This time of year reminds me most of my father, and probably more than the middle of the summer does. Many of you probably know that my Dad passed away last July. My stepmother and brothers kept him on life support until I could arrive and say my "goodbyes". It was a very trying time for me. Not just because I never imagined my father dying, but because my father and I had become close over the last few years--although we hadn't seen each other in decades. I'm sure everyone has something to say about their parents, and often in retrospect, we think only of the good things about our parents. My father was not a perfect man. I don't expect that he would want me to say he was since as I tell you about him you'll realize he was very much realistic about who he was. My father was born in Hong Kong, supposedly--let's not get into how many fled China before World War 2 and may or may not have been born in Hong Kong. He was a British citizen therefore by birth but became a naturalized American citizen. He loved the United States of America--at least when I was little. I suppose it's because of all the freedoms that we have that those of us born here, yes even myself, assume is a God given right. Certainly in many regions of the world, particularly in the 1960s, he couldn't have dated my mother, a beautiful American woman of German and Polish decent. I know he remembered the 60s and 70s quite vividly (impressive, for someone I suspect smoked a lot of pot in his day since "everyone did it"--except Bill Clinton). He met my mother while in college, but it was years before he'd even speak about her with me. Daddy went to college here in the US, finished a Bachelors and Masters in Mechanical Engineering, and eventually went on to start his own business as a consultant in the early 80s. His business flourished enough to help me through college (til I dropped out), raise 3 more children, provide them great educations and a stable home life. My father essentially lived the American Dream.
My father, as I eluded, became an adult in the era of Civil Rights (or lack thereof). His friends were all "white" and of course, so was my mom. My dad called me one day asking me what I thought of inter-racial marriages. Apparently, one of my brothers, in college at the time, had started dating a young caucasian lady. Dad was a little mortified. He thought I should talk to my brother and explain to him how horrible of an idea this was and how "rough" it had been on me growing up. I kind of laughed. Come on. Was he serious? Well, yes, actually he was. My father remembered what he and my mother had endured. Ok. I'm clueless. They, neither of them, ever really said anything to me about it. I mean, yea, I suppose I can see it. I've seen the videos and read the books, but yea, really actually clueless. I believe he was a little confused. What about how I'd been treated around my grandparents farm? Hmmm, Yea, well, about that, it was an area with a large Hungarian population. Umm, they look just like Mongolians, and technically Daddy was Mongolian and Chinese. Most of the kids assumed that I was a mix of German and Slav or Hungarian. Not really a big issue. We talked about my view of the world then and now, but my dad asked me to talk to my brother anyway. I don't know if I changed Daddy's mind about the world, but I know he was very fond of my brother's girlfriend now when he passed. A beautiful and smart woman, regardless of race, that makes my brother happy and vice versa. I prefer a world where race isn't an issue, and I think Daddy would agree.
Funny when I think about it, but Daddy also had become one of the Chinese Elders. For those of you that know absolutely nothing about the Chinese community, they are more tight knit than a bunch of in-bred rednecks in the hills of West Virginia (or any other hickville central where they "don' like yo'r kind 'round 'dese parts"). I'm serious. The Elders in San Francisco in the 1960s tried to have Bruce Lee killed for teaching "white" people Kung Fu. I have such a hard time picturing my father as one of the Elders. I mean I know he was, but I picture them stuffy and walking about in black kung fu "pajamas" (yes, I think of them as pajamas) and kung fu shoes. Of course, being one of the Elders, gave my father an interesting story to tell. New York's City Council and Mayor Ed Koch had decided that there would be no fireworks allowed in the city one year. First, you just can't have Chinese New Year without fireworks; it'd be like the 4th of July with no fireworks. As if. Next, well, you have to expect the Elders to have something to say about it. My father stood in front of the City Council and told them that the fireworks were needed not just because of tradition, but because the fireworks "scare off evil spirits". In my father's version, they laughed at him, kind of writing him off as an old Chinaman. My father read off his professional credentials--substansive and impressive--but more importantly, he told them he was an Atheist. He couldn't explain "evil spirits", and since he was an atheist, he didn't buy into mumbo-jumbo or hocus-pocus. But there were some things that couldn't be explained, and "evil spirits" were one of them. That year, no fireworks, and NYC more than doubled the previous year's murder rate. The following year the City Council saw fit to change their minds...and allow Chinese New Year fireworks.
My father and mother both had been atheists. One day, my father brought it up. He opened the conversation with my mother's favorite philosopher, Bertrand Russell. Had I ever read Bertrand Russell? When I was little my mother encouraged me to read every classic known to man, but to my father's surprise had never stuffed Bertrand Russell in my hands. Daddy talked about how he and my mom would spend hours, all night long, passed the sun coming up, talking. The conversation was about my mother mainly and amused me immensely. He even called me her name in a moment during the discussion. I realized in that moment I was my mother's and my father's daughter. We spoke for over 3 hours about a past that I barely remembered. In that conversation, Daddy had told me when he died he would be worm food. The body, perhaps, but I told him that I simply couldn't justify that belief since the scientist in me knew that the energy of a living person is substantially more than the empty shell--much like we are worth much more alive than the couple of bucks that the minerals and water that make the shell are worth. The entropy value being so much, where did all that energy go? Dissapate? I doubted it and made a pretty logical, scientifically sound argument. Since my father still said to the day he died the worm food comments, I suspect my argument--logical or not--didn't win over decades of belief in this case. By the end of that conversation, I had realized that my father had gotten passed our trepidations, gotten to where we had a solid father and daughter bond again, and more importantly, I had moved into that place where a child is no longer a child, but a friend. It's a place not everyone gets to reach and I'm glad that after roughly 20 years estranged we were able to get there.
Obviously, I'm very fond of my father and his memory, now. But there was a time that I wouldn't say it was that great. We didn't talk for years. Perhaps the most shocking thing is, even to me sometimes, the last time I saw my father in person was 1983. (Long story that really isn't for this blog.) Seriously. I just refused to talk to him. Then I did the most unexpected of all, I just disappeared. Really. I was completely gone from my father's life. I suppose that was pretty hard on my dad. I had been Daddy's Little Princess after all. I don't think any father ever wants to think of his daughter as so estranged that she just takes off on her own, never to be heard from again. By the time 9/11 happened, my father's life continued to progress, as did mine. After 9/11 though, it was a desperate moment for me. I had it in my head that I needed to finish college on my own, that I had to prove that I did it without his help. September 11, 2001 changed everything. I spent months, literally, day in, day out, trying to get a call into my father's office in New York City. His office had been just blocks from Ground Zero. In November, only a week or so before Thanksgiving, I finally had gotten a call through...
This time of the year, I'm reminded of the almost 10 years that helped me rebuild and rediscover the great person that my father was. And I'm, unfortunately, reminded that like many of the volunteers that rushed to Ground Zero to help, many of the people that were there, so close, suffer immeasurable health problems because of the asbestos and other toxins that were floating the air that day and many days to follow. I'm reminded that many lives were cut short--perhaps even my father's. My grandfather lived until 2003 after all, so hereditary-wise, my father should've lived another couple decades. I'm thankful for the 10 years that I did have, I'm frustrated that maybe my younger brothers' time with him was cut short, and I'm saddened that my stepmother's had to endure the loss. My father was a great man, as were so many that passed that day or passed as a result, directly or indirectly, of that day. We never know what or when something can happen to change everything, and if there's any lesson that I'm sure my father would agree with, life is precious and short. The people in it are what make it worthwhile and cherish them today for no one knows what tomorrow brings.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Did you know? Things to think about before you vote...
No blog. Just facts--15 of them.
1. New school lunch initiatives require an average of 830 calories/school lunch. How many teenage boys do you know that this will suffice? Will they be thinking in school or starving? Or will you, assuming that you can't get "free lunch" be paying double or triple for multiple meals to keep your kid fed?
2. Current National Debt liability per citizen (adult, senior citizen, children and babies, ales--all citizens) is $360K each.
3. One out of 5 Federal employees earns $100K/year. Seriously, look around where you work. Is this the case where you work?
4. 77,000 Federal Employees (not just the President, Supreme Court Justices and most of Congress and maybe some key positions) earn more than the highest paid State Governor. Kinda outrageous? Consider the highest paid Governor makes $206K. Really outrageous?
5. In Illinois (one state, not even California), there are several Federal retirees making more than $425K a year in retirement checks. Go figure. That's more than we pay our previous Presidents per year.
6. The Federal Government pays for ads to get people to apply for Food Stamps. Seriously.
7. Approximately 9,000 illegal immigrants collected $4.2M dollars in Federal Tax Refunds for tax year 2011. That's approximately $467 per tax return. Wondering why your taxes went up?
8. In 1967, the Disabled in this country (collecting a disability check from Social Security) were 1 in 43. Today, it's 1 in 17. Know someone that you wouldn't actually regard as disabled collecting a check? That might be why.
9. Obamacare has increased the average health insurance cost by 3% in 2012. Keep in mind that average includes people that aren't working and don't pay anything for health insurance. For those of us working that might want a more accurate percentage, well, they don't have that number available.
10. UNEMPLOYED in August 2012: 12.5M. Finance and insurance added 11K jobs...(yea, we know who makes the money) while:
13. The trip to Spain cost over $467K to taxpayers and that was reported by Fox, CBS, and even overseas in the London newspapers. Wondering why NATO Allies are getting sick of us? Europe as a whole is struggling and several countries are having riots because of unemployment and financial difficulties and we are paying for fancy vacations.
14. Obama critizized the EU on the Euro crisis. Hard to find it, except in German, but the Germans, who are leading the way to try and save the Euro, told him to mind his own business. With our economies so intertwined, they need us to lead as much as they need to stabilize the EU and have realized Obama is not getting it done.
15. If you can get Obama's pages out of the way, you'll find out that most NATO Allies newspapers are reporting that Obama's Middle East policies are a failure. Hope you read German or Slav. 'Die Welt' reports "Obama's Middle East Policy is in Ruins". Don't think they're happy with us. They were thrilled when we elected him--now, not so much.
1. New school lunch initiatives require an average of 830 calories/school lunch. How many teenage boys do you know that this will suffice? Will they be thinking in school or starving? Or will you, assuming that you can't get "free lunch" be paying double or triple for multiple meals to keep your kid fed?
2. Current National Debt liability per citizen (adult, senior citizen, children and babies, ales--all citizens) is $360K each.
3. One out of 5 Federal employees earns $100K/year. Seriously, look around where you work. Is this the case where you work?
4. 77,000 Federal Employees (not just the President, Supreme Court Justices and most of Congress and maybe some key positions) earn more than the highest paid State Governor. Kinda outrageous? Consider the highest paid Governor makes $206K. Really outrageous?
5. In Illinois (one state, not even California), there are several Federal retirees making more than $425K a year in retirement checks. Go figure. That's more than we pay our previous Presidents per year.
6. The Federal Government pays for ads to get people to apply for Food Stamps. Seriously.
7. Approximately 9,000 illegal immigrants collected $4.2M dollars in Federal Tax Refunds for tax year 2011. That's approximately $467 per tax return. Wondering why your taxes went up?
8. In 1967, the Disabled in this country (collecting a disability check from Social Security) were 1 in 43. Today, it's 1 in 17. Know someone that you wouldn't actually regard as disabled collecting a check? That might be why.
9. Obamacare has increased the average health insurance cost by 3% in 2012. Keep in mind that average includes people that aren't working and don't pay anything for health insurance. For those of us working that might want a more accurate percentage, well, they don't have that number available.
10. UNEMPLOYED in August 2012: 12.5M. Finance and insurance added 11K jobs...(yea, we know who makes the money) while:
- Manufacturing jobs decreased by 15K
- Average hourly work week is only 34.4 hours. (The government statistics consider anyone working more than 20 hours as employed. I'm pretty sure that includes high school kids at McDonalds, but don't quote me.)
- Automotive is still -7.5% employed compared to that fancy 8.1%. Add the absolute values of those together for the total automotive workers still displaced.
- 2008 = $52,029
- 2010 = $50,054
- 2011 = $49,434
13. The trip to Spain cost over $467K to taxpayers and that was reported by Fox, CBS, and even overseas in the London newspapers. Wondering why NATO Allies are getting sick of us? Europe as a whole is struggling and several countries are having riots because of unemployment and financial difficulties and we are paying for fancy vacations.
14. Obama critizized the EU on the Euro crisis. Hard to find it, except in German, but the Germans, who are leading the way to try and save the Euro, told him to mind his own business. With our economies so intertwined, they need us to lead as much as they need to stabilize the EU and have realized Obama is not getting it done.
15. If you can get Obama's pages out of the way, you'll find out that most NATO Allies newspapers are reporting that Obama's Middle East policies are a failure. Hope you read German or Slav. 'Die Welt' reports "Obama's Middle East Policy is in Ruins". Don't think they're happy with us. They were thrilled when we elected him--now, not so much.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
well, da-da-dat's all folks...enough said...
Honestly, one of my short-comings, well, I guess it’s one of my short-comings, is that I’m not overly forgiving. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ll give someone the benefit of the doubt. First and foremost, I firmly believe that the piss poor acts of some people should never jade you against all. I never judge a book by its cover. I assume, regardless of clothes, manner of dress, the way one carries themselves—redneck in Walmart clothes to gentleman in Armani—that all are equally likely to be good, or not so good, souls. In fact, I might be a bit of the odd duck, since I generally assume all are good souls until otherwise proven—by themselves—unworthy of that assumption. But still, once proven wrong…well, I don’t generally waste my time. Like my Grams used to say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” When I was younger, that’s all you got. One chance. If someone screwed that up, well, it was a done deal. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that on occasion, granted rare occasion, that might be too hasty of a deal. For one, I didn’t wait and see if they did it by “accident” or without malicious intent. Now, I might wait and see. I might. Afterall, not everyone is thinking about the ramifications of theirs or someone else's actions (although maybe in the case that follows, maybe they should be).
Recently, I heard that one of my so called best friends, I use so called now, was actually conniving and scheming behind my back for a drastically long amount of time. It was well worthy of a blog in March or April this year—especially when you consider that in February my sister and a couple of my closest friends asked me why I wasn’t thinking about moving back to South Carolina. I miss the Carolinas—the beach, the mountains. Where else can you be less than 3 hours from both? Only the coasts…ah, but I digress. First, let's clarify a couple of things. One, I've always had really good to best friend guy friends. Really (and you'd know this if you've ever read my blog). I don't expect them to be wolves in sheeps' clothing or jerks on a mission. I have a pretty good opinion of most of my guy friends. While this guy friend had given me pause, I had given him the benefit of the doubt. (Fool me once, right?) Eventually, he, himself, defined me as one of his "best friends". So when it became apparent that another "best friend" of the male sort might benefit him more than I, well, apparently, he decided to let me be thrown in front of the bus and offer no aid. I wasn't sure at that time though. I was disappointed to be sure. No one wants to think that one of their "best friends" would choose one "best friend" over another--and especially not after telling my sister that if I were to move back to SC, I did actually have one friend that I would expect to stay in contact with. Afterall, I don't take the term "best friend" lightly. Imagine my disappointment only a couple weeks after this conversation to find out that one of my best friends was in fact a jerk who simply called me that for whatever his motivation was. Still, not one to begrudge anyone, I just distanced myself--not completely but enough to avoid anymore disappointment. Or so I thought. Roll to July. In July, my new boyfriend (oh right for those of you that know how ridiculous, outrageous, annoying and otherwise less than satisfying my dating--non-existent dating life could be, yes, new boyfriend) finds my name on the bathroom wall where I hang out with this bunch of so-called friends. Now this isn't a bar, it's like a little clubhouse, and it's not a Sons of Anarchy or some random joint where you would or should expect this type of behavior to be considered even remotely appropriate...that said, the boyfriend was really upset. So was I,...now that I knew about it. The next evening this so-called best friend tells me that it's ok because "it's been up there for over 6 months; it's not that big of a deal." SERIOUSLY! Not that big of a deal? Would you want your daughter's, your mother's, your grandmothers', your sisters', cousins', nieces', granddaughters' names on a men's bathroom wall?!?!? This pissed me off so bad I told him that he probably shouldn't sit with us that evening. (My big sis is probably thinking she should come to Kansas to kick some *ss about now.) Now, for the final sting. Oh yes, there's actually more. This jerk then goes around bragging that he in fact wrote the crap on the wall. The disappointment just couldn't stop until all limits were off. I'm a pretty energetic person. You piss me off and I'll likely let you know it. Well, unless I've lost all interest in you as a human being...well, then, I've simply got little to say to you about it. Unsurprisingly, he'll only know how disappointed I was if he reads this blog, because I see no reason to explain what it means to be a friend to someone who obviously is clueless.
I've got to thank him in a way though--in gesture only. The outcome of this fiasco was that all of my so-called guy friends jumped all over me. Of the couple that apologized, all but one punched lined their apologies with an excuse coupled with a basic gist of "get over it". Really? Yes, really. Honestly, I've never been so hurt in my life and my ex-husband cheated on me while I was pregnant and rubbed my nose because in his mind a pregnant woman couldn't leave him. And honestly, having half a dozen of my friends treat me like this was my fault, that they left my name on a bathroom wall for over 6 months, not only wasn't anything to really truly apologize for, but it was my fault in their little minds was just too much. Honestly, since I thought they were my friends, it was much like being raped. Demeaned by so-called friends, people that I thought I could trust, who not only let me down all at once, but had no shame in trying to place the blame on me. I had often joked when people would ask me (including some of them) why I didn't have a boyfriend that it was because all I hung out with was a bunch of guys. But, in retrospect, with such little respect from them, I can't imagine any guy who met me, particularly while I was hanging out with any of them, that would think that I would be worthy of dating. If your own friends would leave your name on a bathroom wall, what could they possibly think of you? Knowing some of my guy friends that I grew up with, I know what they would think of a woman in that position--afterall, I've been "one of the boys" to them since we were six years old. It wouldn't bode well for that woman. And, I suspect it did not bode well for me to the guys that didn't know me that read it either. I was simply lucky that my boyfriend had known me for several weeks before he saw that...
Now, here's the thing. I still thought I was going to ride this mess out. I know, right? It's insanity for me to think that I should be around any of these guys anymore. But I did. I figured that at least 2 or 3 of them still had my back, and if I stuck it out, it would all come out in the wash. Then a really good friend finds out that I'm upset about it and tells me that one of these good friends actually told him 2 months before my boyfriend saw it that not only did I know my name was on the bathroom wall, but that I was OK with it!!!! WTF!!!! Yes...yes, seriously.
Here's the thing. I just don't know what to say anymore. I've never been so disappointed by so many friends, so-called friends, in such a short time. I mean every single one of them saw it. They could lie all they want, but it's irrelevant. Only one actually genuinely apologized. One of them that I truly expected to have my back turned out to be just as bad as the one who I thought was one of my "best friends". So I was the brunt of their joke. It wasn't laughing with me. It was laughing at me. I had no idea it was there, and in fact, to some of them that seem to make it more justifiable and more funny instead of less. Fool me once, shame on you...make a fool out of me several times before I even know it...well, enough said...
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