Desiderata

Such a beautiful poem and an amazing way to look at and live life. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Thanks for sharing Jeremy!

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

Presents

I haven’t written much about Mr. Darcy, my beloved Maine Coon, but here is a story to appease your ever-parched appetites.

Mr. Darcy came to me last year unexpectedly from a no-kill shelter in town. Since I adopted him when he was still so young, he is understandably needy. Yes, needy is the word that I’m looking for. Demanding would also work as well.

If it weren’t for his cute persona, I’m telling you, he wouldn’t be worth it. I can hear your mouths all dropping to the floor right now. Well, pick them up. I said that if he weren’t so darn cute, he wouldn’t be worth it…but lucky for him, his is!

He claws at the walls all the time, most often when there is nothing there. In order for you to fully appreciate the noise he makes, imagine ten long and pointed nails scratching down a chalkboard. Yeah, that’s a nice sound isn’t it?! Thought so. Especially at 3:00 AM. That’s when I really love the noise. I used to go investigate, thinking that there must be some sort of insect fluttering about, annoying him to no end. But no, there’s nothing. Just the paint and the dry wall. Not even a shadow! Nothing.

He likes to play in the bathtub, which I am sure is in direct correlation to the reason that I buy Drano every couple of months.

He also can’t stand closed doors. And by can’t stand closed doors, I mean that he has panic attacks trying to get himself in or out. The scenario starts off by him gently meowing. “Mom? You back there?” Then it progresses to a more desperate meow. “Mom?! Oh my God! Mom?! Are you behind there?!” Then it get suicidal. He bangs his body/head up against the door over and over again. Thud! Thud! Thud! I’m pretty sure that he thinks I have disappeared when the door closes. Which, I guess, technically, I do. Honestly, I thought that he would have grown out of this by now…being that for ten months, I have consistently come back from behind the scary closed doors.

This leads me to this morning. For once, I wanted to get a shower and have the bathroom get steamy and warm. But, this was not to be. I fed Darcy to get his mind off following me around and tripping me up along my morning routine. I thought that if he was occupied, his attention successfully grabbed, he wouldn’t get in my way, but apparently the tuna/salmon/whatever fish morsels didn’t keep his attention long enough. I closed the door to the bathroom and distinctly remember the door clicking into place. Once in the shower, once I was nice and wet and not willing to get out, I heard Darcy going about his normal psychotic routine but ignored it thinking that it would stop in a bit. To my surprise, it actually did stop. I was shocked.

I continued on with my bathing. Wash the face first, then the body, next wash the hair, and then shave the legs nice and smooth. Nothing. No sound. Not a peep. Then I think maybe he’s dying out there and I have to save him. Like, maybe he’s choking! Oh no! What a bad mom I am! I turn off the water quickly, grab a towel and hastily push back the curtain. And there he is. Laying on the floor next to the toilet. Where he always is when I’m in the shower. And there’s the door. Pushed open. How in the world was he, sans opposable thumbs, able to open that door?!

He gets up and starts to lick the water off my legs. The exact water that I haven’t been able to dry off because I thought Darcy was dead/dying. It was then that I see it.

Something brown and circular laying just beyond the cracked door.

Peering at me. Leering at me. Sneering at me.

Surely not. It can’t be.

I move closer. Oh yes, it surely can be. It’s poop. A nice little piece of poop. Laying outside the door like a morning present. Saying, “Mom, you’re all nice and clean. Thanks for breakfast! I got you something...a present. I like to call it ‘a little piece’ of me.”

I got some toilet paper and pick it up to flush it down the toilet. I can’t be mad at him. I mean, I knew better, didn’t I? I knew that closed doors scared Darcy.

I guess I just didn’t know they scared the crap out of him…

Sexcapades and More....

So, I bought this condo back in April of last year and when it was finally complete in October, I moved in. I was told that my surrounding homeowners were about my age…many of them single. Well, in a building with 12 condos, me and the crazy Russian guy next door are the only single people. You're probably wondering why he is crazy and I really have no good explanation for you that can be summed up quickly.

However…

There was the one night when I was getting ready to go out with a friend of mine and had partaken of a glass of wine before he came over. Anyway, the doorbell rang and I thought that it was my friend; even when I looked out the peephole, I thought it was my friend. So, I open the door, glass of wine in tow and quickly discovered that it was not my friend, but my next door neighbor who apparently lacks one of his front teeth. He proceeds to say all of this in a thick Russian accent, "Hallo, I em fram Russia and ma name es Vladimir. I leave next dor. I do nat know iv you er single er iv you hav boyfriend bat I vas vondering iv you vould like to came over for vings and dags." (I assume that "vings" and "dags" means "wings" and "dogs" or chicken wings and hot dogs – one can only imagine)

I politely declined. Sorry Vladimir! All that just to relay to you that we are the only two single people in the building and that Vladimir is a crazy Russian.

Back to the story at hand.

So, the people that live below me are apparently very happily married as I hear them having sex all the time. This sex is not your "regular" sex, I might add…not that I would know what "regular" sex would consist of…but this just cannot be it. The guy that lives downstairs gives his woman such intense pleasure, I am tempted to go down there myself to inquire as to the specifics of what exactly he is doing to her. They do these things at all hours of the night, mainly in the bedroom…

…until last night…

…which is why I am getting the slightest bit fed up. There I was taking my nightly bubble bath, which I so enjoy – I had the water extra hot, the bubbles extra bubbly – when I heard giggling from below.

Humm…that just sounds funny.

Let me clarify, I heard the giggling from downstairs. Then, as it usually does, it progressed into full-on crazy monkey sex in the bathroom directly below me...WHILE I was in my bathtub! But this time, because of the exhaust fan, I was able to hear with crystal clear quality, what exactly she has been saying – no, screaming – all of these times.

Don't get your hopes up. I'm not going to write it here, nor will I tell you. Seriously, I'm not going to tell you. It would just be too awkward for everyone involved.

So – this leads me to my question. What do I do to make my neighbors cognizant about their loud sexual habits? I am overjoyed that they are satisfied with each other and their sex life, and I hope one day to share that with someone, but do I have to be brought into it right now and through no enjoyment of my own? I feel like a voyeur in my own home – only, luckily, I can't see them!

I was asked today over lunch with Duchess and BB Logan what I do when the sexcapades start. "Do I put a pillow over my head, put in ear plugs?" "No," I replied, "I listen and that might bother me most of all!" I mean, come on! Being abstinent is one thing…but having sex shoved into my bedroom at 3:00 AM (YES – it wakes me up in the middle of the night) or in my bathroom at 10:30 PM is like taking a kid into a candy store and then telling her she can can only have broccoli - it's nutritious and delicious!

I need your advice!

Suggestions? Questions? Comments? Concerns?

Getting to Know Me

I think I’m hard to get to know. I don’t set out to be mysterious and when people tell me that I am, I laugh it off thinking they must be kidding. I feel that I am an open book on most occasions. But I’ve heard this so much recently that I’m starting to believe it. Maybe I am hard to know…maybe I’ve got walls that don’t come tumbling down so easily.

Isn’t that okay though?

Why do people feel the need to be so available? Put themselves so out there to the world? I’m laughing right now, because isn’t that what we bloggers do? We put our lives, loves, dreams all on the internet for everyone to see. But is it real? Is what I type and what you read about me, is that really me? Or is it what I want you to know of me? I choose to think that there is more depth to me than what I write in the entries on this blog address.

Someone asked me this weekend why I don’t divulge myself readily. I laughed it off and said something smart like “Oh, does my mysteriousness turn you on?” But he wasn’t laughing. He was serious. “Really, I’ve known you for a long time, but I don’t feel like I know you. Really know you. Why is that? Why don’t you talk about yourself?”

I don’t talk about myself because I think that if people wanted to know they would ask. Do you want to know what my dreams are for my life? Do you want to know what I would do if I had the courage? Do you want to know what my favorite number is? How about my favorite spice?

Ask me.

I’m not going to just tell you all of these “me” secrets when I don’t know what you came looking to uncover. If everyone knew all of these things, it wouldn’t make it special when you knew. Would it?

Now you need to ask yourself,

How deep do you want to go? How much do you want to know?

Realizations

Have you ever gotten back from something, let’s say a date – you think you look fantastic. I mean, you did a mere four hours ago. Before the dinner and the drinks…you looked, dare I say, attractive!

It’s upon your arrival home, after the kisses goodnight and the fake goodbye’s that lead to more kisses goodnight, when you saunter your hot self to the hall mirror and realize…Oh God! I look like I’ve been dancing in the rain…and not hot dancing in the rain mind you. My eye makeup is everywhere…my cheeks are flushed pink…damn my frizzy hair and damn the humidity! Crap. I wouldn’t go out with me. And he’s gone now so there is no redeeming oneself.

I hope what “they” say is true. Confidence is everything. Because if it is, ladies and gentlemen, I had boat loads of it before staring myself down in the mirror.

Perhaps it is like that Seinfeld episode about the girl that Jerry dates that only looks good in certain lights so he takes her to the same restaurant all the time. Perhaps I am that girl. Let’s hope that one of the lights that I look good in includes the hall light in the breezeway outside my condo.

For the love of everything that is good and holy in this world, say this is so.

Tonsillectomy

I haven’t blogged in awhile. And I’m sorry. But I do have an excuse…and a good one at that! What possibly could warrant this week’s long silence?

A tonsillectomy!

“Now, Sarah Ashlee,” you say, “isn’t that the surgery that one has when he or she is younger?” Well, yes. Yes it is. But I was never recommended as a candidate for the procedure. But I’m glad I waited because instead of scrapping them out (okay, I’m sorry…too much information) with a scalpel, they blasted them out in this new procedure that shortens healing time and lessens pain. Pretty much a win/win, wouldn’t you say?

I’m going to be completely honest with you here. I’m a fairly small individual. Often is the day that I am mistaken for under 18. Do I get carded for drinks? Haha, that’s not even a consideration! I am convinced that I will be carded until I am 63. That’s right 63. I even get carded for rated R movies. Yeah. You read right. Rated R movies. Like Scary Movie. I got carded for that.

Laugh it up.

Anyway, I digress. The reason I was telling you I am a small individual is because I was going on to say that I don’t deal with anesthesia very well. The only other time that I have been put under was for my wisdom teeth. I was supposed to be in and out in 45 minutes. Pre-op, surgery, post-op…45 minutes. I was in there for over 2 hours. The surgeon’s office had monitors in the waiting room for the people to watch (from a distance) their loved one. They actually turned my monitor off because my lifeless, drooling body was scaring my loved ones and the other patients loved ones.

So, needless to say, I was a tad apprehensive going into this. I must have told everyone at that hospital that I was sensitive to medication…just so that everyone knew. At least if I died, my parents might get something out of it…I did warn the doctors and nurses of my “condition.”

I arrive at the hospital at 5:45 AM to begin prep work or whatever it is that they do with you for an hour. I am the first one in the waiting room…I’m not going to lie…I was shocked that there was a waiting room. I guess I just never see that side of surgeries on Grey’s Anatomy. You know, the planned kind…where you aren’t wheeled in through an ambulance gushing internal organs and screaming all sorts of crazy things.

The nurse, who is older and who had apparently spilt her perfume bottle on herself that morning, calls me on back and explains the procedure to my mom, dad and me. She has me pee in a cup and strip down into a drafty robe. The only thing I could think was how stupid I was to not come prepared for this robe thing. I came sans underwear. Yeah. Fabulous.

This shorter, pudgy and extremely jovial Indian man, who I think was the anesthesiologist’s assistant, comes in and preps me for the experience of being put under. Or at least I think he was. I couldn’t really understand but a few scatted words. Something about, weight and feeling like a 12-pack of Natty Light. One can only assume. I just pray that he wasn't saying that he drank his weight last night and could really use a 12-pack of Natty Light to cure the hangover...

The anesthesiologist enters ready do get the IV started. He was every bit the doctor type that I always picture. Tall, suave looking, perfectly groomed. All in all, not too bad on the eyes…and not to bad on my vein…

They all enter. The nurse, my surgeon, the Indian anesthesiologist’s assistant (AA), and the anesthesiologist. They ask me if I am ready. I say a few prayers silently, tell my parents I’ll see them later and speak that I am, in fact, ready to do this. And off we go. I’m being wheeled down the white, sterile corridors on my shiny hospital bed surrounded by a gangly group of people who hold my life in their hands.

We enter the bright surgery room and there are even more people waiting on us when we get in there. Who knew a tonsillectomy required so many hands?

They want to swap beds with the actual surgery bed. Fine by me, but I was thinking of my mea culpa from the morning. You know, the no undergarments thing. Yeah that. So, I’m trying to be very ladylike and watch the draft…when they start untying my robe! I grasp at the flimsy strings…Oh God! The nurse tells me that they have to be untied but fails to explain sufficiently why. Well, there it is. My pale little arse. I’m sure it’s nothing they haven’t seen before.

They strap me down to my new bed. Why? I wonder.

AA puts an oxygen mask over my face and tells me to keep taking deep, long breaths. I think about when I was younger at the dentist office and they would call it a Mickey Mouse nose to get us comfortable wearing it…like it was dress up or something. Only you feel really silly and giddy afterwards.

I’m taking my deep, long breaths like a champ when it feels like I can’t catch my breath. Everyone starts blurring and it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest. I can’t breathe! I panic and stop taking the deep, long breaths! Screw deep, long breaths! AA is forcing the oxygen mask on my face. I’m strapped down! Oh God! I can’t breathe! They’re killing me! It’s like a bad Lifetime movie…only it’s not the husband this time…it’s the surgery team!

In an Indian accent, “Sarah, keep breathing. Deep breaths, Sarah. Come on.” Then everything gets painfully loud.

An hour and a half later I wake up in a new room, surrounded by new people, starring out at a Tennessee hillside. I’ve got an ice pack tied on my neck and face and I’m under straight-from-the-dryer hospital blankets.

“Well, well, well, look who’s up! Welcome back!” The nurse strides gleefully over to me. “We’ve been watching you because you look so peaceful when you are sleep.” I wonder how this was possible…looking peaceful with a huge ice bag around my head.

She gives me a list of beverage options, I choose Ginger Ale (bad choice, by the way – carbonation on raw tissue = not good). I lay there, dozing in and out of a drugged out sleep for probably 30 minutes. Finally, I muster up the strength to speak. “Can I see my mom? When can I leave?”

My parents get back there. The nurse dresses me and then wheels me out in a wheelchair to my parent’s waiting car.

I slept the rest of the day. Conked out in my parent’s game room, waking only for popsicles and strawberry ice cream.