“I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”
Sending love and light on Valentine’s Day with a quote from one of my all time favorite rom-coms, Notting Hill. (Click on the title to see that clip of the film.)
Art credit to https://www.facebook.com/WorldofLovehearts
I have a million seashells, well maybe not actually ONE MILLION, but I have a lot. Some are big, some small; many are so beautiful they’re lovingly displayed on shelves. To me, they’re all enchanted.
During the torrential rain when it was stupidly dangerous to venture out and I was forced to allow my leg to heal, I decided it was the perfect time to dust and rearrange my enchanted treasures.
In the process of relocating one of the seashells, I noticed there was what seemed to be paper stuck deep inside the cavity and that piqued my curiosity.
What was it?
A treasure map? A love note? Jewels?
Tweezers were necessary to extract whatever it was, and when I uncrumpled two pieces of thin yellow paper, I discovered THIS:
It appears to be a receipt from the Chong Hua Hospital pharmacy. It doesn’t say anything else that I can decipher. Google reports that this hospital is located outside of Cebu City in the Philippines.
Crazy, right? From the Philippines? Why was it in a seashell? How did it get there? How did it get HERE?
There was no date, no name, no treasure map, no smuggled diamonds, no love letter.
You can 1000% believe that I’ve peered inside every other seashell around here but they’re all devoid of any surprises.
The mystery remains…
Sorry for the typo.
I meant to say my Giant Monstera is my soulmate. I certainly should have done a better job of proofreading…my bad.
This guy is the cause of my freak injury. I know I should hate him for it, but he’s so beautiful, especially when backlit by the sun.
I can’t help but love the source of my trauma, my pain.
You can’t really see it in this photo, but the reason why I raced down the stairs in slippery socks (and fell HARD) was to get the Amazon package that contained the moss poles to help my BFF climb to new heights.
When we first met (at Trader Joe’s) and fell in love, he whispered to me that a little support would make him happy. Since I love to oblige, it was an easy request to grant, however, this proclivity of mine set the stage for me to become irrevocably injured.
Deep wounds take a long time to heal, but my love for this Giant Monstera will last forever. Pretty soon I’ll need taller poles and more support because he’s growing and thriving under my care.
Love hurts, but isn’t he gorgeous? My monster(a), my soulmate.
Update on my injury: Stitches came out yesterday (after two weeks) but were replaced by a dozen Steri-strips to help the eight-inch gash finish healing, which it is, but at a snail's pace, probably because I'm not a very patient patient. I'm a much better caregiver. The recommendation was no strenuous activity for at least two more weeks or it'll open up again and I'll need more stitches and the doc threatened me with an aircast to immobilize my leg. "Threatened" might be a SLIGHT exaggeration, but that's how I interpreted her words...
In my dreams…
Those Enchanted places
Where the past shall always be
Where the past shall linger
Quietly, in the present.
Poem by Athey Thompson
Art by Lucy Campbell
There’s an intangible, sort-of-cosmic backstory that might shed a bit of light…
It comes as a surprise to some who think I’m only all about shopping and seashells and being princess-like — when they find out I love football and camping and hiking. It might seem out of character, but I guess I’m a living, breathing contradiction, more faceted and complex than one might imagine.
For the first twenty-five years of my life, I didn’t care one way or another about football (or most sports) until I was pregnant with the one and only Original Angel Boy.
In a strangely illuminated memory, I will always recollect the fall of 1980. I was about four months pregnant and the disabling, extreme morning sickness had FINALLY abated, albeit without almost needing to be hospitalized for Hyperemesis gravidarum, just like Princess Catherine.
On this particular Sunday, I heard the sounds of football in the living room, which meant the San Diego Chargers and Dan Fouts were playing. I finished feeding the dogs or whatever I was doing in the kitchen and sat down to watch the game, drawn to it in a way I had had never been before that exact moment.
I asked question after question, hungering for each and every detail — what was a down or offsides or a running back. I was thirsty for knowledge.
After that day, I became a football fan, not to the point of wearing team apparel, but actually anticipating the next season and whether we’d make the playoffs or not. With the Chargers, it was mostly NOT.
It was that late October day that I knew beyond a shadow of any doubt — I was going to have a boy. It was all that testosterone, I was sure of it! In fact, I bet my doctor that my intuition was right. This was before ultrasounds were a routine diagnostic tool in pregnancy so there was no way to scientifically predict the sex of a baby. If it was medically necessary, I could have had amniocentesis, but that was a slightly risky procedure and not advised simply to win a wager.
However, right after I delivered my perfect boy a few months later, I said to the doc, “I told you so, I told you I was having a boy. I knew it.“
In 1994, the Chargers made their first and, so far, only Super Bowl appearance, against the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX. Of course they lost to quarterback Steve Young and the amazing wide receiver Jerry Rice, but it was an exciting game.
Recently, Angel Boy, DIL, and I were having a conversation about the Seattle Seahawks and why they’re not doing so well this year. When DIL asked a question about quarterbacks, AB and I explained the details of a trade and coaching staff…not only did she have no idea that I harbor an affinity for the game, but she also had no idea that my son STILL, after all these years, had stat after stat stored up in that giant brain of his. She was gobsmacked, as the Brits like to say. It was funny to see her reaction. To me, she said, “How could you like football? It’s everything you hate; crowds and noise!” I told her there was something exciting about the energy of attending a game that was infectious (in a good way), to root for your team.
As I said, some people are surprised by me!
Here’s the psychology of it, and since she’s a neuroscientist, these facts appealed to her: Following a sports team can give us a tremendous sense of belonging, even if it comes with a bit of intensity, Much of the enjoyment we get from watching our team can be traced to the feel-good chemical, dopamine. For a short period of time, we are diverted away from personal problems and able to focus on things outside of ourselves.
All these memories are being stirred up because the AFL-NFL playoffs are on Sunday. Nope, the Chargers (in LA now) aren’t playing, but my other hometown team, the Detroit Lions, are in their first playoff game since 1992. At that time, Detroit faced Washington for the chance to advance to the Super Bowl, but couldn’t make it happen.
Until this year, the Lions have gone thirty-one seasons without reaching a championship round or winning another post-season playoff. I hope they win because I like to root for the underdog, but since they’re playing the 12-5 San Francisco 49rs, they probably won’t stand a chance.
The other playoff game is Kansas City Chiefs against the Baltimore Ravens. I don’t have an interest in either team but the frenzy surrounding Taylor Swift’s romance with Travis Kelce, the Chief’s tight end, makes it slightly appealing because the cameras love to show Taylor’s reactions while she’s in a private luxury box. “What’s Taylor doing? What’s she wearing?”, that kind of thing…
Whoever wins these games will meet at the Super Bowl on February 11.
Still rehabbing my poor little leg, I can’t do much walking or a whole lot of other physical activity until the sutures are removed, so I’m probably going to do nothing but watch football on Sunday.
Go LIONS!
How was your Saturday evening? I hope it was better than mine, which you can probably surmise was spent in the emergency room.
Since I’m relegated to enforced rest at the present time, this might be a longish and rambling post…sorry in advance!
Here’s a little background to set the scene:
Lately, I’ve become obsessed with houseplants. It started gradually and before I knew it, I was fully engulfed in collecting, rescuing, propagating, and growing everything from Fiddle Leaf Figs to Calatheas to flowering cacti, and finally, MONSTERA. Yes, I’ve gone completely bonkers for Monstera.
I bought a giant specimen and had finally found the perfect feng shui location for it to thrive, but noticed that it could really benefit from some support.
I ordered a set of moss sticks from Amazon. They were due to arrive yesterday in the late afternoon and as I DO, I kept refreshing the tracking updates.
It was raining heavily when I finally heard the delivery truck.
I was so excited for those stupid moss poles that I FLEW down the flight of oak steps to the front door, wearing my favorite warm but very SLIPPERY socks; a gift from the original Angel Boy…
Without warning, because of course that’s how these things happen, I slipped and fell HARD. I mean really hard because I had been running, so my entire body weight slammed into the last few steps.
Since I’m no stranger to accidents, I sat there for a minute to triage the damage, upset with my stupidity and carelessness, When I ascertained that I hadn’t broken any major bones like a hip, I got up, went outside and picked up my package.
At that point, I had no idea what really happened.
The only part of me that had sustained the major hit was my left shin and I got an ice pack and lay down on the sofa. The pain was intensifying and when I lifted the ice pack, I saw a lot of blood seeping through my leggings.
WARNING: THE REST OF THE STORY IS KIND OF GROSS, not for the faint of heart.
You know how you have a feeling of impending doom? That’s what was going on with me.
I went to the bathroom, and before I looked at my leg, I brought out all my first aid stuff; gauze, tape, compression pads — just in case.
I washed my hands and gingerly and gently pulled up the bottom of my leggings and almost fainted (or threw up) at what I saw.
My leg looked like someone had slashed it with a hatchet and there was an open, gaping wound on my shin, all the way down to the tibia. I saw muscle and BONE. For real. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but I was trained by a wonderful nurse, and knew what to do.
I didn’t bother cleaning it at this point. I ripped open a large sterile gauze square with my teeth because I needed BOTH HANDS to close the two sides of the laceration. I did the same with the tape. After I placed a compression pad over the gauze and secured it with more tape, I knew this was no easy fix and I’d have to endure a visit to the emergency room.
I drove to the better of my two ER options, walked up to the desk and explained that I had a deep laceration that needed to be sutured.
They actually took me to a room immediately. I’m grateful that it was a slow evening and not very many people were there.
From the moment I arrived, everyone was helpful and lovely. Also since it was a slow night, many people came in the room to look at my leg. They praised my initial bandaging, and made jokes about why didn’t I sew it up myself, since it looked like I knew what I was doing.
At a time like this, humor is a great quality to possess, and I enjoy a good joke to lighten the atmosphere. I showed off pics of the grandkids, we discussed football playoffs, and they shared some of their more grisly ER injuries.
One person said she came in to see my leg because of how calm I was when I explained why I was there and she didn’t expect to see an eight-inch gash that must have hurt like hell, but I told her I’m always calm in the face of disaster and it didn’t hurt that much. (It does now, though. A lot.)
Because of the severity of the wound, I needed to have an x-ray to rule out any damage to my tibia before it got sutured. Luckily, my bone wasn’t compromised; no breaks or chips or blood vessel issues.
Other parts of my body are bruised from the impact, but my poor leg took the brunt of the fall from these beautiful but apparently now deadly oak stairs…no one has ever slipped before; I guess it was my lucky day, right?
More people came in to observe this AMAZING trauma surgeon repair the laceration. His wife was a doc too, an ophthalmologist, and we chatted about medical things while we waited for the suture cart and he determined how he was going to sew me up.
After the lidocaine injections, I couldn’t feel a thing, so I watched him work. It was kind of like an out-of-body experience. I probably bothered him with a million questions (like I always do) but he also taught medicine and he was patient and pleased to provide me with detailed answers.
A wound like that (think sharp hatchet splitting wood) needs layers of internal sutures as well as the exterior ones.
I had a total of twelve sutures and a few internal ones. After finishing the job, the doc told me how very lucky I was, because if the wound had been even a couple inches to the right, tendons and muscles would have had to be surgically repaired. Yup, I was lucky.
The tech came back in to dress my leg, adding about fifteen Steri-Strips between the sutures.
The nurse took a bunch of pics that are too graphic to post here and I know it’s going to leave an ugly scar, but I don’t mind because it’s a constant reminder to NEVER again wear slippery socks on those oak steps. EVER. NEVER. Lesson learned.
Not too long ago, the Angel Kids’ parents went to a social function. They weren’t too happy about Mom and Dad leaving because they rarely do, but as soon as the door closed, everything was OK ‘cos Grandma was there.
The kids have a solid bedtime routine: bath, night snack, brush teeth, read, and sleep. After their baths and a bowl of yogurt and applesauce, teeth were brushed and we snuggled together for reading time, my favorite part.
We began with a book for Angel Girl about a ballerina who loves to wear sparkly tiaras. I was peppered with questions and comments, “You love to wear a tiara, don’t you, Grandma!” “I have a sparkly tiara, too.” After her book, she turned on her side, clutching her stuffed unicorn, ready to drift off to sleep.
When it was time to read to Angel Boy, Dad had kindly left me with a chapter book they were halfway through, and I planned to read to the lovely child who was curled up against me.
I wasn’t prepared for what came next…and I can genuinely say that it was one of the happiest moments of my entire life…
“Hey, Grandma, how about if I read to YOU this time instead of YOU reading to ME?”
That had NEVER happened before. He’s gifted in math, but reading was sometimes frustrating for him, totally unlike his dad, who was an early and brilliant reader. T tested at grade level in school, but it wasn’t with the joy that reading brings to our lives. I always told him that reading was the gateway to the world. In my opinion, reading is EVERYTHING.
So of course I said that would be the most wonderful idea EVER in the history of wonderful ideas.
He read four chapters of his book while I watched; eagle-eyed, to observe (scrutinize) his reading prowess as a second grader, and his ability to successfully sound out words that weren’t familiar. The best part was that he didn’t want to stop reading; he wanted to keep going, but he was so tired, he agreed to finish the book the next day.
I was absolutely blown away, not only by his skills, but the way he read with humor and expression.
“Did you like that, Grandma? I knew you would because you love reading so much.”
“T, I am so incredibly proud of you! C is too, and we both loved to hear you read. How did it make you feel to read to US?”
“Grandma, I was reading and the words were like, just in my head as I saw them, and I couldn’t believe it, they came out so fast!”
At that moment, I think I almost squeezed the very life out of him, and I was more than grateful to be able to experience his “lightbulb” moment where everything clicked into place.
“T, that is what’s called REAL READING! I told you it would happen soon, where words you see instantly translate from your eyes to your brain — and you totally GOT IT!”
“I wanted to make you happy, Grandma.”
And he did. That was an understatement!
T whispered, “I love you, Grandma.”
“I love you too, so, so much. See you in the morning for buckwheat pancakes!” I whispered back to him.
For me, this definitely qualifies as a memorable, momentous watershed event.
I feel like I’m the luckiest grandma in the whole world.
I love visuals and this speaks to me. Does it resonate with you, too?
I’m not really someone who enacts resolutions for the new year because it seems like the perfect storm for failure and then I’d feel terrible about myself for failing and spiral into shame…BUT I do comprehend the concept of making good choices and not repeating certain ingrained ways of doing life.
This brings me back to my admiration for the theory of neuroplasticity and the works of Dr. Henry Grayson and Rick Hanson, as I’ve written about previously HERE.
Remember: don’t spiral. Evolve!
Graphic found on Pinterest
If this is a crystal ball vision of 2024, I’m cheerfully apprehensive (or apprehensively cheerful) about what the next twelve months may bring…
Do you remember the Grimm fairytale, The Frog Prince? It’s about a princess who befriends a frog who was really a prince that had been turned into a frog by an evil witch. The princess’s transformative love was the remedy to break the spell.
I’m in the middle of living a real-life version of this story, but I have some basic issues that seem to be obstacles in the way of fulfilling this enchanted experience.
For the last few days, I’ve been hearing a frog croaking in the garden and every time I do, I run outside and try to find him. So far, I’ve been spectacularly unsuccessful.
The croaking seems to emanate from the lower hill that’s covered in a mass of California native plants and I simply can’t locate my frogprince, no matter how hard I try.
Maybe it’s some kind of weird, bizarre twin flame scenario; the more I chase, the more he runs away. Maybe I need to take a deep breath and allow him to come to me. What do you think?
He’s out there right now, beckoning me with his hypnotic, sexy croaking, and I can’t, not for the life of me, track him down.
It’s important to note that this is a highly unusual occurrence; we don’t normally have frogs around this mostly drought-y part of the world and I have heard them so infrequently that I can’t even remember when the last time there WAS a frog around here.
If you could see me running around the garden from one spot to another, you’d have serious doubts about my mental state, and I’d have to nod my head and agree with you.
Why is my prince hiding from me? I am a princess, after all…
While I’m waiting for my frog/prince transformation, here’s what I learned about the spiritual meaning of frogs…
🐸 Frogs symbolize water and land. They help to connect us with the natural world and our intuitive side. They have the power to transform, mature, and renew the soul.
🐸 A frog’s ability to transition from one element to another — depending on its environment — represents change and transformation, rebirth, and evolution.
🐸 Frogs are symbols of new beginnings and creativity because they hatch from eggs and emerge into the world as tiny tadpoles.
🐸 A frog’s spiritual meaning is associated with fertility, good luck, prosperity, money, transformation, new beginnings, love, and the Moon (due to its close connection with water).www.thepeculiarbrunette.com/frog-symbolism-spiritual-meaning/
🐸 Croaking is usually associated with mating and is used by males to attract females, although some frog species croak to mark their territory or indicate their presence. Frogs may also croak because they feel worried or stressed, warning other frogs around them.
I hope to discover what sort of magic is needed to find and befriend my froggy visitor for our very own happily-ever-after.
If you see me kissing a frog, don’t say a word, OK?
🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
I’m not referring to the James Bond spy film, but lately some treasures from Russia have found their way home with me.
[I don’t even want to get started on the politics of Putin — he’s an absolutely horrible person and now among the world’s most hated, and for good reason.]
Since part of my family emigrated from Russia and Ukraine, probably to escape the vicious pogroms, I have an inherent affection for Russian collectibles. (Also ballet and vodka, haha.)
I have a hazy memory of playing with some Russian/Ukranian nesting dolls, or maybe it was simply my overly overactive imagination because I certainly don’t have them now, and I know that I would never have discarded them.
I went to Goodwill and saw this complete five-piece set of Russian nesting dolls for $3.99. I have a feeling that no one knew what they were, that the largest doll opened up, so SCORE for me.
The matryoshka, or nesting doll, is one of the most quintessential representations of traditional Russian peasant life, as a relic of quaint serf culture. Russian children learned to count with these handpainted beauties. Matryoshka dolls are used to illustrate the unity of body, soul, mind, heart, and spirit.
I can add the dolls to the beautiful Kohkloma bowls and spoons that were gifted by a generous neighbor.
In the mid-17th century certain handmade goods being created in the village of Khokhloma. Tableware was carved out of wood and then primed with clay, linseed oil. and tin powder before being hardened in a kiln. The result was then painted with floral patterns in red, black, and gold. One theory as to how the craft first started is that “Old-Believers” hiding out in forests around Khokhloma used these techniques to make it appear that the items were made out of something more substantial than wood and that gold was actually used in their decoration.
I have a Russian lacquer box that my mom gave me when I was in high school. She told me it was very special and I should always save the box it came in, which I did. It’s signed by the artist on the back and numbered, which makes me think it might be valuable. (No, the Angel Kids can’t have THIS box.) I wish I had started to collect them; I’ll put that on my wish list.
Maybe one day I’ll find an authentic Faberge egg at a thrift store and end up on Antiques Roadshow. A girl can dream, right?
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 