraudulent means?” I did, didn’t I?

I look to find that a third party company has created a pre-approved (not on my part) draft on my account and taken out 35 bucks. They have taken my bank routing number and account number and created this draft. Now I don’t want to give details, because I might be taking this one to a lawyer. But, when I called my bank to inquire about this, the customer no-service representative tells me that this 3^rd party company has a right to do this because when you write a check-----please read this slowly and carefully “you are GIVING a pre-authorization for the company to be able to draft against your checking account.” DID I STUTTER?! No, I didn’t.

And while I’m telling this moron on the other end that this is absolutely unethical due to the fact that I was not told about this either in the store or contacted by this third party for this, I kept envisioning my goof ball physical reactions in my usual daydreaming Piscean manner…You know, going through the phone and squeezing the wine out of this woman’s neck. What a great fantasy. Oops. Better be careful how I word that or I may be construed as a terrorist by the politically correct police instead of a pissed off consumer.

Anyway, she also told me that the bank had no way of knowing if they had contacted me or not, to which I replied. “Hello, hello? Are you listening? Can you stop reading your script for a second and listen? Why am I contacting you? I am contacting you because I was never notified about this and this erroneous crap ends up in my account.” She kept reading over and over to which I had to have a sidebar to myself out loud. “She’s not listening.” And then back to her, “Stop the script and LISTEN! No one has the right to create a draft on a bank account that wasn’t personally approved by the account holder with a valid signature or voided check. DID YOU HEAR THAT?! DID---YOU---HEAR—THAT___?? This is a matter of ethics. This is fraudulent and unethical. You are totally WRONG!” 

She continues, “We have no way of knowing if they contacted you or not.” This bitch is stuck on stupid and I realize now that I didn’t fall on my head between my 30s and 50s and that I have landed in Bullshit Canyon.  So I had to light a match under her, “Whose side are you on anyway? This is MY account, I never pre-authorized ANYTHING. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS OF SOMETHING LIKE THIS? So while the banks go off on their diatribes about what rights I have with MY money, WHY was this NEVER addressed to the consumer?” I continue. “So you’re telling me that when I write a check, that I am giving 3^rd party access for companies to take my money?” She pretty much tells me that that’s right. Well, you know what my answer to her was… I prepare for fight mode. Loading my words line by line into the verbal barrel of my verbal shot gun…When I approach people with verbal barrels loaded, they begin to understand how stupid they really sound.

As I'm backing out of the garage, I noticed a bundle thrown in my driveway…I stop. Pick it up and notice that my mail has been thrown in the driveway and not put in my mailbox…IS THE POST OFFICE SERIOUS?!!!! So as I’m driving down the street, I see the postal perpetrator delivering mail. No one I've seen before.  Must be a sub carrier…I cruise on over to the side of the street that he’s working and beckon him to come to my window. Am I having another daydream? You bet!…I won’t say, but you can imagine, right? I warmly greet him and then slowly bring it on with a couple of expletives. To which he says to me, “Ma’am, I don’t like the way you’re talking to me.” REALLY?! To which I exclaim “Well, I don’t like the way you dumped my FUCKING mail in my FUCKING drive-way!” I recall the classic scene in my head of Steve Martin in “Trains Plains and Automobiles.”

I drive off and flip him off  like my middle finger is a canon… Then I stop by the store where this craziness all began and there’s this school aged kid, asking me for money so that he can get on the bus…IS HE SERIOUS? Last time I checked, I didn't have any school aged kids. I won’t go into what I told him, but it started out like this’ “DON’T ASK ME FOR---“ Once I get in the store  they basically pretends like they know nothing about my issue and say it’s between me and my bank… Okay…

I get to the bank and they ask me what they can help me with. I explain that I need to talk to one person because I am only going to tell this story once. Okay, to make a long story short, the bank agreed with where I was coming from and the unethical implications. They reversed this draft and I closed that account. They agreed that since this company has my account information they will be able to do it again and probably will.  This in no way means I am a friend to the bank. But they did totally understand the unethical part in this situation…

So fair warning: Do not write any checks to any companies. It gives scumbags the opportunity to have access to your money without your knowledge. As for this “customer no-service” idiot at the bank I talked to over the phone before I went to my branch: I got the number to make a report against her.  My bank agreed that she should have never taken that approach with me. Companies need to train their employees on how to communicate information, because if they don’t they might run into a person like me who doesn't care if they lose their job due to incompetence or lack of training. I don’t work for them. I AM THE CONSUMER and I as the consumer keep them in revenue not the other way around.

My mother was a fighter when it came to being a consumer and protecting her rights. I remember, as I was going through some of her things after her  passing, a letter she had written to a store regarding a lamp she had purchased. Evidently this was a case of "customer no service." It was just a lamp, one would say, but I totally get it. Thanks, mom.

Babies Don't Keep: My 30th Mothers-versary

Today is my 30^th Mothers-versary…It was one of the most pivotal moments in my life. When I was in my early 20s, I couldn't see myself taking care of anything unless it had black and white keys and made sounds…That’s just who I was. It was all music and all about me…

Then something changed and the emotional readiness to become a mother kicked in…It was as overwhelming a need as the salmon’s instinctual tenacity to return to its spawning ground. 

My life was in order, my home was spotless and life was basically uncomplicated. But this hunger to nurture another human being continued to grow.  It all surfaced around a single incident.

I was almost a fatality in a traffic accident. I remember the moment my life welled up inside my brain. I was the passenger in the car and a drunk driver barreled full speed into the intersection, running the light. There was absolutely no way I would have survived this on impact. 

I saw it happen before it happened; kudos to extra sensory perception. I can close my eyes now and relive every stark moment in detail. Something inside of me said, “It’s not supposed to end like this.” Had I not yelled the warning as the headlights loomed toward me and the driver gunned the accelerator; my history would have been very different.

Now every time I pass this intersection, I relive this moment and my decision to become a mother. Etched in my brain is how this “near miss” woke up my life and screamed at me. 

The lone driver of the car behind me was not so fortunate. He ended up taking the hit but miraculously, only stunned, wasn't injured.

When I became pregnant, I read every book I could find about the changes that would happen to my body. I embarked on this journey armed with information. This was a “no turning back” kind of groove. I would daydream about what it would be like to have this little person in my life. I would give her everything that my mother had given me: every skill set needed to survive in the world as a thriving member of the human community. 

As a mother, watching her grow through her phases and firsts, I got to see what it was like for me as an infant developing into a child and then becoming an adult. Watching her develop into herself is one of life’s fascinations. I began to understand my mother more and gained respect for her wisdom. I used to think I was deprived by the way she protected me, but I can see now that she was protecting me so that nothing would happen to me that would change my view of the world growing up.

I had an uncomplicated, normal pregnancy. I walked, became a Buddhist, took yoga class, talked to this baby and wrote her a diary.  I began to see that becoming a mother was just one more detail that connected me with who I was as a person and enhanced my creativity and depth of vision.

I had a wonderful pregnancy. I kept my energy positive and surrounded myself with people who were positive. 

It was 1982. The cost of a postage stamp was 20 cents, the cost of gas was still under a buck. The first CD player was sold in Japan, Michael Jackson released Thriller, "videodiscs" were becoming more popular or as they are known today: DVDs.

This was an interesting time for my child to become a part of the world.  The computer was becoming even more mainstream as a part of American culture and was named on TIME’s cover as Machine of the Year.  Technology was emerging rapidly.

This pregnancy seemed to take forever. I know a lot of people must have thought I was going crazy and talking to myself, but really I was talking to her. I knew that she could hear me in utero as the fascination with the mystery of the unborn grew. 

Here we were: so close to each other and yet still strangers. My body had changed and my center of gravity was off balance. ( I can't imagine how these women  today day can walk in heels pregnant!) I had a fascination with quiches and loved to  prepare them. Life was evolvement and evolvement was life.

The home stretch.

My water broke.. Pretty uneventful...Just my signal that I was in the home stretch. Nothing like on TV… Well,  really, is ANYTHING in reality like TV?

Got to the hospital ready for her arrival…Healthcare was a totally different animal back in 1982. I had great insurance. The hospital bill was $2… I call her my bargain baby.

I opted for no epidural. I didn't want anything to affect this baby. I braved  over 11 hours without drugs. It really wasn't that bad because the outcome of labor was going to be positive. I was prepared through Lamaze classes and was ready to use the learned method of breathing to make this baby’s journey into the world the best.

Her destined birthday was Dec 28, but she made her journey  at 7:16 pm on December 11, 1982,  5 lbs, 6 oz and 17 inches long. I looked at her and wondered who she would be.  She was so tiny and vulnerable with the tiniest little feet. When I brought her home she weighed only 4 lbs. I would carry her around in a little sac called a Snugli and she was so tiny, people would ask "Is there a baby in there?"

What would be her mark?…I looked in anticipation of the birthdays to come and the milestones to come. As the years moved forward and my life tenure as a mother accumulated, I began to understand my mother’s secret. Not really a secret at all.

I used to think my mother was psychic. She could call out a situation without even knowing the details. Sometimes it seemed like she even knew my thoughts. She had a knack for being able to figure out a lot about people and situations. I used to think she was just a killjoy. But in actuality as I look back at it,  as the old folks in the country used to say, “Just do enough living, you’ll see.”

Being a mom, gave me insight into people and situations. I could understand a lot more about human frailty when I became a mom.  These amazing instincts and insights kick in once you earn your “mommy card”. It is the greatest education that anyone can get. There is no “mommy university”. You don’t get a degree, but the wonderful rewards of your child's triumphs and accomplishments became plentiful as the years roll forward.

I would hold long conversations with my infant daughter, sing songs, read constantly to her and play all kinds of music. She would give me this look as she processed my speech…It was almost like she was saying “Run that by me again?” There was no such thing as baby talk. I wanted her to speak clearly and express herself succinctly in the world she would come to know.

Humans are babies for a quick second. I used to muse that if I kept hugging her tightly, she wouldn't grow up. But, even though she did, she will always be my baby.  She got her first tooth on July 15, 1983, her second July 23, started crawling at 6 months. By 8 months old, she began to talk. Her first word was “book.”    

From that  point on, her vocabulary blossomed and by the time she was a little over a year she was speaking in complete sentences with clarity.

She also knew how to color well within the lines by the time she was 4. I started her in private kindergarten that year because the school system had a weird cut off about kids born in December.  

In private kindergarten, my daughter had homework and learned how to add and subtract.

The following year when I enrolled her in public first grade, the administration was trying to tell me that she would have to repeat kindergarten because of where her birthday fell in December.  I considered that quite an  inept concept and wondered who came up with that ridiculous idea. You should have seen me. I was like Sally Field in Forrest Gump fighting for my child’s rights and dignity.  Needless to say, I won the battle.

So I sit here today with a huge hatbox and several photo albums and the ongoing scrapbook I work on for her as she moves forward in life. I’m reminded of an an excerpt from a poem  I put in her scrapbook by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton:

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait til tomorrow,

But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow

So quiet down cobwebs, 

Dust go to sleep

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.                                           

Turning 30, is not just her milestone, but mine as well. I think sometimes as our kids get older, they forget that their celebration of birth is also a celebration for us as well. This is what prompted me to come up with term "Mothers-versary and Fathers-versary".

So, whenever someone shares that their child has a birthday, I celebrate them as well.  Does this milestone in our lives seem like yesterday? You bet!  But should I close my eyes from this journey called living tomorrow, I can rest knowing that I brought three amazing children into the world who will carry on and make their own legacies throughout their lives.