I used to be a kid

You'd never know it to look at me, but once upon a time I was a little girl.

It didn't last long. I was the oldest of four kids and was called upon to help my mom with housework a lot. I remember that at the age of seven, I was already doing dishes, helping with supper and scrubbing floors on my hands and knees.

By the age of eight, I was babysitting my younger siblings when my folks went into town for groceries. I already thought I was too old to play with dolls or go on the merry-go-round at the fair.

At the age of ten, my parents went to the Twin Cities for a weekend and left me to get my siblings off to school on Monday morning. As a result, I was late for school and my 6th grade teacher shamed me in front of the class. When I explained why I was late she said I was old enough to get up on time.

I'm sure my mom thought this was good training for my inevitable future as a housewife. And, my teacher probably thought this was a lesson in responsibility. But looking back, I feel like I was cheated out of much of my childhood. I grew up way too fast.

Is this what you would call old-age angst?

Setting goals

In 19 days, I will reach the first anniversary of my blog. In checking my number of postings, I discovered that I will have to post 19 more to reach 200.

Therefore, I have set myself a goal to post every day for the next 19 days!

I have to admit that I'm not good at following through with my stated goals. For example: I am the sort who is always going to start a diet next Monday; I am always promising myself I'm going to get my desk cleaned off tomorrow; I'm going to get the garage straightened up next weekend, etc.

So, here I go with my 19 postings. May they all be more interesting than this one!

The neck knows...

Whoa! Autumn has fallen with a thud! It's cold and windy and my neck is telling me it's time to dig out the turtlenecks and pack away the T-shirts.

I started wearing turtlenecks back in the 80's because of my chronic stiff neck in cold weather. This is not a good look for me with my short neck and stout stature. But, it's the only way I can stay limber in the head-turning department. I also do neck exercises to keep the noggin sitting comfortably on said stout stature.

I have frequented oodles of second-hand thrift stores over the years buying every color of turtleneck shirt. I cut the long sleeves off and then wear the shirt as a shell under under a variety of tops. I like to think of this as my "signature" look. Believe me, this is as fashion-conscious as I ever get.

The cool weather puts me in the mood to make a big pot of soup. Or, maybe do some baking...

So, farewell to a lovely summer.

Keep on smilin'

I love smiley faces. I have a lot of them because I find them therapeutic. I also have a large collection of Garfields with smiles--or smirks--depending on your way of looking at it.

I have thought about selling my Garfield collection but they don't have very much value. This might be because there are literally thousands of Garfield items out there.

I am the proud owner of such mundane articles as Garfield brown paper lunch bags and plastic sandwich bags. I have a Garfield mug tree to hold the many unused Garfield mugs of every kind I own. I also have a lot of Garfield Christmas ornaments packed away along with the Easter and July 4th decorations.

Collecting is great fun until one day you look at your collection and say, "Now what?" Over the years I have collected green glass, cougar pictures and figurines, cedar waxwing pictures and figurines, calendar art, cookie jars, cat figurines, etc., etc.

I'm not a hoarder but eventually your things start to become a burden. Ownership is no longer fun and you realize that the joy was in the "hunting and gathering". Once you acquire the "prey", it becomes just stuff.

So, as much as I craves the smiles, the stuff has got to go!

Any good dream interpreters out there?

I had that dream again last night...the recurring dream that inevitably ends the same.

The setting is always different, but the constant is that there are a lot of people to feed. I'm desperately scrounging around trying to find food to prepare and get the table set. Sometimes I'm washing up dishes or searching cupboards for dishes. Even though the background crowd is oblivious of me, I'm frantic over getting things organized in the church basement or the school lunch room or the stranger's house.

Last night's version was especially frustrating: a group of elderly relatives are assembled (all of whom are actually deceased) and it's dinner time at this unfamiliar house. I can't find enough food in the fridge to make a meal and I can't find any dishes in the cupboards. The obligation is weighing heavily on me and I don't know what to do, but I keep scrambling around.

We decide to go to a restaurant. The relatives all get in one car and leave while I get in another car with my granddaughter driving. Several anonymous people are in the backseat.

When we get to the intersection, the old folks turn left to go into town but my granddaughter goes straight ahead. I keep telling her she has to go back so she makes a u-turn in the middle of the road. But we are stopped short by a camel directly in front of the car. It won't move and a farmer tells us that the camel is just curious about us.

Finis.

It's the same every time. Not the camel, but my unfulfilled need to feed the people (or sometimes, clean up after them) is thwarted, leaving me feeling incompetent and frustrated.

This has been going on for years. Of course, I still occasionally have that nasty old school dream where you have a test you're unprepared for and can't find your locker etc.

What brings me down is that the dreams are so defeating. Why can't I have a fun dream sometimes? Why can't I have an enlightened or uplifting dream that empowers me?

And, what kind of putz am I if I can't even dream well?

A lot of apple thoughts

Minnesota has a bumper crop of apples this year. Apparently the erratic weather was precisely what the apple trees needed to do their optimum best. As a result, there's going to be a lot of apple pies and apple crisp in our future.

(I debated whether that previous sentence should read "There's going to be a lot..." or "There are going to be a lot...". I decided that one could say, "That lot of apples is spoiled", therefore the sentence would be correct.)

But, I digress.

All three of my daughters are great cooks and bakers. When I assembled my family cookbook several years ago, I got a lot of great recipes from them. Many of them are family favorites: apple sauce; apple butter; Waldorf salad; kugel; apple-sweet potato casserole; apple enchiladas; apple bars and caramel apples!

Now, I ask you, how in the world can you lose weight during apple season?

(I guess I should go out to an apple farm and pick some apples!)

Life is difficult for us Ditzes

I had a frustrating day yesterday greatly compounded by my own ditz-iness. This was no doubt due to the allergy pill I took the night before.

I had a doctor appointment at 10:00 but didn't wake up until 9:10 so I had to rush. When I was done at the clinic, I went over to Target to get a few things.

As I pushed the big red shopping cart to my car, I used the automatic door-opener gadget on my key chain to pop the trunk. I loaded the bags in the trunk, reached up and slammed the trunk closed. In that brief split second, a mental Boing! made me realize that I had laid the car keys down in the trunk! I desperately dug through my purse to make sure I hadn't absent-mindedly put them inside. No such luck--the keys were inside the trunk, all right.

Well, OK, I have road insurance through AARP just for such occasions. I went back inside the store to the service desk to use the phone. After several minutes I got a service rep on the phone and told her my problem.

"I'm in the parking lot at Target and I can't get into my car."

After an "interview" in which I had to verify every single detail of my personal information, I again explained that I locked my keys in the trunk. When I told her again I was in the parking lot at Target, I needed to explain that Target was a store.

I finally asked, "Are you in the United States?"

"No, I'm in India."

It took a while to narrow down the details of my location so she could figure out where my car was in the middle of a foreign country. She eventually told me the service truck would arrive in 30 minutes and I should wait by the car.

By that time, it was a hot, humid 80 degrees and I wasn't about to spend a half hour standing in the full sun. I waited inside the store for a while, fuming the entire time about Allstate (the provider of roadside insurance for AARP) outsourcing jobs to India.

After 20 minutes, I went back outside to stand next to the car. After a while, I went over and pulled on the door handle and the door opened. Duh! I had absent-mindedly opened the door at the same I opened the trunk.

So, I pushed the trunk-opener button under the dashboard, popped the trunk and retrieved my keys. Feeling sheepish, I went back in the store and called the Allstate 800-number to cancel the service call.

(I wonder if all those Allstate employees in India have health insurance?!)