Ramblings – Page 58 – The Hermits' Rest

Another Skill I Must Work On

Yep. I’ve found another gap in the skill set needed on my path to serenity.

I have got to learn to go with the flow

Today I was supposed to stay at the ranch so we could work on the chicken coop. It’s nearly sunset. I got in a whole day of Planview work. I fed the horses. I walked the dogs. I’m worried Carlton has been killed by a cow, because I tried twice to get him to come home but he kept going back. Then it got silent.

Whew. I hear him again.

But, no chicken coop material is here. See I thought there was a plan. I stuck to it. I did NOT go with the flow and accept that by the time the day was over, many new plans, distractions, and duties would come up.

Just like yesterday when we went to get coop material and ended up with a mattress.

It’s no big deal. The coop will happen. I just might have done something else with my day. Some people are planners. Some are spontaneous. I’m in with a spontaneous group right now.

What a perfect time to learn to understand that plans are just possibilities. I’m going to go back and breathe some more and greet my dirty cattle-chasing dog. He still has plenty of energy.

Angsty Holiday Introspection: Christmas Eve with the Hermits

Here I sit, alone with my fellow Hermit, each of us typing on our separate keyboards, listening to a dog bark in the distance. Ah, Christmas Eve.

More than one of my friends, and one family member in particular, has asked why I’ve gone out of town for the past three Christmases. So, I’ll answer that instead of giving another boring nature report (I’ll do that tomorrow; I did cool stuff today). The short answer is: self preservation. The longer answer, and how I plan to deal with my holiday angst follows.

We interrupt this angst for a cowboy Christmas display. Carry on.

Background on how I’m wired: One of my major “love languages” is gifts. I’m one of those people who hang on to things for years, just because they remind me of the person who gave them. I have my Kathy Dettwyler Faberge pansy thing, my cake cover and weird quilts from my Granny Kendall, a pod sculpture and a goddess from my friends in Illinois…on and on.

Because of this, I always loved Christmas. I treasured so many gifts, even ones I didn’t actually like, because I knew some family member or friend took time and effort to choose it. That made me feel loved. I looked forward to my sister’s gifts, as well as those from my brother and later my boyfriend, because they were just what I liked (all three of them have the gift knack, which I don’t think I actually got). I just loved being with family and enjoying each other as we exchanged thoughtful and fun gifts (we were never much for expensive ones).

Pause to enjoy a ranch in Bandera County.

When my kids came along, I just loved buying and making gifts for them, because I loved them so much and wanted to see them happy. Same for the rest of the family.

At some point, I realized I was going way overboard and buying too many things for too many people I cared for. It became clear when I found many carefully chosen and hand-made gifts discarded when Declan’s first girlfriend moved out. I realized many of the nice/carefully chosen things I’d given my own kids weren’t treasured; they were just tossed in a pile in their rooms to be found when I cleaned them out. (I KNOW some kid gifts are just for fun and don’t last forever!)

Then it dawned on me that no one in my current family was big on giving gifts. I guess it isn’t their love language. (My spouse likes to give surprise gifts, but doesn’t like Christmas.)

PLUS, I always wanted to have a wonderful family meal for Christmas. When it began to also include all the neighbors and many friends, I got overwhelmed, though, and the planning started to stress me out. The last time I hosted a dinner, I looked out and saw three people cooking and serving like crazy and the rest just staring at each other.

That was 2016, the same year that half the people invited didn’t even have the courtesy to bring a token gift or food contribution. I’m all for giving. Honest. It just suddenly struck me as really unequal, and I felt like I was giving like crazy without even thanks (I am sure I was thanked; I was over-exaggerating, a thing I have been known to do.)

I looked around after that Christmas dinner and exchange of 90% gifts from me and very few gifts for me. I said this isn’t working for me. It’s also not working for them. Why am I trying to give them the Christmas experience I want? What do they actually want? I decided that next Christmas would be different.

High-quality fencing is all one needs for Christmas.

The next year I booked us a week in New Mexico, and my kids, the current partner of Declan, Lee, and Anita all showed up. We drove around, hiked, shopped, relaxed, and played games. It was great.

These Eyes…See Weird Things

Time for a ramble! The things my eyes have been seeing…and not seeing. First off, my eyes are on my mind. Yesterday was my annual eye doctor appointment, which I generally view as all those annoying things I have to look at so that I can later have lots of fun looking at frames. I do so love me some eyeglasses frames, and Helen and Gloria at the Far West Optical Land of Fancy Frames are happy to indulge me. (I know there are fancier frame shops in the area, but you could never get me out of them.)

Yesterday, though, the new-to-me young man who did the preliminary stuff was all solemn, and informed me that my exam counted as a medical one, so my vision coverage wouldn’t accept it. He was really worried I couldn’t pay, or something. I never could get it out of my mouth that I had enough in my Flex account for it.

The exam took 1.5 hours! Mostly Barbara, the eye doctor/friend from church, was looking for some drusen in my eyes. However, she could not find them. I had no idea what the big deal was until I looked it up and found that drusen are the first stage of macular degeneration. They are also fatty deposits. Probably my recent diet change has positively affected them. Yay, I’m not going blind.

Future eyewear. The orange is more of a coral and according to the gals, made me look like Sharon Osborne.

Also I picked out some new sunglasses and regular glasses, and got a good deal on them (a rare thing in this place). The sunglasses have Liberty of London fabric in them, though Helen kept calling it Lloyd’s of London. It gave us all a chuckle. I do enjoy that place.

Other Things My Eyes Saw

I’ll just share this one other thing that made me laugh. I was trying to get holiday pictures taken for our real estate and personal assistance services companies today. No one dressed for it (because I hadn’t asked them to), so we held our packages from the float.

It was really, really hard to get us looking good, but Mandi got some really funny candid shots of the Hearts Homes and Hands team. I cannot un-see them.

I’ll be putting the GOOD pictures up on Facebook, but here is the Hermits’ Rest Enterprises team looking as good as we can:

And here is the HHH team:

Doing our best. I could perhaps have found a more flattering ensemble, but, hey, it has a donkey on it.

Holiday greetings from us all!

Gut Feelings, Not the Indigestion Kind

Okay, am I the only one who occasionally wakes up with a feeling that something isn’t right, but you don’t know what it is? That’s me today. I woke up with some kind of dread in the pit of my stomach, like something had gone wrong, somewhere, with someone I care about. My innards are just fine. I just have vague worries and concerns that I can’t pinpoint. Oy.

I asked a bunch of people if they were all right, then I got to worrying that it was my step-mother, so I ordered her Christmas flowers. Interesting path to guilthood there! Who knows, maybe I should call (except that phoning is this introvert’s biggest nightmare).

There’s no reason to feel this way, at least no conscious reason. I got good news today at work, got some things done, and supported a friend. Nothing bad there! But still, there the feeling is. Sitting on my psyche and squishing it.

The bright side: I checked in on people! People like that. If something’s going on with YOU, let me know. Until them I will keep randomly messaging people to be sure they’re okay.

What I’ll Not Do

The Introvert Party Girl

Fact about Suna: I’m what they call a “well socialized introvert.” That means my system functions as an introvert, with all that need for alone time and recharging, but people perceive me as an extrovert. In fact, I’ve been laughed at many times when I reveal what I score on personality tests. Hmph.

Right now, as you are no doubt aware, it’s party season. Like many of us, I’ve been invited to a party or two or three. Most are work-related or volunteer things, but even I have a few purely social events I can make it to with my weird schedule (I am invited to many things on weekends in Austin that I can’t get to; the ranch life does require some sacrifices.)

Maria is the queen of selfies, as you’d expect from the youngest book club member. She knows technology!

The collection of glass trees in the windows looks beautiful when the sun shines through it.

So, I went to parties two nights in a row this week. They were good parties, full of laughter and fun. Our book club ladies had a great time talking without the bother of discussing a book (ha ha). We had a lot of adventures trying to open wine bottles with less-than-ideal openers, and also spent a great deal of time admiring our neighbor’s beautiful collections of trees. She’s my tree decor role model!

And last night was the annual Master Naturalist party/December chapter meeting. That one was harder, because there were a lot of people there I didn’t know, which makes me vacillate between not wanting to talk to strangers and feeling like I really should mingle and be friendly.

Classism Today: Keeping the Good Folks Down

Caveat time: I am aware that classism is a fact all over the world. Today I focus on small towns and use Cameron as a specific example. This doesn’t mean I think less of its citizens. It’s a great place full of many kind, caring friends and with much warmth.

Yesterday I talked about how my father came up from poverty thanks to hard work and talent. Yet, you couldn’t take the Chattanooga out of the boy; he had a rather intense (and sometimes incomprehensible) accent, and his broken nose and funny ear testified to his past as a boxer. He didn’t always look middle class.

The moon was lovely last night. I’m grateful for its calming energy. All pictures in this post are designed to make me remember good things in my life.

But, he was allowed out of the shackles of his past by kind friends, coworkers and others who saw his kind heart, great humor, and intelligence. He was lucky. He also moved away from his hometown where the Kendall boys had quite a reputation for mischief, from that I hear.

What If You Aren’t So Lucky?

While I’m noticing many newcomers to down, Cameron is a place where many of the families have been there long, long time. There are surnames in this town that I see in the newspapers from the early 1900s (by the way, this includes Mexican names whose families were here before this was the United States and long-time black residents). Some families have done well, and are the scions of the community, populating all the right churches, the right organizations, the country club, etc. Others are respected business owners known for their charity and work for the community. Many are successful ranchers and farmers who live outside of town behind gates proclaiming their ranch names and fencing that costs more than many homes.

Ah, trees shining in the winter sun. I love going for walks on brisk meteorological winter days.

The children of these families are beloved by their school teachers, who come from the elite families or are their friends. These children dress well, participate in the important clubs, win dozens of 4-H ribbons, are in the prom court, play on the football team, are cheerleaders, etc. Nice kids. They also enjoy some leniency at school, since everyone knows they are good kids from good families. Sound familiar? Sound like where you came from? Sure! This is the norm in the US, especially in small towns.

What about the others? Some of the surnames in town have different reputations. They are assumed (because of how their parents, grandparents, or distant relatives were troublemakers, lived in the “bad” part of town (literally on the wrong side of the tracks in Cameron), or had other nefarious connections) to be the kind of folks you don’t want to associate with. These kids may not have parents who can afford all the activities. They are the ones who get picked on because they smell funny, live in an ugly house, have parents with drug or alcohol problems (or their relatives do). They go to the churches who dare to accept everyone, no matter what their family history. This, too, is not surprising.

Thinking about Classism: My Roots

This got long, so it’s going to be a two-parter. Here, I explain why classism offends me so much.

I think I’ve dealt with as much classism in my life as racism. Both of those practices get me all riled up. It has occurred to me (this morning!) that classism in the US, especially in small towns, is incredibly insidious – because it’s harder to see. The signs of who is in what class are often subtle. However, it’s easy to feel.

Child me, with Mom in her characteristic cigarette wielding pose in the background. Sarasota, Florida.

As a wee lass, I lived on a quiet street in a working-class neighborhood in a north-Florida college town. My dad had come up from extreme poverty in north Georgia/Chattanoga and was in his first job that would let him afford to buy a little concrete-block house on two lots (which he turned into a botanical garden, but that’s another story). My mother was from a family with deep roots in the area that had always aspired to be “classy,” I guess. They came from merchants, musicians, journalists, etc. They had maids who raised their kids,just like in The Help. She HATED that her surveyor father had made her live in Dixie County, Florida as a child, around all that “trash.” No wonder her parents didn’t like her marrying my dad; it took her down a notch in class. (Mom had many great qualities; I’m just not focusing on those right now.)

Trash, the People Kind

I heard a lot about “white trash” as a kid in the Deep South, as much as I heard pejorative terms for black people. (I normally don’t use those terms.) Apparently, thanks to Mom’s side of the family, we were not “trash.” Our neighborhood consisted of people who were not all that well off, but of some other, slightly higher, class. Well, except the Purvis family, whose women all had babies at 15, whose men wore overalls and sleeveless t-shirts, and who never took their Christmas tree lights down so that the tree grew around it (it may be noted that I liked them, played with their daughter, and loved their kumquat tree). The classes didn’t have formal names, but apparently everyone knew what they were.

Why I’m Not Going to Tell You How to Rite

Oh, lulz, that was a joke, there. I’m not going to tell you how to perform rites, either, but I just wanted to remind you all that your Facebook posts, texts, emails, and blog comments are a safe space for you to express yourself however you want to. I’m not going to correct your grammar or spelling, even if you accidentally hit a pet peeve (grammer, for example).

I actually heard last week that someone was hesitant to comment on the blog, because they were afraid I’d say something about their spelling or punctuation. Nope, unless a typo is hilarious (the classic public/pubic one comes to mind), I am going to assume that in informal writing has not been proofread extensively.

If you print it and want to sell it, proofread it. Photo: *@cbm0809 via Twenty20*

You see, it’s true that I spent a zillion years in the distant past studying linguistics and editing. It’s true I make my living writing and editing things. And yes, I’m pretty well versed at American English grammar and punctuation. But, I don’t expect you to be an expert. I don’t even expect ME to be when I’m texting.

One thing a that study made clear to me is that writing for different purposes has different standards. Yes, if I am writing for publication or sending a formal letter, I will do my best to eliminate grammar errors, spelling mistakes, or typos. However, in Facebook posts, I do not expect residents of Cameron, Texas to realize that “wondering” is not something dogs who roam around neighborhood are doing. That’s just how they say it and spell it. Sort of like the garage sell. It’s an interesting way their spoken dialect affects spelling. I find it interesting.

It CAN make a big difference, though! Image: *@cindyhodesigns via Twenty20*

And that’s the thing. I’m more likely to have an enjoyable time figuring what led to a typo or nonstandard grammatical phrase than to judge the writer or feel the desire to “correct” them. I feel rather guilty, in fact, that I corrected a meme someone posted that repeatedly used “your” for “you’re.” For some reason, this older person expects memes you publish to be grammatical, at least when they are not using slang I don’t understand or the interesting text terms lots of younger people use. Whoops.

So yeah (which is not the word for “yay”), I am not interested in being labeled a “Grammar N-word.” I save that for work and judging my own writing goofs, not yours. Just don’t ask me to review your novel or proofread a document without me pointing things out. In that case, you asked!

So communicate! That’s what counts!

A Tribute to My Verbosity

I hit an unexpected milestone today. WordPress congratulated me for posting my 500th post on this blog. I feel like I just started it! However, it’s been 21 months. That’s an average of 24 posts a month. Verbose? Maybe…some of the posts are mostly photos. A few. Okay. Wordy is me.

But, I do like to write. And I love nature and personal growth, which seem to be my favorite topics. I know we have more posts on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment blog, but I don’t write all those; I just edit many of them.

I made it a goal to share something every day, because writing gives me joy, and the dog can’t jump on it and ruin it, like my poor knitting.

So, thank you all for reading, commenting, and sharing. I learn so much from you all.

Category: Ramblings

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