Rooted

Family Roots
Around Christmas, I decided to start researching my family history. My dad is gone, my grandfather is long gone, and I don't know much about his people. I’ve since learned that they landed in Oregon after a few generations of Westward migration from Tennessee. As it turns out both my great-great-great grandfather and great-great grandfathers were both preachers. How funny that the woman with such conflict about organized religion is descended from a family of conservative baptists.

As it turns out, the research is a lot of fun. Despite my ambivalence about certain more recent ancestors, I see how people become addicted. Tracing a family line is like eating Pringles, you can't stop at just one. Each new discovery makes me want to go a little deeper, a little further into where we all came from and what made me as I am.


Bloodroot
If it hadn't been for the Tennessee connection, I might never had found Amy Greene's Bloodroot. I started listening to it on a CD from the library to fill my long commute to and from work, but realize now that I need the book (to own!). I find myself wanting to spend time in the car at lunch, so I can have a little more time with the story each day. If that is not a good reason to buy a book (not that I've ever needed much of one), I don't know what is!

Greene's characters and even the places featured in the story are so alive.
I am only about half way through, but it has already become one of my favorite novels of recent years, which means that I think everyone should read it.

Family

Sometimes when I look at old pictures, I wonder what happened to her to make her so mean. She was so bitter. I wonder now, was she always that way? Was there ever a time when she was young when she was sweet or carefree? Did something happen to her?

I never think of her as "grandma" or even really as my grandmother. She was so different from my maternal grandmother, my oma, who spoiled me rotten. The closest I can get to her is "my father's mother". Even that chokes in my throat. She is DNA, not family.

I remember on one of my rare visits to her house when I was a little girl how she told me, "You have eyes just like your father's. They always could stare a hole through a brick wall." Maybe it was guilt that made her remember. Whatever it was, she seemed to disapprove of me, because I looked like him. My dad didn't talk about his childhood much, but I remember once when I was older he told a story about how she'd punished him for something. When he'd finished, my mom said "today that would be considered child abuse". His response was to look sad and quietly say, "It would have then too."

He had left home at a young age to get away from her. I don't think she ever forgave him for that. I was just guilty by association. Even worse, I was the spawn of a woman she insisted on referring to as "the foreigner".

And that's why it feels more comfortable to keep the distance of at least a generation between myself and that bitter, old woman who seemed to hate everyone. Even though she lived only a few miles away, I only saw her a handful of times when I was growing up. The last time was when I was in my teens. I had gotten a part-time job. I don't remember why, but I took it into my head to spend my sad little paycheck on a present for her, because I thought she might be lonely after her second husband died. As it turned out, a neighbor was visiting when I got there. This gave the old lady an audience to complain to about how most of her family was worthless and to make pointed remarks about how she'd be lost without my uncle, even though I knew my father regularly offered his assistance as well. Looking back, I am not sure why he did. I suppose as nasty as she was, some part of him wanted her approval.

She never saw, but I went home crying that day. After my father heard what happened, he decided that if she couldn't accept and be kind to his family, he didn't need her either, but I know it hurt him. In some ways, though, I'm grateful for having experienced her. She shaped my ideas about family. Without her I might have never known that family is not necessarily the people who carry or blood, but the people we love and who love us back. I wonder if I would have ever really understood that, if it hadn't been for her.

Freaky Little Dogs

Liline C. Papillon, originally uploaded by Martina.

Lily, who is the best and freakiest smallest dog in my house, has a skin allergy. I swear in her two short years she's had more antibiotics and anti-inflammatories than I've had in a lifetime. We think it's either her food or fleas, so she is on a food trial. Actually, ALL the dogs are on a food trial, because it's really difficult to keep them eating different things, when she insists on getting into everyone else's food. Plus, the others are all suckers. One of them actually lets her take food OUT OF HIS MOUTH.

Despite that, the new Salmon and Sweet Potato diet (I know, it sounds weird, but she needed novel protein and carb sources for it to work) is going well. What's not going as well is treating her for fleas. Administering Advantage is NOT a painful process (it just involves dabbing a little at the hairline), but you'd think we were trying to skin her alive. Every time she sees the little vial, she heads for the hills.

I think you know your dog is spoiled when having a drop of liquid put on her constitutes discomfort.

Random Sunday

Today brought to you by random scraps...

Diet: I have lost 8 pounds since the first of the year. Go me!

Diet 2: While I am still trying to avoid animal products, I still crave them. We had veggie sausages for dinner last night and all I could think of was that while it looked like a sausage, it didn't taste like one. It's the same feeling I get when I eat a Boca Banzai Burger at Red Robin. I think sometims it's better to stay away from faux meats and just eat things that have no meaty tasting expectations.

Sometimes I think that if you're craving something that badly, maybe you just make an exception that day. But then I think of the hypocrisy in that. If it's just about health, the occasional exception works, but if it's about cruelty, then meat can't be "wrong" except for when I'm craving a burger. Stupid conscience! Food becomes complex with you really think about it. Someday I will work it out...

The point for now: some things just cannot be faked. Maybe it's better to just replace them with other things.

Alpacas and Llamas: Cute! I have heard that they are very smart. When I lived on The Prairie (sadly, it wasn't in a little house, but a crappy apartment), there was a farm that used llamas as herders.

Red

Today I went to the hairdresser and we began phase one of my new hair plan. While my life itself seems to have become a haphazard mix of waiting, then flinging myself out to see where I land and I can't seem to stick to a budget to save my life, but my hair has a plan.

And the plan is to lighten.

For the past few years, my hair has been dark with the random bright streak - sometimes a bright red or fuchsia, sometimes an orange, but always on a dark purplish base. The plan now is for a lighter, brighter red all over with some blonde mixed in. First, though, we have to work on lightening it up a little, so today we began the reddening. By my birthday in spring, it will be ready for phase two (adding blonde streaks).

It's like a follicular metaphor for the the new outlook I need to cultivate. It's amazing what a lift a new hair can provide. It doesn't solve everything, but it's a quick, easy change that makes me feel a little less down, a little less bloated and a little more attractive. Sometimes it's the little things that make you happy. And that on its own makes them them worthwhile.

Happy Making Music

*In addition to having excessive happy making properties, this also makes for perfect cleaning music. Vaccuuming is much more fun if you can get your groove on while doing it! This makes me want to go see Burlesque again at Kennedy School where I can do so with pizza and Ruby Red!

Revision?

Lately, I have been feeling depressed. It all started after my trip to Houston.

Since returning, I have been feeling increasingly blah about a lot of things (weight, money, myself, my life, my lack of children), but especially about work. It kills me to get up and go each morning. I find myself wondering why I do the job I do. I think I'm probably just burned out. I work so much overtime over the fall and winter and spend so many of my work hours trying to make people happy. Even when I think they are jerks, I can't help myself. I just want everyone to be happy.

Lately, though, I've been starting to wonder, what's in it for me? It's certainly not money. While I work overtime making sure other people get their bonuses, I'm not exactly overcompensated for my work. But the minute someone is even a little discontented, I feel the need to go out of my way swoop in and fix things IMMEDIATELY, then find myself feeling frustrated when they don't appreciate it.

Don't get me wrong. Most people aren't a problem. Most people aren't even selfish. I have enough pride in my work to even want them to get what they have coming. The majority are even appreciative and pleasant. The thing is that when you're overly sensitive and prone to taking things personally, one person's bad vibes can negate the good vibes the other nine put forth.

Some people are hell bent on finding problems and start conversations with phrases like "I demand..." and "I expect..." Sometimes I want to tell them "And I expect you to not be such an asshole. I guess we're both going to end up disappointed." Sometimes I wonder if they think their heads will explode if they say "thank you". But, of course, those are the sorts of unproductive thoughts I usually keep to myself.

Still, it frustrates me. I place incredible value on doing things "right" and not being the kind of person who is unresponsive or uncaring about my work or the people I serve. I like helping people. I like advocating for them and making sure they receive what they are due. It's a principle thing. I don't even mind going beyond what they're due to what is simply right and kind. I have never felt better at work than the day I managed to talk a director into allowing to pay one of my reps early on some business that hadn't closed in time for a cutoff. He was helping his father-in-law who had cancer but no insurance pay for his chemo treatments. It wasn't my job to do that, but it made me feel so good that I played a small role in helping relieve a little bit of stress for that family at least for that month.

But I'm tired. It makes me question what I am doing. It makes me wonder if it isn't time for a change. Or maybe it's just time for a vacation. It's definitely time for something. The good thing is that if there's one thing you can count on in my workplace, it's change. I have my annual review in a couple weeks. I'll have a better sense of where things are going then. After that, maybe things will improve or maybe it will be time to take the sage advice of Dusty of Wenatchee. Who knows, it could be fun...