DON’T KICK MY ASS

Posted on July 16, 2014 by hafong

image from Amazon.ca

Today was a no kick-ass day. The only ass kicking was done was by Stephanie Plum and her side kick, Lulu, two characters from Janet Evanovich’s detective series. I spent some hours reading Fearless Fourteen.

Her books are a good read when you are low and need a picker upper. It’s hard to stay down with all the action and humour. How can you not smirk and laugh out loud at this:

“Lulu is a former ‘ho turned bonds office file clerk and wheelman. She’s a plus-size black woman who likes to squash herself into too small clothes featuring animal print and spandex. Lulu’s cup runneth over from head to toe.”

See what I mean? It works for me almost every time, even today.

Today was after a night of sleeplessness. I got a couple of hours but I wouldn’t call it sleep. It was filled with fitful dreams. Not restful at all. I haven’t had one of these for a long time but I am familiar with them. It used to be the norm in my 34 plus years of shift work.

I had hoped on doing a major decluttering but like all plans it was dashed. I felt hung over, stretched out, spent. There was no karate chopping today. My best today was learning from Stephanie and Lulu as they stormed and sped through the pages, getting their man/woman. I didn’t waste time trying to be a heroine. Instead, I gathered energy by living through them. Did I somehow, unconsciously planned this – to have some guilt-free idle time?

I must be innocent. I feel wretched but not guilty. Even Sheba is feeling the lazy today. She’s dragging after me with just a few dispirited barks through the day. I wonder if it was the moon last night, lighting up too many dark corners, keeping me awake. Let me sleep tonight, Mr. Moon.

REFLECTIONS

Posted on July 15, 2014 by hafong

Here I sit at the end of the day, trying to tap out my few words. It is dark already and I don’t know what to say. Maybe Mr. Moon can shine his light and guide me.

Some days/nights are like this. You have to take them as they come. Acceptance is the word. It is something I still/will always have to work at. It is not a bad thing. It means I am trying – trying to do better but not perfect.

photo credit – http://www.announcingit.com/invitations-blog/mirrored-reflection-baby-photos-tutorial/

I sound like I’m making excuses. Maybe I am. I am comforting myself. You have to do that once in awhile. You know your tender spots the best. Go ahead. Tend to your wounds. Dress them with tender loving kindness. Smile upon yourself for you are the child in everyone. When I see you, I recognize myself. So I am sure when you see me, you recognize yourself.

We see ourselves reflected back in each other’s eyes. Perhaps if we look long enough, we can have a conversation and speak from our hearts instead of our minds. Who knows, we might surprise ourselves and become friends. What would we do then?

NO DUCKS IN A ROW

Posted on July 14, 2014 by hafong

It’s another glorious morning. The sun is shining bright. The petunias are in their full bloom – the blues, purples and lilacs waving in the sunlight. Not wanting to be over-shadowed, the roses are strutting their stuff.

Sheba is out sniffing and chewing grass, while the man of the house is cranking up his bicycle to help set up the Bike Valet for The Taste of Saskatchewan, July 15- 20th. Looks like some time for me to write, dabble and talk to my tomato plants. Hurry up, grow!

I am sitting here tap, tapping on my new Mac. I am happy with its speed and slickness. No more heavy sighs and gnashing of teeth – for now anyways. My desk is a little neater, having to do some rearranging to accommodate my new Mac and my old PC. But it is by no means perfect. I’m showing the good part. The mess is lurking in the corner.

I am now a lot older and just a little wiser. But I am still fooled at times, buying into the perfection of everything. We have/want warranties and insurance for almost everything we own. You can’t insure life though you can buy life insurance. They are not the same. Life can indeed crash just like my MacBook. I could only watch it sizzle and burn. But there is hope after a crash.

What you do then, is pick your yourself up, dust yourself off and carry on. You re-start from where you are. Do not wait till it is perfect and you have all your ducks in a row. The only ducks lined up in a row are those at the fair. They’re waiting to be shot down. Real ducks glide and splash around but they are not synchronized swimmers. They get out of line.

photo credit -http://bobslifesongs.blogspot.ca/2013/10/safe.html

That is what I have learned after all these years of self doubt and running back to third base time after time. I have to take a chance, take a breath, not looking backwards, run and slide into home base. After the dust settles and I pick myself up, I might see the ump signalling, “SAFE”! with his arms.

CONFIDENCE BUILDING SUNDAY

Posted on July 13, 2014 by hafong

Image from http://www.planetminecraft.com/

A lovely sunny Sunday! You couldn’t ask for a better day to go for a bike ride. Can you believe it? I haven’t been on my two-wheeler yet this year. I can always blame it on the late spring and all the rain. But the fact is, I am a bit of a scaredy cat. I always worry about falling. That, of course, preordains my fate. I blame my fear on my childhood. It’s a catchall for every insecurity and fear under the sun.

When I was a child in China, the bicycle taxi was our main transport if it was too far to go on foot. When my mother visited her parents in their village, it was too far for me to walk. I was too heavy for her to carry all the way. She rented a taxi for us but it was her luck to get the same driver numerous times.

He was no Lance Armstrong. He had no skill. He shouldn’t have been driving/riding a bicycle at all. In fact, he did get fired, but not before the damage was done to me. He instilled the fear of falling in me! Inevitably, somehow, he, the bike and us would end up off the road – in the ditch, among trees….Thank God, my mother was smart enough to tell him to let us off first when we got near water.

Here I am years later, the fear of falling still resides in me. It doesn’t help that I was into adulthood when I taught myself to ride. I would always rely on the curb to push myself off and to stop. That limited my riding range and enjoyment. Curbs are not everywhere.

It wasn’t till last year that I took some classes. I’ve learned the proper way of starting up, stopping and dismounting – without curbs. What a relief it was to discover that there is time to come to a stop and then dismounting. I had thought you had to do both at the same time. Quite often before, I ended up dropping the bike and hopping off. Sometimes the bike and I dropped! So no more of that now! No more scraped hands and other body parts.

After a lengthy absence I still have the jitters starting off. Can I push off successfully and remain upright? Will I remember how to shift gears? Can I find the brakes? What about the traffic? And on and on. There is no stopping the mind except to push off.

This afternoon off we went – pushing onto the streets of Saskatoon. We came to traffic lights and stop signs. We passed ‘GO’ to Broadway and double scoops of ice cream cones. No drips, no falls, no scrapes. Just some exercise, sun and a lot of sweetness.

WANTS, WISHES AND DEEDS

Posted on July 12, 2014 by hafong

It’s Saturday and the weather is oh, so fine. The floor is finally vacuumed and washed. I am sitting here, empty of words. I am flexing my fingers and wiggling my toes. I am trying, giving it a go.

I always go to bed full of resolve – of doing this, doing that. But in the morning, I am deflated, not feeling up to par. So then, I feel guilty. I give myself a silent talk, trying to drum up some energy.

I took Sheba out right after breakfast. We did a little fast walking/slow jogging. The sun was shining, the air fragrant with blossoms. The streets were silent, devoid of traffic and people. It was the weekend. People were away or sleeping in, I guess. I shouldn’t feel bad about being laxidaisydo (my made up word for my lazy condition). I scolded myself for this obsession of wanting – wanting to do so much, but not doing it at all.

I wonder how many of us have this modern affliction/obsession of wanting and doing. Can I/we not be satisfied with being – being still, being in the moment, doing one thing at a time? I probably would be able to accomplish more goals – turning my wants to deeds instead of wishes. I bet I would be more peaceful and happy, too.

I’ve found a few words after all. Not great gems but they have some value. Maybe they’re greater than I think.

LIVING WITH/WITHOUT MAC

Posted on July 10, 2014 by hafong

Here I am on the fast track again. I’ve been limping along on my old PC since June 28th, having killed my MacBook with a big splash of white wine.

It was a sobering moment. It stopped me cold. I sat transfixed, staring at my wet keyboard. I was not quick to the draw to shut it down, unplug it or to throw a towel over it. Instead when I came unstuck, I turned the computer upside down to rid the wine.

That was when the lights flickered out and the rest/Mac was history. It sat in a bag of rice in the basement for over a week. It had to come out. We were running out of rice. I should/could have ran it to the Mac Store just a few blocks down the street. I should/could have done a lot of things differently. BUT I didn’t. I did take it there two days ago. Too late! The hard drive was okay and the data was migrated into my new iMac.

Here are some lessons from the accident:

Don’t have liquids nearby to be spilled. Coffee, tea with cream and sugar are most damaging. Sugar corrodes.
Turn computer off right away. Unplug. I would dry laptop right away before turning it upside down. That’s when the wine dripped into it for me.
Run it to Apple Store.
Do not try to turn it on till cleaned/fixed. It could cause more damage.
Buy another better and bigger computer if can’t/cost too much to repair old one.
Get an external hard drive to back up your stuff.
After learning the lesson, forget the incident and enjoy the new computer.

I was a little distressed over the incident. Who wouldn’t be – my photos/writing AND the financial expense. But I had read a lot of self help books on attachments, etc. etc. It was a perfect time to put all that into use. What was done was done. So how was I to proceed now?

You know the saying that there are no accidents. I believe that it’s true. The ‘accident’ is a prod to awaken me to something else. I have been sleeping at the wheel too much. It is time that I wake up and take direction/control of where I am going. That is the way I looked at it.

I’ve been working on my HP PC and Windows this past week or so. It gets frustrating learning old stuff with a slower connection and on an old PC. I see in the moment that I need to be more- much more patient than I am. The past week of navigating on the old PC has helped me tremendously – patience wise and stimulating new brain cells.

I had to device new and different ways of getting around the PC’s sputters and hiccoughs. The Mac had none of that and did everything for me so slick and fast. It did put me into a trance.

Trances can be costly in many ways. But I’m still ahead. I’m enjoying the slick and smooth of Apple. I’m enjoying the the pictures that I thought were lost forever.

A YEAR LATER

Posted on July 9, 2014 by hafong

I think retirement has been good for me. A year later, I am standing slightly straighter, my smile more relaxed, albeit goofy. I’m working on being natural and ‘me’. My vegetable beds look awesome, don’t they? I’m slowly excavating and recovering the lost parts of myself – my core, my hard drive.

I wonder if I have been suffering from what they call ‘compassion burn out’. I do not miss work at all nor have any desire to revisit my place of employment of 34 some years. It is strange and troubles me sometimes. Does my work have so little meaning? I feel cynical and sarcastic at different times.

I thought I would be tapping out story after story of my life as a nurse. There were many stories over the years, some funny, some not. You could count on plenty of drama. There was always plenty of poop if not blood and gore. My blog was set up, BUT the words and stories were slow to come. My memory went blank. My mind fled the scene.

Now the blog sits abandoned like an unfinished house, waiting for the contractor to return. Its few posts are still standing, bravely holding the space till the once-upon-a- nurse returns to tell her tales. Will she? Can she – recover her nursing cap and pin? Can her fingers tap out the medical history? Only time can tell.

Meanwhile she is busy clear cutting the under/over growth of her life. Woolly and wild things can take over when you are busy slinging bedpans and saving lives. Now the weeds are being machete-ed. There are clearings in her forest. She can breathe. She can almost think again. She has resuscitated herself.

The bread is rising, the flowers are blooming, the guy is tinkering in the garage. Sheba is keeping a close eye on him.

She is tap, tapping out her history.

WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN

Posted on July 7, 2014 by hafong

When I was seventeen, it was a very good year. The Pan American Games was in Winnipeg. I had finished Grade 10. I wore mascara and eyeliner and had a $7 hair switch which I put up in curls almost every day. I was full of confidence I didn’t possess.

I invited myself to my pen pal, Gail’s home in Winnipeg (to see the Games) and a waitress job in her grandfather’s restaurant. The most surprising thing was, my mother allowed me to go. She was trusting Gail’s mother to keep me safe from harm.

Our mothers had met at the Immigration Office in Hong Kong. Coincidentally, we were on the same plane from Hong Kong to Tokyo. There they boarded a different plane to Winnipeg. We stayed on to Vancouver. Addresses were exchanged and they kept up correspondence over the years.

Feeling lonely and set apart being the only Chinese girl my age in town, I asked my mother for their address and started writing to Gail. That was the start of our friendship and the trip to Winnipeg the summer of 1967.

Thinking back it was a miracle. I boarded a Grey Hound Bus to the big city of Winnipeg all by myself. Gail and her family were virtual strangers to me. I stayed for the whole summer, coming home in time for school. I had more courage then. Or maybe I was too young and naive to be scared.

Winnipeg was much much bigger than our town of 600. Somehow I got around. Chan’s Restaurant was on Main Street. It was big, consisting of two floors. I worked on the main floor. First lesson I got was, You don’t get friendly with a customer. You do not sit down and have a conversation with them. Boy, it was a good thing I worked for a friend’s family! Otherwise I would probably get sacked.

I never did see any of the games. Mostly I worked. That’s what I remembered anyways. I did meet a few guys and saw a couple of movies. Of course that got Gail’s mother calling my mother right away. She was responsible for me so I sort of understood. I didn’t want to cause her worry. I did my socializing in the afternoon after that.

It was not the young guys that had things on their mind. It was the adults. Uncle Bing gave me rides home when we were working the same shift. He wanted to show me different parts of Winnipeg on the way. One night he took me to the airport to watch the planes take off. He taught me to drink coffee and smoke a cigarette. I liked Uncle Bing but sometimes he had this weird breathing – fast with a funny sound. I did not understand. He was married with children.

God protects the young, weak and innocent.

SUNDAY SAILING

Posted on July 7, 2014 by hafong

The weather had forecast some rain in the afternoon yesterday. We headed out to Elbow early in the morning anyways. We had waited so long for the first sail of the year. It was time to get out of Dodge, away from the traffic, noise and speed of life.

You can only speed on a sailboat if there is a wind, but that is only after you have the boat assembled and on the water. That is no small feat – for the novice and on the first sail of the year.

Two hours later, we were finally in the water. By then the clouds had rolled in. What to do? We headed off in the direction of least clouds. It was rather a pleasant sail. The rain was gentle and we had our rain gear on. We dove into our sandwiches for we were starving by then. Sheba looked on eagerly mouth watering, from her place on the trampoline. She got a bite of my sandwich when I wasn’t looking. I appeased her with her favourite rawhide chew. Satisfied, she settled down and looked off to ~~sea~~ towards the horizon.

The rain continued. We saw the clouds lifting in the distance and hoped that clear skies would reach us soon. In the meantime I was enjoying the ambiance of skimming across the waters. I did wished mightily that we had hot chocolate though. It would have been perfect then.

We got a little wet and after awhile a little cold. The captain decided we better head back for shore to warm up. The winds had died and we motored the last stretch -to the dock where the mosquitoes greeted us with glee.

And wouldn’t you know it, the sun came out in blazing in all its glory by the time we had a beer. I sat in the truck, out of mosquito range and finished reading Anne Lamott’s Rosie. By then I was feeling no pain, drowsy with sun and beer. I cared not what the men and Sheba did. I was mellow.

It takes an hour to pack up the boat to head home. Nothing is instant about sailing. What went up, must come down. Knots tied has to be untied. It was a process, much like living. A click and an ENTER work only in cyberspace but not on earth. I know that but sometimes I forget as I tap and tap, click and press ENTER. Sailing brings me back to earth.

A DANGLING CONVERSATION

Posted on July 5, 2014 by hafong

Life is like a song, like Simon and Garfunkel’s The Dangling Conversation.

“It’s a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.”

I sit under cover on the deck and watch the clouds move over the sky. The thunder roll in. Darkness washes over me and beyond. The raindrops fall pitter patter on the roof, running down the pipe and drip drops into the tub below. I am cocooned in the moment. I sit and drink my tea, thinking of nothing, suspended from the ‘borders of our lives’.

I have been reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. I have been trying to write and live by one-inch frame after one-inch frame. It is slow going, I tell you. But where is the fire? I am RETIRED after all. I have all the time to dangle my feet, drink my tea, sip my wine and sigh and sigh.

I try not to let wrong tenses, misplaced commas, periods and dangling participles set me on edge. However, that neighbour of mine has managed to irk me time after time. I find myself clenching my jaw and grinding the teeth. But I have not yelled. I am doing well.

Perhaps it is I who is mentally ill. It is all a matter of perspective, you know. I am so glad for Anne Lamott who says that most of her friends are walking personality disorders. Isn’t that a wonderful line? It gives me hope that I am alright and maybe interesting. I have been called eccentric before.

“Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
“Can analysis be worthwhile?”
“Is the theater really dead?”

It is hard to speak of things that matter. I am still embarrassed by my own passion, afraid people will laugh at my seriousness. I am afraid to succeed so I try to fail. I am no passion flower but a bud about to drop. I am a dangling prepostion, a participle or whatever you want me to be.

The conversation is coming to an end. My words are slowing down. I love the tap, tap of the keys as I slowly sip my wine. I am slow to learn my lessons but I am using more care. Time is passing, the minutes and seconds are ticking with each tap of my keyboard. I bid you farewell till our next conversation.

“And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You’re a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.”

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity

Tag Archives: life