Sports "heros"

The Tampa Bay Times website shared the following about a visit by Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston to an elementary school in St. Petersburg, Florida: 

"All my young boys, stand up. The ladies, sit down," Winston said. "But all my boys, stand up. We strong, right? We strong! We strong, right? All my boys, tell me one time: I can do anything I put my mind to. Now a lot of boys aren't supposed to be soft-spoken. You know what I'm saying? One day y'all are going to have a very deep voice like this (in deep voice). One day, you'll have a very, very deep voice.

"But the ladies, they're supposed to be silent, polite, gentle. My men, my men supposed to be strong. I want y'all to tell me what the third rule of life is: I can do anything I put my mind to. Scream it!"

So...men can do anything and ladies are supposed to sit down and be quiet?  And men can't be soft spoken??? 

My grandmother or mother-in-law would have helped that professional athlete see the light...or maybe some stars. 

As an ESPN reporter wrote:  "You have to ignore a lot in order to throw Jameis Winston up as a role model for 5th graders."  (He has quite a checkered past)

We've got to stop trying to equate athletic ability with character...for the good of both girls and boys.

Crushed

Back in the spring of 2010 I mentioned in a post that I'd had my heart broken a little the previous weekend.  I never went into what caused it.

Saying I was heart broken was a little misleading...and yet at the same time it wasn't.  The issue was money.  Money and debt.  And secrets.  In 2010 my wife wrote a $5,000 check without telling me.  I thought the bank made a mistake.  It took a lot of effort, but my wife finally admitted she wrote the check to pay off a credit card bill.  I had no idea she was $5,000 in debt.  But it was good to have it gone. Except it wasn't gone.

In the spring of 2014 I accidentally opened a piece of mail that I honestly thought was addressed to me.  It wasn't.  I opened what I thought was my credit card bill and didn't understand what I was seeing.  That's because it wasn't mine.  It was from the same company, but it was my wife's bill.  She owed $20,000.  I was stunned.  We talked about it, paid it off.  She promised there was no other debt, no more secrets.

Today I found out I'm broke.  Well, we have the house (and mortgage) and retirement accounts.  But we have no cash.  Well, we HAVE cash, it's just that my wife owes more than we have--almost four times more than what I'd already paid off for her.

I thought we were a team.  I thought we were on the same page.  I thought we were working to provide for our son's retirement (I know that sounds weird, but he has a serious case of Asperger's Syndrome and his earning potential is very limited).  But it turns out we've saved nothing. 

It's all been for nothing.  Today I feel completely crushed. 


PS - On the bright side, no one will see this post, but at least I got to vent.

Care Package

Close to Easter 2015 I received a care package from a very good blog friend, Jolene of Jo's Jumbled Jardinière.  It was my first package ever from Singapore.  She's a very sweet girl--a good wife, sister and friend (some of her current friendships started in...well, I'll just say they started when she started school :).  

Jo included a selection of items for my taste buds and my mind.  The package had:

--Yan Yan (tasty cookie sticks with a pool of chocolate for dipping):
--Pepero (chocolate covered pretzel sticks):
--Inspirational magnets:
--Captain America (Diamond blocks):
--a book on the Evolution of Language: and
--a jar of candy--including eyeglass candy packaged in the shape of a lucky 8!  The jar included samples of Haw Flakes, White Rabbit taffy, lemon candy (Smarties style), grape Magic Pop (pop rocks).  

You're probably thinking (and I wouldn't blame you) that I ate it all too quickly to take any pictures.  But I did take pictures.  I lost them when my IPod crashed right after that.  I still had the jar of candy, so I took more pictures of that and the non-consumables with my replacement IPod.  Since I am somewhat cursed when it comes to pictures*, my IPod and computer won't speak to one another.  So no pictures!  I've tried many times.

But pictures or no pictures, I remember and appreciate your kind gesture, Jo!  Thank you!!!

PS - Thanks to Jo, I know that, after a brief fling with Malaysia, Singapore became truly independent in 1965.  50 years ago!


* I lost almost all of my childhood and early adult photos when someone stole the leather bag my wife had put them in.  She had taken them to her office to scan them--so we would always have copies.  Cursed! 

Context (and "So long, farewell...")

In early November I received a promotional e-mail from "Brad's Deals" touting shopping bargains for the day.  The first item listed on the Subject line was "personalized stockings".

That confused me.  Why would a woman need her stockings to be personalized?  Is it like moms putting their kids' names in their underwear before they go to summer camp???  I deleted the e-mail without opening it.

In mid-December I saw a Christmas stocking in a commercial.  Christmas stockings!!!  Of course, THAT is what "Brad" was promoting in early November.  This reinforces my belief that Christmas is promoted too early--before I'm ready to think about it.  Let me get to Thanksgiving, then start bombarding me with Christmas.

That said, merry Christmas to all (who celebrate it) and to all...farewell. 

I'm closing down Waiting for Wisdom. Saturday Night Live stole one of my stories, so I'm out.  It has nothing to do with the fact that I haven't had a good idea for a post in many months.  :D 

Thank you for humoring me over the years and being part of my extended family.  I over-shared like crazy here and you were always understanding, supportive and a wonderful source of treasured observations, humor and advice.


PS - But you're not free of me yet!  I'll still be visiting your blogs and commenting, hopefully on a regular basis.

Disappointed...

in myself.  I started to name this post "Today's yesterday", but that might have given the impression I think this post is deep.  It's not.


During quiet moments it's not unusual for some of my own recent events to come back to me. Conversations, encounters, decisions...anything, it doesn't have to be a big thing.  It's not intentional.  It's just where my mind goes at times.  We all do it to some extent.


As I was commuting home yesterday I remembered seeing a story on the news last week about a murder near a gas station in a neighboring county.  As my wife walked through the room that evening I said, "Hey look, gas is $1.97 there."


Gas!  A man had been killed and I was noticing the price of gas.  At the time I didn't think anything of it.  But it was bad.  I didn't realize I'd gotten desensitized to the news.  I shared this story with a friend at work and he laughed--but out of surprise rather than thinking it's funny.


Any suggestions on how to re-sensitize? 

Sleep Cycles

My belief that some of us are simply born to be night owls keeps growing stronger.  That was given a big boost this week when a friend posted that her baby preferred to sleep all day and stay up all night.  She's doing everything possible (short of drugs) to flip that around, but it's hard to fight mother nature. 

I know, because I am one of those night owls. 

As a small child I tossed and turned almost every night when trying to get to sleep.  Eventually I'd give up. 

• Then my feet would go up on the wall. 
• Then I'd sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. 
• Look out the window. 
• Sit in the rocking chair in the living room. 
• Then sit on the end of my parent's bed, in case one of them was awake.

If one of them was awake, they were too smart to admit it.  Eventually I'd go back to bed.  Morning would come too soon.  Morning still comes too soon. 

My daughter takes after me with regard to sleep.  So it was no surprise to me when our then-4 year-old daughter told us she'd seen a cartoon that was only on at 2am.  She saw a commercial for the show and said, "I watched that last night."  My wife said that was impossible, but our girl described it too well to be mistaken.

I suspect there might actually be more of "us" than there are of the early-to-bed crowd, but they run the world.  They get up early and make all the rules while the rest of us are still sleeping!  :D 

Candyman

The version given to us by the "greatest generation" granted childhood wishes ("you can even eat the dishes"). 

The version created by the baby boomers will kill you just for saying his name. 

This could mean nothing...maybe it's not a trend...but I'm suddenly worried about what the millennials are going to do!!!  (As soon as they get out of their parent's basements.)


PS - You guessed it, I had nothing to post.  So I gave you a sample of one of the silly, random thoughts that cross my mind during my daily commute to work.  :D