A Blast from the Past ~ Bringing Back Aunt Ethel!

Years ago I had another blog, called Ask Aunt Ethel. I chose the name because I actually had an Aunt Ethel, and because I enjoy alliteration. I had to ditch the blog when I found out someone else already owned the domain name. Bummer!
It was an advice blog, and people wrote in asking my opinion on various topics. I made it clear I could only base advice on my life experience, as I'm no kind of professional counselor, doctor, marriage expert or librarian.
But looking through the posts, there are some fun and insightful ones. So I thought I might, from time to time, share one here. And I am, after all, a fully-qualified aunt of whom good advice may be asked! Disclaimer: You take my advice at your own risk.

Ask Aunt Ethel

September 24, 2011

New Bride in Tuscaloosa asked:

Hey, Aunt Ethel, I just married the guy I've been dating all through college, and we're moving to a new town so he can go to grad school. I also just found out I'm pregnant!!! (I'm due next spring!) Here's my question: Should I stay home with my baby, or get a job in our new town? I don't want my child raised by strangers, but we need the money. I don't know what to do! This happened kind of unexpectedly. Help!

 

Dear Tuscaloosa, first of all, congratulations on your nuptials and on your upcoming blessed event!

This is a complicated situation. But it's not a new one! 

I think you need to get settled in your new home, and then go find a job. That way you'll have seven or eight months to save money for when you aren't working. And then you and your husband must discuss what is right for you all.

I'll tell you that I stayed home with my five children. I was a stay-at-home mom for more than 20 years! During that time I did a little bit of writing, and tried one of those home party pyramid deals, but I didn't make much money. It was okay, because my husband made enough to support us. I was quite fortunate.

But looking back, I realize with 20/20 hindsight that I should have done things a bit differently.

Here's why: I ended up divorced after more than 20 years of marriage. And I had, in my mid-40s, no tangible, recent employment history.

This is not a good position to be in, Tuscaloosa. I had a few years leeway to get back on my feet because of the duration of our marriage, but what if that hadn't been the case?

So I decided if any young woman were to ask me whether she should stay home with her children or stay in the work place, I'd advise her to think very, very carefully about her options.

I loved staying home with my kids, Tuscy, but I feel that if I'd found some way to keep an oar in the workplace water, so to speak, I would have been better off for several reasons.

First, I would have had my own money, that I didn't have to ask for. I have a theory, which may be a bunch of baloney since remember, I'm not an expert!

My Theory: I figure the person who makes the money in a relationship is the one with the power. Now, you may argue that one partner in a relationship should not have more power than the other,and I'd agree. In a perfect world (or relationship) that would be the case. Maybe in some instances a couple is so well matched, or both are so good natured, the temptation for the bread winner to lord it over the one who stays home and does the scutwork is not strong.

Or maybe in some marriages, the roles of both are so well defined, there is no cause for dissatisfaction on either part. One works outside the home, the other takes care of the home. Lovely!

Or maybe there are even relationships in which both partners share completely in working outside the home and inside the home taking care of the home and children. Perfect.

But I've seen the other side of the coin too often. Most of the time, the one breaking his or her back out in the workplace feels he or she is putting more into the family/home/bank/relationship than the one with baby barf on his/her shoulder and unmade beds he/she never got around to making. Or maybe he/she thinks the other one isn't doing a good job. Whatever!

Second, (and this fits in with my theory, above), he would have respected me more because I would be contributing something

monatary to the household (I really believe men think in dollar signs and bottom lines. I'm not saying what I did raising children wasn't the most important job in the world; just that he didn't understand the value of what he was getting).

Third, when I ended up on my own, I would have had an easier time jumping into the work force, since I'd have had experience, contacts, etc. As it was, employers looked at me askance. Yeah, I could change a mean diaper, but what else had I done in, say, the last couple of decades? And though volunteer work supposedly counts, ehhh, I'm not sure it carries that much weight with most employers.

So if you can find a way to work part time, perhaps, while spending most of your time with your babies, that would be ideal. Perhaps a work-from-home deal, such as medical transcribing, typing, or something else you could do part time from home. Or perhaps you could be an in-home day care provider. A couple of my friends did this until their own kids were all in school. Now one is a teacher and keeps the same hours as her children; ideal for a parent. The other has her own business, and her kids help out. Also a good deal.

I don't know if I've helped much, but I hope I've given you food for thought. What was right for me might not be right for you. But talk it over with your honey, and think about your future.

Good luck, Tuscaloosa!

Addiction and Mourning . . . for my favorite Facebook game

My name is Anne, and I'm addicted to a Facebook game.

Some of you who don't understand the desire to play Facebook games may not understand the pure satisfaction and happiness I get from playing Pyramid Valley. My sister, Liz, plays, too. She, too, is in mourning and denial.

(Sorry for outing you, Liz!)

Others of you may understand, because you have a favorite game of your own. Perhaps it's on Facebook, and perhaps it's one you pop into your game system and play on your television.

It doesn't matter. What matters is a game's ability to take you away from your responsibilities for awhile into a world where you get to do something else.

Some people like war games, where they blow up bad guys.

Others like goal games, where they have to achieve something.

I like games where you built a little world and then take care of the people in it. 

All of these games have in common the ability for the gamer to control the game world, in a way they can't control the real world.

They must meet peoples' needs in some way, because millions of game system games are sold every year in the  U.S. alone, and millions of people play the many free Facebook games.

What I like about Pyramid Valley is that I've created four beautiful cities, achieved goals, and relaxed while planting and harvesting crops or choosing the "look" of my icon in a completely non-threatening environment where nothing bad ever happens. Go ahead and laugh -- it's fun!

It's not that I can't take "real" life. Of course I can. But it's nice to spend time playing with someone else's lives in a game. Maybe it makes me feel kind of god-like in this way. 

If you're not a gamer, you're not going to get it. 

And that's ok. I also like to read and watch movies for escapism, though these are more passive because you can't affect what happens in them.

So we've established I'm addicted to this game, Pyramid Valley. That's the addiction part.

The mourning aspect arises from the fact that the game will disappear from Facebook at the end of April. It's being discontinued. Hundreds of thousands of people are very upset about this, and there's not a thing we can do. (Big frownie face!)

I know it doesn't really matter, but these towns and the people inhabiting them, while obviously not real or alive, have become familiar to me. I've made the towns really pretty. I've had a great time decorating them, and placing buildings, trees, etc. in a pleasing arrangement.

Now it's all going to vanish into pixels and be gone.

I feel as if I'm losing a place and people I've grown to know.

Hey, I have a hard time giving up characters I've grown to care for. I'm still angry that they killed off the character of Chris in the 1990s television show "Silk Stalkings." And Beth in "Little Women." 

And I haven't forgiven Wilson Rawl for killing off the dogs in "Where the Red Fern Grows."

And I don't trust Nicholas Sparks as far as I can throw him. He kills somebody in every book he writes!

So it might take awhile for me to get over the Pyramid Valley thing. 

Be gentle with me in the meantime.

I'm a lucky so and so

Found out today is National Siblings Day. Well, I've got that covered! I'm the oldest of six, and they're all great people. Yeah yeah, we all screw up sometimes, but overall, a bunch of people who have each other's backs.

And that, from what I've observed over many years, is not the usual situation.
So naturally I served my own children well by providing each of them with four super cool sibs, too! Because I wanted them to have what I have.
You're welcome!
I credit my parents with our excellent situation. Dad always told me that friends will come and go, but your siblings will always be there for you if you build a strong relationship with them from the get go.
And he made damned sure we did! Even when it killed us!
So I've tried to pass this on to my kids.
Yeah, I know you hate each other sometimes, and that you get on each other's nerves sometimes. Hell, you get on MY nerves half-all-the-time! So I get it.
My siblings tick me off regularly. That's because we're human. And we sometimes find ourselves at cross-purposes.
But when the chips are down, we always, always choose each other over friends, property, money, standing, you name it.
And I want my own children to make these choices.
My gift to you guys is the same one my parents gave me and mine: Hammering it into your heads that you're stuck with each other, and you're in luck about that! You each have five lifelong champions.

Don't abuse this. Don't lie to each other. Don't steal from each other. Return what you borrow. Do favors for free. Admire each other. Respect each other. Turn a blind eye to things that don't really matter. Support each other. Never allow anything materialistic or ridiculous break you up.
Love one another.
As I love you.

Are you a Borderline HOARDER???

Like many people, I have too much stuff. Am I a HOARDER?
Maybe a little. It's not like I have stuff piled to the ceilings in my rooms, or dead cats flattened under boxes of unidentified stuff.
But neither is there a place for everything in my home, and everything in its place.
Like many people, I have too much stuff. And if I'm not careful, I could become a hoarder.
What will save me is that, unlike many people, I'm tired of the stuff, and I've begun getting rid of it.
Also, it should be noted that hoarding is actually a mental illness in the obsessive/compulsive family. We joke about hoarding, but in truth, a lot of hoarders have slowly slipped into their situations, and can't help it. They need professional help.
But back to me and my excess stuff.
Some of it has been or will be donated to thrift stores; some has been or will be tossed out; some has or will be sold either online or in garage sales.
I think my motivation comes from the fact I've recently started dreaming about moving in a few years into a much smaller space; a tiny house, of 400 square feet or less.
That isn't a lot of room compared to the average American house of a couple thousand square feet. And I've lived in even larger spaces. When we downsized a few years ago from a 4000+ sq. ft. house into an 1800 sq. ft. house, we got rid of about half our things. But the rest came with us, and honestly, it doesn't fit. In the big house, there was room to store everything, which allowed us to accumulate a lot of STUFF! Stuff that we don't want or need now.
As the kids grow up and move out, they'll take their special things with them, along with some furniture.
I'll select what I want to keep, and the rest, as they say, will be history.
Some of what we have was handed down to us by relatives who have passed on. My mom. My grandmother. My mother-in-law. The kids' dad. And that is hard to give away or sell.
I mean, how do you toss out your Mom's china? Or your grandma's chair? Or an entire carton of the kid's father's novel?
Well, a friend once told me she doesn't need all that stuff; the memories aren't in the china or the chair. They're in your head and heart.
So when you think about it like that, it's not so hard to get rid of stuff.
Of course, I'd like it if someone I care about would take, use and enjoy the stuff. But I've reached the point where, if no one does, I can get rid of it anyway. Turning it into cash, or giving it away for others to enjoy are both positive things to do.
Another thing people are starting to do is to question whether they need to keep all the photos and scrap books they've made or inherited over the years.
At one time, I maintained a large safe-deposit box in a bank filled with duplicate photos and negatives, in case something happened to the ones in the house.
Eventually, I realized that was nuts. But I still have many albums filled with pictures; albums that used to mean a great deal to me, but somehow don't any more.
I don't need endless photos of my children at every age and stage. I rarely look at them.
I remember with amusement when my oldest child was a baby, dressing her in every outfit she owned and taking pictures of her so I'd never forget  how cute she was in each.
That makes me shake my head now. . . how silly I was!
What lots of people are doing now is photographing their photos and documents, and keeping them on their computers or storing them in "the cloud." They are there for the looking . . . and I'll look at them more on my computer than up on a high shelf in my closet.
So I've decided to haul them down and let my kids take whatever they want, and maybe I'll find the strength to toss the rest!
Sacrilege! But necessary.
Then there's that box of stuff from back when I was in school.
You see the problem. I've been a borderline hoarder for my entire life! And my mother was before me, so I come by it honestly.
So, if you're worried you may be a borderline hoarder, just one dead cat away from being featured on the hit television series, "Hoarders, Buried Alive!"get rid of the stuff you don't love, need and use.
Then take the money you earn selling some of that stuff and buy something you really want -- like a cruise! And leave the souvenir coconut monkey cup on board. You don't need it!

The Grossest Generalizations

A headline on a Facebook post caught my eye tonight, and gave me serious pause. It said something like, "Obama refuses to let his faith be tarnished by the broad brush of GOP hate."
Ouch. Don't you think that's a bit of a generalization? Because, honestly, I don't believe all members of the GOP are haters, do you? No more than all democrats are, anyway.
How do I know? Cause I'm a registered Republican, and I really am not an intolerant hater, honest.
The fact is that in our country there are really two political parties you have to choose from if you want your vote to count as anything more than a statement. This may change, but for now, you try to pick which party has the most actions and stated beliefs that match up with your values, cross your fingers, and vote for your candidate.
Sometimes you choose wisely, and sometimes you slap yourself in the forehead a few months into your candidate's term and say, "WHAT was I thinking?"
That's the way it goes.
So I've got to say, I'm pretty much over people who post crap like the above headline. Come on, folks, are you really that much of a black and white thinker? Can't you imagine anyone who disagrees with you NOT being a "hater?"
Bulletin: Most adult Americans are registered in one party or the other -- roughly half and half, I imagine. Is everyone in the party you're not in EVIL?
I didn't think so. So don't buy into the crapola some people are trying to sell you to make you believe they are.
Not even all politicians who aren't in your party are evil. Many of them on both sides are just trying to make this a better country, per their own beliefs.
Don't agree with them? Say so with your vote, not with stupid, dogmatic Facebook posts.
I've never much cared for gross generalizations. Way back in my 20s, when I was married to a doctor, someone introduced me to a friend of his as, "My token doctor's wife friend." He then went on to say, "But she's not like a doctor's wife."
I beg your pardon. Since I was a doctor's wife, I was exactly like a doctor's wife, of my ilk.
Another time I was introduced to someone at a religious function and they felt it necessary to point out that while I was Catholic, I was okay anyway. What? I hadn't realized their brand of Christianity was better somehow than mine.
I can imagine what it must be like to be gay, or black, or foreign, or Muslim, or any other group of people generally -- well -- generalized as being some particular way.
A pain in the butt, is my guess, when it comes to being pigeon-holed by others.
So do me a favor and don't try to define millions of people as being the same just because of some label they wear. Remember, we all wear dozens of labels, and lots of them are probably on your chest as well, even if a few are different.
That suspicious-looking person you're pretty sure is different from you in some scary way, may be your kid's softball coach; your sister's boss; your church choir leader; your mail carrier; your new neighbor; your new doctor; your future organ donor. You just don't know it yet.
And in spite of their differences from you, they may be okay.
So take it easy on the labels, okay?
In general, I'd appreciate it.

Dinner and a Movie: Ricey-Spam-a-Lot and Bounce!

Here's something I like to do: Watch an old movie and enjoy some creative cooking. Here's tonight's offering; a little recipe for you to try out! And a great romantic drama (with definite comedic overtones! Cause I only like happy films) from 2000.

Ricey-Spam-a-lot

Tonight I was lazily contemplating what to make for dinner, and there wasn't a whole lot of choice. So I looked in the pantry, and I saw a bag of rice, and a can of Spam, and I thought, yeah, I can work with this.
So I measured my coffee mug of rice and two coffee mugs of water into the pot, and then I chopped the Spam up into chunks, and tossed them into the rice soup, set it to boil, and when it did, I turned it down low to simmer, covered it, set the timer for 20 minutes, and walked away to watch an old movie -- Bounce, with Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Bounce is a romantic comedy from 2000 featuring Affleck as an ad exec who lands a big account with an airline, and in the interest of getting lucky, lets another guy have his ticket home. What happens next changes his life, for the worse, then for the best. Paltrow plays the woman who's husband took the plane ticket from Affleck.

A half-hour in, my rice was nearly done. I unwrapped three classic squares of cheese and laid them on the rice, then went away for a few minutes while they melted. At that point, I fluffed up the cheesy rice mixture, added butter, sprinkled on some garlic and salt, and called in the troops -- who ate it all up.

I got some, and it was good! So was the movie. So give it a try. What's not to like? Rice. Spam. Cheese. Yum.

ch ch ch ch ch ch changes

Ch ch ch changes

David Bowe wrote, "Turn and face the strange . . . " and he was talking to me!

The last couple of months have brought about a sometimes feared, but always before postponed, event; namely, the rapid aging and illness of my father.

Dad has always been the rock in my world. Unchanging. Utterly dependable. Just there when I needed him, you know?

We lost Mom 15 years ago. But we were always going to have Dad. Forever.

A couple of years ago he had a few mini strokes which gave him pause, but didn't stop him in his tracks. About a year ago, he suffered a more serious lack of mobility due to a reaction to meds, but still managed to get around, much more slowly, using a walker.

He began to fall down a lot. Annoying, but not enough to stop Dad. He was still enjoying his life, making his daily rounds, flirting with the pretty young girl at the book store; arguing politics with his cronies at the tobacco shop; watching his beloved Hallmark movies while sitting in his iconic, red Naugahyde chair, chewing on his pipe. And always reading a good book or following FOX News or Duke basketball.

Then the big stroke hit, and he's down on the mat: 1. 2. 3.

Now Dad is, as he phrases it, "Lying tits-up in a hospital bed, waiting for somebody to visit or for the phone to ring all day."

He has lost a lot of mobility, can't do much for himself, and is now dependent on the generosity others for company and entertainment, and on the duty of the staff of his excellent care center for his most basic bodily needs.

Guess what? He hates it. No surprise there. He's been in charge his whole life. He was strong, smart, athletic; a fighter pilot; a business man; the head of his household.

Now, as he put it, "Some damned 20 year old girl tells me I'm not allowed to do what I want."
He'd like to tell her to put it in her pipe and smoke it, or give it to him so he could smoke it. But no smoking allowed.

He's still damned smart, which must be frustrating for him, because even on days when he's not sure what's going on, he knows his brain is, "really f-d up."

But this is his life now. He may improve some, but it's doubtful he'll live independently again.

In order to keep him in the very nice place where he's living, we have to sell his home, his cars, and take away or give away all his things. That just doesn't go down well with any of us.

I know this is how it goes, but I didn't want it to go this way for Dad. I guess I wanted him to be carried off bodily to Valhalla with all his stuff, singing a Viking song, and leaving me with the knowledge that he was smugly content in his life until the very end. Maybe his favorite actress, Scarlett Johansson, would have visited him the night before to chat and watch a Duke game.

There's no lesson in this. It's just something we all have to deal with, assuming we outlive our parents and siblings. And it's no damn fun.

It's no damn fun having to face the change in someone you love, or in the smooth day-to-day of your own life. And of course, as your parents grow older and die, they drag you along until you're next.

"Time may change me, but I can't trace time."

I love you, Dad.