My Button Box

That song came on the radio today.  I have always thought it was just silly, and still do.  But I have heard lately from somewhere, (I think Wayne told me) that it was about Buddy Holly and his death, and even though I still think the lyrics are nonsense, I can empathize with the sentiment.

I think everyone has their “American Pies”.  A bright and shining symbol of an ideal, that is suddenly gone from this world leaving a hole in the fabric of reality.  It is a person of great talent or charisma, who brought to this world, something special that touched our souls with beauty.  One day they are there, bringing a bright spot to your day and the next, they are gone in some tragedy that leaves an empty place in your heart.

The first time I actually was mature enough to notice was when Jim Henson died.  I have watched Sesame Street for years with my kids and The Muppet Show has always had a charming humor that I adored.  When I heard that he was gone, from something as silly as the flu, I cried.  A tiny light in my life was extinguished and although we have all of his work on film, there will never be any more.   A great talent is gone.

John Lennon was another “American Pie” for me.  Such a senseless murder, and such a senseless reason to remove a man who helped usher in a new age of America.  I am angry that I have been deprived of all the music and ideas that he may have developed in later years.

When Princess Diana got married, it was THE Cinderella Story.  When she was killed, in a car wreck, fleeing from the press, I was shocked, appalled and stricken.  A lovely woman, who had dazzled the world, crushed because of the greed of the publicity hounds.  How dare they!  I miss her.  She was a PRINCESS!

Lately, the death of Steve Irwin has made me so sad.  Aside from all the wonderful good he did for ecology and wildlife, I will miss knowing that he is on this earth.  I enjoyed his courage, and especially his enthusiasm for some of the creepiest creatures on this planet.  I will never forget him happily exclaiming “Isn’t she a beauty!!!” about some horrifying rattlesnake that looked like she was about to nail him right in the crotch!  His untimely accident was a shock and the world will never see another like him.

There are a few more people, who I will miss their talents and specialness, but these are my American Pies.  Their tragedies have touched me deeply, and I will always think of them with a wonder and affection.

So bye, bye my American Pie…. 

Yesterday the new computer came.  I checked and LO and BEHOLD, there were 3 com ports!!!  I get my hopes up too much.  This morning I installed it, and it seemed to hang up on installing the drivers for my keyboard and mouse.  I called the help desk and went through the whole deal with him.  He went to the lab and started examining the set up. While he was starting to tell me what to do the install seemed to blink, then finished.  We hung up and I finished the setup config. 

 When I left, it was working. 

Tonight I will make a sacrifice to the Digital Deity.

At my store, one of the registers, 02, quit working.  According to the rules at my company, the team members at the store are supposed to call the help desk and do minor troubleshooting (like making sure it is plugged in and turned on) then contact me.  Usually, the team members either a.) don’t bother to call the help desk or b.) call but forget to inform anyone that there is a call in.  So I didn’t hear about the broken register for a couple of days.  Actually, I discovered it myself when I was walking by.  So I called it in and it was escalated to the next level of support.  That means that they would call me back.

I didn’t hear from them, so I asked around and found out (after a couple of days) that the help desk level 2 had sent it to the dispatch department which means that they would send out a Dell technician, as all our registers are Dell computers and have service agreements.  A week goes by and still it is broken.  I have 8 stores to attend in my job so I am not at my home center much, so I didn’t discover that nothing had been done or why for a few days.  Finally, I call the help desk.  They have no record of it going to dispatch.  I open a new case and we start from scratch.  Level 2 calls me in three days.  We agree it shall go to dispatch.  Nothing for a week.  The next week I see that things have been moved aroung but the register is still broken.  I ask around and call the help desk.  The help desk doesn’t know what is going on.  Finally I find someone at the store and they tell me the tech came and broke something while fixing the register and said he had to get a new whatever he broke and he would return.  I wait another week.  Nothing.  I call the help desk and report what I have found out.  They will call me back.   Two days later they say the tech said he couldn’t fix whatever he broke and so he is dispatching it to Dell and they will send me a new register.  After a couple more weeks and two more phone calls, my Dell box is waiting for me finally.

I open it and it is one of the new model computers that we are going to now.  I start hooking it up and there is only one com port on it and I need 3 (a com port is a little socket that you plug things into the register like the touch screen and the card reader and the money drawers.)  I call the help desk and they say use the com ports from the old register.  I spend an hour unpacking and disassembling the old register and find that the com ports on it are side by side.  On the new register the slots for the com port are a new style that are vertical one on top of the other.  I try for a couple of hours to make it work but it is hopeless.  I call the help desk.  They go to their lab and say that THEIR register is side by side.  I tell them I will send pictures.  I call my boss, who says it should work.  So I send him and the help desk pictures.  They both tell me it won’t work.  (NO SHIT!!!)  Jeff (my boss) says he will forward my pictures to his boss and asset management.  I wait a couple weeks then call everyone again.  They will call me back.  In a week they call me back and say a new register is on the way and I wait.  4 days later there is my Dell box.  I open it and on the back are the same arrangement of com port slots but one has a Digital Video output plug on it.  WTF!

I call my boss and the help desk and report this latest offering.  They say they will call me back.  The help desk calls me first about 3 days later and says that they have escalated it to asset management and technology and they are meeting with Dell to reach a solution.  I say well, are ALL the FedEx Kinko’s in the country having this issue with their new registers.  They say no that everyone else got a different register with 3 com ports.   I say “Well then, you can tell Dell and the asset management team and technology that I know the solution.  They can send ME the correct register!!!!”  He says that was the idea they were working out.

I wait another week then Jeff (my boss) calls me and says he has a 3 com port cpu at a store in Columbus that doesn’t need all 3 and he will take them out and bring them to my register and put them in.  This doesn’t sound good to me.  I know that the software that is customized for our stores is locked down so no one can put unauthorized stuff on them and the software is VERY particular about how everything is set up.  I say can’t you just bring that computer here and we will swap.   No , no then he would have to reinstall and such.  This will work he says.  He arrives and takes apart the register and puts in the ports and we reload.  Of course the software says that it hates this arrangement and our platform is not supported.  It instructs us to call the help desk.  Jeff and I spent about 4 hours dicking around with it then he tries to call the help desk.

No answer.  We finally both go home.   While he is on his way back, they call him and tell him a long and elaborate process to make the software and the server recognize the bastardized computer we have cobbled together.  While I am going home some other help desk person calls to tell me that Dell has shipped me a correct computer and it should arrive in 3-4 business days.

I have implemented the fix and currently the register is working.  It will have to be all done over if I ever have to reload it, so if and when I get the legendary shipped CORRECT computer, I will install it.  Otherwise if I get shipped the wrong computer again, I will call the help desk and start a new case.

 God I love my job!

Last week was a sad thing.  Jim had to have the family Rottweiler, Hannah, put to sleep.  She had bone cancer and was suffering greatly.

 I haven’t lived with Hannah for several years now, although I did babysit her once for a few days.  But I will always remember and love her.  She was a family dog in every sense of the word and every member of the family will miss her badly.  My daughter Christy is having a bad time grieving for her.  I, myself can hardly think about it without crying long and hard, which is why I have waited for a bit to write this.

I have taken the time to remember the funniest things about Hannah.  We called her Hannah Banana as a silly name, and she loved for us to sing that to her in a nonsensical tune. She had a toy that Christy bought for her where you can record and when the ball rolled it played the recording.  Christy recorded the “Hannah Banana” song on it.  One night Kate came in to the house with no lights on and bumped it with her foot.  She said she freaked out big time when she heard that disembodied voice singing “Hannah Banana” over and over. 

Hannah loved puppies.  She raised several pups that we got over the years and when they were gone for one reason or another, she mourned.  She was always so happy to have a puppy to care for.

She hated men in hats.  She really liked my Dad, but one Christmas he came in our house with a hat on, and she almost attacked him.  The rest of the day and actually from then on she watched him suspiciously, whenever he came in a room, till she was sure he wasn’t going to put on a hat.

One of the times I remember well is when the girls came screaming in the house that Hannah was eating the guinea pig.  Our guinea pig had died a year before or so and Jim had buried it in the very back of the yard.  Hannah must have dug it up that day and was racing around the yard with a bony claw hanging out of her mouth.  We had to chase her and finally she dropped it and from then on we buried nothing in the back yard.

As the years matured her Hannah’s backside grew.  She liked nothing better when I was sitting on the floor for whatever reason, then to plant that huge butt in my lap and have me scratch her back and sing to her.  She would growl along with the tune and grin.

I can think of dozens of stories, as I know can my kids.  I know that as a family dog, Hannah was wonderful.  She guarded us well and loved each member of the family.  She had a good sense of humor and was smart as a whip.  Christy says she was pretty which is stretching things a bit but she certainly was a beautiful soul. 

My mom says that dogs are a great gift from God.  Hannah Banana certainly was.

We will miss you Hannah Banana.

My friend Mark and I were chatting today, and as sometimes happens, it segued into one of those world political theory discussions.  I just finished reading the book “Captains and Kings”, by Taylor Caldwell.  Basically, it is loosely based on the Kennedy family, and the theme is control of the world by the bankers and the ultra rich.

I have read this book before, many years ago, and I blame my disinterest in politics on it.   I know the crackpots love the conspiracy theories and everyone laughs.  I personally think that a group of men making the decisions about what will happen in the world and controlling all the events to be plausible. 

So I tell Mark about it and he says how scary that is to think of.  And I say “Why?”

Think about it.  If, indeed, there is a consortium of people that make all the decisions about the world and all the countries, who cares?  Someone has to decide these things.  Do you want to do it?  I know I don’t.  I can’t decide what to make for dinner tonight.  I absolutely hate taking responsibility for important things and telling people what to do.  I sure as hell don’t want to decide how to fix anyone’s economy.  My own checking account is enough of a challenge for me.  The country is in constant flux, with new inventions making things harder and easier for everyone.  We have such an ethnic potpourri and all kinds of new jobs and such, that our laws and economy need constant updating.  We need supervision.  Who in the hell wants that job? 

And as far as that goes, I can’t think of anyone that I want taking care of those things.  I know I don’t believe that the politicians that we vote for are actually the ones that run the country (Maybe because of Ms. Taylors book), and I am relieved about that.  I sure don’t want the real voters deciding things.  Most of the common man is way too…. well never mind about that.  Suffice it to say that the next time you are in Goshen, Ohio give that a thought.  The average American is way um…lets say undereducated, to be deciding world politics.

So who should rule the world?  I say let the bankers and ultra rich do it.  First of all they are obviously good at handling things like that.  They have their empires after all.  Second of all, I don’t think they would necessarily be evil at it.   After all they like the world they live in and it really is in their best interest to keep things nice.  As a matter of fact, I can’t think of anyone more suited to rule the world than the men that rule the corporate empires.  Basically, it seems like the same job. 

Also, in spite of the present day troubles, if you look at the big picture, things are getting better.  The world is alot better than it was, say, 100 years ago.  So obviously, these men can handle things.  So far they have managed to keep us from blowing ourselves up, get rid of unhealthy politics like communism (still working on that one), make us all environmentally aware, make a good start on world hunger, and hundreds of other improvements.

I truly expect those guys to come up with a solution for religious intolerance, but I’m sure it will be a challenge.  Geez, I am sure glad that’s not me! I’m sure glad it isn’t anyone I know or even heard of.  Thats a HUGE job and lets leave it to the men who have been trained for it and are already doing it.

It’s something to think about.

I got a call from Christy.  She and Rob were going with Jim and Fam to Destin, Fla.

Could I please please please babysit her cats, Marilyn and Monroe?  No, no, no, no, no, no…Okay.

Last Tuesday, she calls me from her cell.  “We are in the parking lot so get the door open and hold on to Meg.” she says.  I look out the door and there they are in the car. Kate had come along to help her and the look on her face was priceless.  Here they all came, Kate carrying Marilyn and Christy carrying Monroe.  The cats looked annoyed, but they weren’t struggling at least.  As they came in and headed up to the spare room, Christy says to Kate “Whatever happens don’t let her go….I don’t care if she claws your face off!”.    “Lovely” says Kate with a sneer.

Christy set up their pink canopy bed and new travel litter box, food and water dishes etc.  The cats went under the bed.  We set up a baby gate in their doorway so Meg wouldn’t annoy them or snack on litter box cookies.  They could hop over the gate if they wanted to but they could get away from Meg if she got too rowdy.

We needn’t have bothered.  For at least 5 of the days, Marilyn sat on the bed or in the window sill and Monroe stayed under the bed.  We went in every night and morning and talked to them, and Meg lunged at the gate and barked to get in with us.  Neither cat seemed scared, just pouting.  How dare Christy bring them here and leave them in this place that smells like that revolting, boisterous white ball of bouncing fur!!!

Last night Marily actually came downstairs and visited with us a few minutes…she gave Meg an annoyed once over and then ignored her.  After a bit of dancing around with delight, Meg settled down and watched her but didn’t really bother her.  Monroe stayed under the bed in disgust.

Of course, Christy is picking them up tonight.  I figured they would just start getting used to it and then it would be time for them to leave.  But all told, it was a satisfactory visit.  They are beautiful cats and they were not the least bit of trouble.  I am glad they didn’t have to stay at a kennel.

I love my grandcats

Today was one of those Pre-Spring days, like we usually have in Ohio in April.  I was driving back from Cincinnati from one of my stores and as usual I took 48 which is an old 2 lane highway that meanders through farm country.  The combination of the countryside and the weather reminded me of hunting “Snakeheads”, a somewhat rare (for this part of the country) mushroom that grows in abundance in Michigan, but only appears early spring here in Ohio.  And that of course reminded me of Diane.  A good friend and totally unforgettable character.

When Dan was scheduled to get out of the service and I knew that Nathan and I were coming home ahead of him, I decided I wanted to live in an old farmhouse that my parents owned.  They had tenants that were moving out and mostly they used the farm for family weekends and such.  The farm house needed work and my mom and I spent the whole summer getting it ready for Dan and Nathan and me to move into when Dan got back.

The time came and we moved in.  It was quite a different lifestyle for me as our closest neighbor was a couple of miles away and all around me were fields and woods.  I didn’t work at the time and at first, being busy getting the house fixed up and exploring my surroundings, plus having an 18 month old was plenty.  But I had no friends or family within 50 miles and even though I am a solitary person, I will admit I was a bit lonely.  Dan worked alot of nights and was busy with adjusting to civilian life, and I missed the sociability of service life.

One day I heard a car pull up, and looked out.  It was an old beater, and out popped a attractive young women with a cigarette hanging from her lip and a little boy about Nathan’s age hanging from her hip.  He had a HUGE cigar clutched in his little hand and was gnawing on the end of it.  I was appalled!  I thought he must have picked it up off the ground when she wasn’t looking and I said “Um, your little boy has a cigar….”  She laughed and didn’t even bat an eye.  “Yeah my dad gave him that. Hiya, I am Diane Keeler and this is Jimmy.  We came to welcome you to the neighborhood. Y’all got any coffee?”. 

As we settled into kitchen chairs, the boys started off to the playroom, Nathan staring at the cigar with fascination.  I hoped Jimmy wasn’t the sharing type.  Diane proceeded to tell me all about everyone who lived in our “Neighborhood” which consisted of about a 25 mile radius of farms.  I heard all about who was married, divorced, fighting, cheating, and jealous.  All of it was gossip and I found out in the months to come, it was also totally accurate.  Apparently I had moved to Peyton Place.  A great deal of the turmoil, indeed centered around Diane.  She was very attractive and wore tight revealing clothes, lots of make up and kept herself trim with chain smoking, gallons of coffee night and day, and tramping through the woods, mushroom hunting.  The other ladies were complacent farm wives, who according to Diane, “Never gave their husbands any, and let their asses get fat.”  This was the source of all their woes, but they blamed her.

In the midst of these riveting revelations, Jimmy came in, soggy cigar, still in his grasp, and started pulling at her and whining.  Without missing a beat, she whipped a lighter out of her purse and lit it.  Jim solemnly drew and puffed till the cigar was fired and toddled off back to the playroom.  I started to follow. “Whoops! We don’t want to start a fire!” I said politely.  Diane waved me to my seat.  “Don’t worry” she said. ”Once it’s lit he will not let go of it till it’s gone.”  I got him an ashtray, and sat back down.

(As an aside, Jimmy quit smoking cigars very soon after I met Diane.  His Grandpa switched him to chewing tobacco.  There he was, all the years I knew him with his little cheek bulging and his Red Man in his back pocket.  I think Diane got a phone call from school a couple times, when it fell out, while he was playing on the playground. And once he was punished for sharing it with playmates and making them sick.  I used to wonder about what it would do to his teeth, but as an adult I never saw anyone with a whiter smile.)

In the course of the next few months, Diane invited me to all the neighborhood gatherings and introduced me to the community.  There was a weekly daytime poker game, where all the ladies brought a covered dish and played penny ante poker.  I attended a few of those, and there was an aura of cattiness and jealousy toward Diane. I didn’t know about frequency of the ladies’ intimate relations, but they did mostly have large posteriors.  I didn’t meet the husbands until the first time we went to one of the local dances at the VFW.

By this time, I knew Frank and Diane pretty well.  Frank was a gentle, amiable man with a soft and slow Kentucky drawl, and a talent for funny stories.  He adored Diane. She was bright and funny, with a low husky voice, hillbilly grammar peppered with the most appalling obscenities.  As we walked into the VFW, they waved us over to sit with them.  The music started and right off the bat, someones husband ask Diane to dance.  Apparently Frank didn’t dance.  He had a bad back.  Diane switched out to the dance floor in her little halter dress that barely covered her backside and spike heels and started “dirty dancing”.  She was amazingly good and all eyes were riveted on her performance.  You could hear the hisses of the wives and feel the admiration of the husbands.  Frank leaned over and whispered to me “I love to watch her dance!”.  He had the biggest smile on his face.  He was so proud.

Later, as the beer flowed and the dance floor heated up, there was a ruckus in the parking lot.  Apparently, one of the ladies had found their husband in a car with Diane.  They weren’t doing anything wrong…just having an amiable conversation and sharing a pint of Jack Daniels, but his wife took it all amiss. As the yelling became more audible and it seemed that the ladies might start swinging, Frank sauntered over and gently took hold of Diane’s arm and proceeded to remove her to their car, gaily waving goodbye to all.  Diane went peaceably enough, only pausing now and then to shout some vile obscenity to the irate wife over her shoulder.

We were fascinated!  As time went on, there were several such incidents at various community functions, but Diane and Frank were always invited and in fact, it seemed that in spite of their jealousy, these women considered her their friend.  She was always the star of the show and life of the party, drinking too much, dancing outrageously and flirting shamelessly with every male in the vicinity. She made everyone laugh, and in the end, she was always forgiven. Later, as the years passed, I found out that many affairs and intrigues were happening, as is common in many close knit groups of neighbors. Diane was all bluster and show. She acted for shock value and reveled in the reactions.  She knew what went on behind closed doors and her big grievance was the hypocrisy of it. She defiantly “showed her ass” as Frank put it one night and if they didn’t like it, well, too bad. 

She never was unfaithful to Frank, and they had a good marriage.  They were hilarious together and when they fought, which was often and loudly, they later told funny stories about it.  I enjoyed them immensely.

That first spring, Diane took me mushroom hunting.  It was her hobby and she was very good at it.  We hunted “Snakehead” mushrooms. When i expressed a concern about the toadstool/mushroom mix up, she laughed and said not to worry. “Snakeheads look like a man’s penis, there are no toadstools that look like them.” I found out she was right and we trudged up and down the hills in the woods all day looking for them.  It was fun, even though I hardly ever found any myself.  Diane could spot them miles away and knew all the good spots.  We came home late in the afternoon and I was exhausted.  Dee sat me down in her kitchen and showed me how to prepare them, in case I wanted to hunt them myself and cook them.  She soaked them for a while in salt water to kill and flush out all the insects (ick!)  Then she floured them and quickly fried them in butter.  I can still taste the woodsy, mellow buttery flavor of them, and have never found any mushroom that tastes as good.  Nathan, who is a chef now, told me that they sell for about $100 a pound and are considered a great delicacy, as they cannot be canned or frozen or they will spoil.  They only last a day or so after they are picked, and are somewhat rare in this part of the country, so I only got to have them for those few short spring weeks, when Diane and I hunted them and she would cook them for me.

I still talk to Dee on the phone once in a while, and we try and plan to get together.  It never seems to work out, what with our families and work and such. She is still bawdy, flirty, funny and outrageous. She still makes me laugh.

And I think of her a lot, especially this time of year, when the Snakeheads pop up.

I was reading the blurbs on MSN and there was a list of top Romantic Movies.  Some I liked…about half of them I didn’t.  Some of them were just soso for me.  Anyway these are my favorites, but not necessarily in order.  That depends on my mood.

Happy Endings:

Heaven Can Wait (the one with Warren Beatty)

Say Anything

Beauty and the Beast (I don’t care if it is a cartoon, when he gave her the library, my heart melted!)

Forget Paris (Also one of the funniest scenes in a movie for me…the bird stuck scene)

A Room With a View (English and very subtle)

Tim (Mel Gibson and Piper Laurie, when they were young)

The Princess Bride (Sooo many quotables!)

Light in the Piazza

The Taming of the Shrew (Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton,  probably the only one of their movies together that I really liked)

Tootsie

Sixteen Candles

Then there are the ones that I cry at:

Camelot (with Richard Harris)

The Way We Were

Funny Girl ( I can’t remember if I cry at this one or the next but I cry when she and Nicky break up)

Dr. Zhivago

Romeo and Juliet (with Olivia de Hussy)

Sommersby

Braveheart

Harold and Maude

Starman

There are lots of romantic books I loved, some were “Romance Novels” and most of those were by Judith McNaught.  But my classic favorites are:

Maggie Now

Katherine ( in the afterward it says that he married her later on and their line became kings.)

The Black Rose ( A really old out of print novel.  The ending just broke my heart.)

Far Pavilions (Also alot of Historical stuff about India.  I loved it.)

The Bridges of Madison County (I hated the movie. Clint Eastwood should NOT play a romantic lead.  But the book was awesome.)

Almost Paradise

Calais (Another out of print one.)

Outlander (Plus the other 5 or 6 in this series by Gabaldon.  I just reread the whole bunch of them in order and they still are probably the best and my favorites.)

Those are the main ones I can think of right now.  I know there are ones I have forgotten and will someday come across. 

Some of the ones that others liked that I didn’t are:

The English Patient (The story should have been tragic and romantic, but in both the book and the movie, those two were mainly interested in sex.  Got to be more to it than that for me.)

Titanic (Leonardo ruined that one for me.  He looked like a 12 year old and I couldn’t get past that.)

An Officer and a Gentleman (She was entirely too grateful to him for marrying her and he was an asshole anyway)

There are a couple that are just way too sad and I can’t bear to watch them.  I don’t know if I like them or not acutally. City of Angels and Ghost come to mind.

I am sure this list could go on and on as they come to mind, but these must be my favorites since I thought of them first.

Now I have to go to Amazon.com and order.

When I was a baby, my parents lived in an apartment that had no AC.  It’s very hot and muggy in the summer in Cincinnati, so of course they had fans going to cool things off.  I hate to be hot and sticky.  It makes my head swim and I feel sick to my stomach and it is just one of those things that I don’t tolerate well.  I am sure that at 6 months old, I was very vocal about it, so my mom one day points the fan at me while I am down for my nap.  She said I fell right asleep and only stirred if she tried to move it.  A Fan Sleeper was born that day.

I am a Fan Sleeper.  Every night when we go to bed, I turn on a big square fan that sits facing the bed.  It isn’t just the noise I like, but also the faint breeze on my face.  No matter that it is cold and that I have the electric blanket on “high”, I must have my fan at night.  I am a “fanaddict” about it!

Wayne doesn’t mind it and especially when he is sleeping in the day, after working all night, he uses it too.  I don’t think he is totally addicted, but he may be on the way.  He said one night at a hotel when he had an overnight job that he needed to turn the room fan up. At the beginning of our relationship, he confessed to me that he was a neurotic sleeper.  His feet stay cold, so he has to sleep with weight on them.  Like a folded blanket. Even with an electric blanket, he needs to have the extra pressure on his feet winter or summer. So there we are.  Window open, fan roaring away, with an electric blanket turned up high and a blanket folded at the bottom of the bed.  Doesn’t bother either one of us, but it sure is weird.

I don’t think Dan got addicted to the fan.  He tolerated it when we were married, but as far as I know, he doesn’t use one now.  The girls told me Jim does.  All of my children are fan sleepers because when they were babies, I used a fan for the white noise in their room. That way if the phone rang or I dropped something, they didn’t wake up. Poor little things…addicted from birth.

One of the problems being a fan sleeper is that if your fan breaks in the winter it is really hard to find another one to buy.  I had one go out in December one time.  I called 5 stores to see if they carried them. Finally at Meijers, they gave me the housekeeping department and the guy there said he would look in the storeroom.  He came back and sure enough, he had just one back there.  So I raced over and found him in the store, we had to spend about 15 minutes figuring out what it would cost.  While we were waiting on that, I confessed to him that I had to sleep with a fan.  He wasn’t a bit surprised.  He was a fanaddict too.  He said he always kept a spare in the winter.

Since then, I have found out that there are alot of us.  Some are just partners of fan addicts that have gotten used to it, but most are people who need that noise and circulating air to sleep. As I ask around, I found out that it is really very common and that we are not so odd as I always thought.  (Well…aside from the electric blanket and folded foot warmer.)  Most people have their little sleeping quirks.  A special pillow or a certain side of the bed.  Some people sleep with their TVs on all night.  That one would drive me crazy. I know a couple people who cannot have even a dot of light from the vcr or smoke alarm and sleep.  That one is a bit odd too.  Also they have noise machines for sleeping.  They play the ocean or wind blowing…sometimes gentle music.  I never heard of anyone getting addicted to those though.  Actually I don’t even know anyone who uses one.  Even odder are the ones that emit a scent to help you sleep.  I wonder if anyone is addicted to a certain smell at night?  I know alot of people have to read before they sleep, even if it is 4 o’clock in the morning and all they can do is read a paragraph.

Some people just get used to not sleeping well.  Some have to take a sleeping pill every night to sleep.

I would rather have my fanaddiction.

I have a friend who just broke off her engagement, and it has made me think about expectations in relationships. 

Wayne and I were lucky.  We met in our game and were friends for almost 2 years before we met.  For most of that time, we had no idea what kind of personal life the other had.  We were game friends and then in talking about what we liked and didn’t like and what we were and weren’t, we became friends.  I knew that he loved to read, was a good cook and liked it, had a good work ethic, had a great sense of humor, didn’t tell fart jokes and was one of the nicest people I had ever met, even before I was sure that he was indeed a guy. On the game you never knew for sure.  Now it’s true, he could have been making it up, but he had no reason to.  We were just chatting in game and not trying to impress each other.  I also knew that he was a geek, a diehard gamer, didn’t like to fix up the house, or work on cars much, got sick when he was upset, and didn’t like conflict so sometimes he didn’t stand up for himself.

When we decided to meet, there was no big surprises.  The things that other people might not have been able to deal with, I had already known about and they didn’t bother me.  The things that were a must for my ideal mate, I already knew he had.  Our meeting was more a matter of verification of what we both already knew. And throughout our relationship, neither of us are trying to change the other into someone else.  It helped greatly that we were not looking for someone, when we were friends.  We were both in marriages that we were not happy in, and still having combat fatigue.  I know I planned to live on my own for the first time in my life and live without having to conform to someone’s expectations of how I should act and what kind of person I should be.  He says he felt the same.  So it was a lovely surprise to find that when we met we were meant for each other.  We have had a great time together and we really LIKE each other alot as well as love.

So how does it happen, that most of the time, when we commit to a relationship, we have expectations of how the other person should be and act, instead of just enjoying the person for what they really are?  Why do most people make that mistake?

When I was very young, in my first marriage, it seems like I went into it, expecting him to BE a certain kind of person.  He wasn’t and I spent a great deal of time fighting to make him the husband that I thought I wanted.  I dated him for 2 years before we got married.  I knew what he was like.  Looking back on it now, I realize that he was doing the same thing and that marriage was doomed from day 1.  We struggled along for a long time before we gave up, but today he is a good husband to the wife he now has and he is happy with her.

Then I did the same thing, again with Jim.  Although, I have to say that at least he was trying from the time we met, to act like what he thought I wanted, so I had no clue as to what he was really like.  I’m not sure I do to this day.  Maybe we were just way too different.  He is a man who wants to please everyone, so he tries to be what everyone wants.  That never works.  Pretty soon you are bound to have to let someone down.  When we both realized that we really weren’t able to live up to each others expectations, we tried to like each other anyway, and then we tried to tolerate each other.  Then we just settled in to getting along and basically ignoring each other.  It was not an uncomfortable way to live most of the time, but it really wasn’t a relationship either.  Neither of us were bad people, we just shouldn’t have been together in the first place.

I don’t think that this is unusual.  And many people can work through this stuff and end up settling for what they have and liking it. 

But I wonder why we can’t start out really seeing how a person is, and knowing that they won’t really change.  Why do we always think we can make them into someone they are not? 

Why do women marry a man, who is a gamer, loves to play computer games or is a sportsman, loves to play softball and bowl and watch football all season, and then spend the first years of their marriage trying to make him stop?

And why do men marry a woman, knowing that she can’t cook or she is a really crappy housekeeper, and then bitch constantly at her about how she doesn’t take care of him and his home?

I think alot of times, we just fall in love with the idea of love and marriage.  We want so badly to live happily ever after that we marry the frog, expecting to kiss him at the wedding and he will turn into the prince (or princess).  And when that doesn’t happen, we blame the poor frog.

It’s a lesson that I hope my children learn, before they marry.  Open your eyes and take a hard look at the person you think you love.  Do you really LIKE them just as they are? Do you like how they act and how they think?  Do you enjoy being around them and have fun with them and like to do what they like to do?  Is there anything that you think you must change after the wedding because if there is, you are making a big mistake.

Never try to BE the person that someone wants you to be, just to make them love you. It might work for a while, even for a long while, but the day will come when you will realize that you want to be yourself and you want to be loved for who you really are. Warts and all.