Losses and Gains

It's been a roller coaster lately.  I lost a very good friend to bone cancer this month, but I also had some wonderful times with other friends.  I finished one of my baby blankets, and got a huge portion of the other done.  The yarn for my next baby blanket project has been purchased and I have learned the basics of knitting.

I wanted to share something that I wrote for my friend Fran on her dedicated Facebook page before she passed.  I called it What it Takes to Be Loved

~~~


It's so rare that we ever truly know how many lives we touch.  It's even more unusual when we run into a situation where we are actually able to see how we have affected those around us, to know just how many of our every day encounters made a change in someone's life.

Fran is one of those lucky few.  She has gotten the chance to see just how many people she has touched.  The circumstances are not the best, but it seems that is always what makes people realize how much someone means to them.

I don't think that I even realized how profound and how far Fran's reach was until  my friend Jack sent me a very simple text message.  When he found out she was in the hospital he wanted to do something for her because "she was always nice to me.  Always."

Something so simple; always being kind to someone no matter what, it made the difference to Jack and I suspect many others.

The out-pouring of love that followed was staggering.  A wave of people wanting to reach out and contact her to let her know they cared because she had cared about them.  People that no longer worked with Fran or hadn't spoken to her in ages started asking if they could visit, send flowers or just make sure someone gave her a hug for them.  Kind words filled my cell phone and popped up all over Facebook.  At work even managers reached out to donate food and money.  Cards appeared for people to sign.

I know I was stunned.  It warmed my heart.  I am sure that Fran feels the same and if she had access to this page she would tell us how much it means to her.  Please don't stop telling her how much she is loved.  Never let her forget how much she means to us and that she made a difference in our lives.  She still is.

We love you Fran and thank you for just being you.  That was all we ever needed and all we will ever need.

New Year

I've been seriously lax in my updates.  The Christmas season ate up my time like I couldn't believe.  I forget that the holiday season takes a toll on me whether I think it does or not.  I suppose a synopsis is called for.  

Black Friday was as bad as I thought it would be, plus 10.  First thing in the morning we had plenty of people but for some reason my company decided to cut us down to one cashier for the entire day.  I was that one cashier.  It was perhaps the worst day I can think of in my 9 years of working there.  Granted all the people were very very nice and far more patient than I would be, but it was still horrible.

Moving on from there things are a blur.  My roommate and I decorated our patio in hopes of winning a place in our complex contest.  We bought new lights this year and decorated the bushes out front and everything.  It was quite the set up and we were super proud of it.  Sadly, we don't think we even placed because as of now we haven't heard anything back. 

We also did a nice job of starting a new decor idea inside.  It was a much more simple look than we do and we really liked it. :)  I'm still enjoying it and will until we decide to take it down soon.

Work went kind of crazy from then on.  People lose their minds during the holidays.  We even had a lady come out of the men's restroom complaining that there was a man in there.  I am always astounded by people's idiocy.  But for the most part it was uneventful.  The real aggravation came from my new next door neighbor.  She and her boyfriend seem to think that any time after 2am is a perfectly reasonable time to party, watch loud TV, listen to loud music, run around laughing and banging cupboards. I have called our front office so many times I am near giving up, and still the woman continues to be obnoxious. 

The highlight of December was the birth of my second "niece" Reilly.  She is so beautiful and I am so lucky to have met her the day after she came home.  :)  I am still working on both blankets, and I'm really far behind because of all this craziness. Hopefully now that the holidays are over I can get back to work on them because I have two beautiful baby girls waiting on them now.  I also got contracted into doing yet another blanket.  This one is for my boyfriend's brother's wife.  They are expecting a boy, so this will be the first boy blanket I've ever made and I'm kind of excited to do it.  I just need to get my butt in gear and get going. 

My roommate and I also got to go and see Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  We go every year, but last year we couldn't since she was in Hawaii.  It was nice to get the tradition back in order.  She left for her parents shortly after and it was just me and the cat.  Then came the snow...

We don't usually get much snow here in December, let alone Christmas time. Two storms came through and dumped something like a foot of snow on us for the week before Christmas.  It was beautiful and we are still trying to melt it all off.

Christmas was fairly uneventful.  On Christmas Eve my boyfriend and I spend time together and have our Christmas, we did that again this year.  It was a very nice night and my neighbor was gone so I got sleep.  The next day I made a massive and fantastic dinner.  I decided to try two new recipes and they turned out really good.  I was very pleased.  It was a Mexican Christmas feast!  Chicken enchiladas and Indian fry bread used for tacos.  Everyone loved it and I was so happy to do it. 

The next week at work things were very busy and I ended up getting sick.  Being sick meant that my tradition of holding a New Years Eve game party were in jeopardy.  I didn't feel well enough to make my usual chicken and noodles.  Usually I make my great grandmother's recipe for chicken and noodles.  It takes two days and is the center piece of the party so I was worried about it.  Thankfully one of my friends stepped up and volunteered to make her own chicken and noodles.  It was great and we all enjoyed it.   Game night went on no matter how sick I was and everyone had a good time, or at least I hope they did.

I'm finally starting to feel better.  I hope that I"m on the downhill slide of this and will be soon be back to normal.

Everything else is going on per normal. The fish are alive and doing well, the cat is still a crazy little ball of fur and work is still giving me too much to do with too little help and too little time.  Perhaps this year I will get lucky and have a new job.  I can only hope. 

And another thing

I have to rant, I must get it out of my system.  This time of year just does it to me.  This day in particular does it.  Black Friday.

I work retail, and have for my entire working life.  It's not a glamorous job, and it barely pays my bills, but it's taught me a lot.  It's all I know. This one day out of the year, I find myself angry at the general public.   Sure on any given day John Q. Public is in my store doing stupid things or being a jerk, but hey, that's normal.  I signed up for that.  Mind you, I don't think I fully understood that when I first started working in that little mom and pop store, but I digress. 

Black Friday is nonsense.  It's stupid and John Q Public makes it even worse.  He doesn't seem to understand that the stores are not run by robots.  We don't sleep in the back rooms, ready to pop up the very instant the store opens.  No.  We have families.  We are people.  When you yell at us and call us stupid, it hurts.  When you decide to wait outside of stores for good deals on the Friday following Thanksgiving, we have to be there to let you in.  What does that mean?  That means that many of us have to cut our evenings short so we can go to bed to be up at 2am so we can be at work at 4am and work 10-12 hours.  Or in the case of this year, several people I work with have to just up and leave their Thanksgivings with their families because my sister store opens at 9pm.  That's not fair. 

How would you like it if you had to do that?  You've just eaten and you'd like to sit around enjoying family time or even alone time, but you couldn't because now you have to get up and get ready to go to work.  Everyone else you know is sitting around passed out on the sofa or playing video games or whatever, and you have to leave the one holiday you still get off in a year to wait on a bunch of people who will fight, run each other over and cause general mayhem for 30% off a toy.  Yeah, sounds like the true spirit of giving to me. 

What if it was your daughter/son?  Your granddaughter/grandson?  Would you want them having to drive in the middle of the night?  Would you want them having to deal with throngs of people like that before you've even had your first cup of coffee?  Hell, you'll probably still be in bed when they are calling the police over a fight or a shop lifter.  Remember all those people who got trampled in doorways?  Yeah, John Q Public caused that. 

Hear me out.  Sure the stores make the sales to entice people to come in, but you know what?  They wouldn't do it if no one came.  They couldn't afford to.  It might just allow some of us to enjoy our family time.  I don't choose to get up at 2am tomorrow.  But you choose to make me.  

I get off only two holidays a year; Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I do not get holiday pay for being at work any other time during any other holiday including Easter or the 4th of July.  My company is greedy like that.  And they are greedy enough to decide last year to open our sister store at midnight on Thanksgiving.  This year, they bumped it up to 9pm.  Soon enough we won't get Thanksgiving off at all.  I think that's a tragedy.  Not because of the holiday but because we loose that together time.  I don't get together time with my family.  They are off on days that I am required to work.  I want to be able to enjoy the togetherness of a holiday that is supposed to allow us a break. 

Remember that when you go shopping tomorrow.  Remember that the people behind the counter are real people.  They deserve respect too.  They had to get up so that you could go shopping.  They gave up their holiday so that you could get your discounts. So be nice.  And next time, maybe think twice about that extra 30% off, is it really worth the cost in humanity?  

I'm done ranting now.  I have to go to bed, so I can be up at 2am, 3 if I decide not to eat breakfast. 

rekindling

I have no idea what started it, but all of a sudden I want very badly to draw again.  I want to pick up a pencil and actually draw like I used to.  I was good, I could be better.  I could do so much, but I need to actually DO it.  Much like writing.  Why do I find it so hard to motivate myself to do either of these things for anything other than fun?  If I could get myself to do it seriously I could make money off of some of this stuff.  If I got really serious about it.  I should.  I should at least sit down and color something in photoshop.  But none of it feels comfortable. 

Maybe that's my problem.  I no longer have a space that is really my own to create in.  Before I moved out I had that space.  Now I don't.  And I can't make it either because we have no space.  Tiny apartments do not make for good places to have personal space. 

Idle Fingers

I have been writing every day with my roommate since my birthday week.  It feels good to let my fingers flex while my brain tries to regain some of it's writing ability.  The television has gone unwatched so much so that our DVR is running out of space.  hehe.  I think that's a good thing. 

One of the two babies I have been waiting for arrived at the end of October!  She's beautiful and I can't wait for the chance to meet her in person, even if the blanket I am making for her still isn't done.  I have about 12 more squares to make, but I'm out of yarn and money.  So I started working on the other blanket for the other baby I'm waiting on.  Miss Reilly will be getting a very fluffy blanket.  :D  Miss Anisa is getting a very pretty and sophisticated blanket.  At leas that's how it seems to me.  I should take pictures, especially when I get one of them done. 

Yesterday I discovered that I have a kindred spirit in Thomas at work.  It's been a long time since I"ve connected with someone like that.  I showed him some of my art and we talked about losing muses and wishing we still had that spark.  I long for that more than I can even explain.  How I wish I had the time to sit and draw like I used to, or the motivation to finish the book I so dearly want to see done.  I'm not sure how to find that motivation.  It's lost somewhere.  Slowly I think I'm able to kindle a small part of my creativity lately, but motivation is still hard to come by.  Why must I procrastinate so much? 

That is all I have to update. As always my life is a study in grey.  I need to find a way to add more color. 

The tangled web we weave

this is a very random fan fiction.  It's meant only so that one of my friends can better understand something I told her about.  I don't want to get any feedback, I don't want to get into a war with Trolls over how this isn't right in the comic verse, movieverse, or any other verse.  It's right in mine. Also, I did not write all of this. It is a collaborative effort with my friend. I do not own these characters.   And without further ado....


(this picks up in the middle of a scene during a large breakfast where most everyone is hung over and Loki just dropped a spoon in a sink to make a loud noise on purpose.)

It was like a gong in Sif's head and she winced, waiting for the pain to pass. 

"We're staying here?"  She thought that at some point they'd be going back.  It dawned on her, that since the bifrost couldn't be opened from Asgard's side, they'd probably be here some time.

Fandral's eyes were large and round as he stared at Loki but he was not about to say another word that would cause another piece of cutlery to fall.

"Welcome to New Mexico," Loki said quietly as he watched awareness blossom behind Sif's eyes.  Then he caught Thor's expression and felt ire rise again like bile.  He set his mug down and stalked out of the Smith, making sure to slam the door as he went outside.

Thor winced and touched his head as the sound reverberated through it, sighing heavily.

"And here I thought he was being pleasant this morning," Volstagg murmured, having abandoned his apple to hold his head together.

"His anger is at me, my friends," Thor said.  "I am sorry you are also affected."

"But you've just woken up," Volstagg said.  "I don't see what..."

"It could be those marks around his neck," Fandral pointed out with a smile.  "In which case a simple apology might suffice?"

"No," Thor said.  Talking with his brother was not something he wanted to do, especially with his head pounding in time with a mad drummer.  It wasn't something he particularly wanted to do anyway.  He poked at the bagel crumbs on his plate.  "Leave him be.  The fire will settle out of him soon enough."

Loki stood outside the doors of the smith, facing the desert.  His long arms were crossed about his chest and he stood still in the dry morning.

Sif watched Loki through the glass. So much was unspoken between all of them. Time had passed since Loki took over Asgard and tried to kill Thor, but the wounds ran deep. She was uneasy. 

"is he angry about something new, or is it still from before he.." she left the words hanging.

Thor laid his head on his hand, squishing up his cheek as he regarded his brother's back.  Who could really tell what was in that black head of his?  Loki had always been a difficult one to predict, running hot and cold even as a child.  And after the destruction of the Bifrost Thor had been left with so many more questions than answers.  He still didn't know what caused Loki's descent into madness or if he had come back out of it at all.

"I know not," Thor said finally, his deep voice tired.  "Even if I could guess as to what troubles him I will likely pick the wrong thing and make the anger worse.  I still know not what I did to wrong him."

The last part was said quietly, and not without some pain

Taking in a long breath she got up from the table. It was a risk but she thought it was at least worth a try. 

Outside it was cooler than she thought it would be. 

"its a different kind of beautiful." she looked out at the desert. "have you grown to like it in your time here?" 

Loki's eyes were the only thing that moved as Sif walked up, flicking to her and then back to the mountains and the fluffy white morning clouds that drifted over them.

"Yes," he said without realizing why.  Then his mind drifted back to Jane and all of the things that she had shown to him in their relatively short time together.  This place had become so indelibly etched with her presence that he had grown to love it for that alone.  The dryness and the dust and the heat would just always go hand in hand with Jane from then on.

His posture was stiff, anger making him stand ramrod straight, head tilted slightly down, but he relaxed a tiny bit for Sif.  Curiosity made him turn towards her slightly.

 

"Good."  The smell of dust filled her nose.  "I only hope that I can too, since I'll be staying for a while." 

The option to go home was there, but the option to then come back was not.  She didn't want to be stranded in Asgard with no one to talk to.  Everyone she cared about was here.  If they weren't going home, she wasn't going home. 

"I'm sorry that you have to give up your new life here to let us join you.  I can't imagine it's hard after becoming so connected to a person.  Now you have all these intruders on your time."

The wind rustled her hair, sending a shower of gold down her back.  "I'll do my best to stay out of your way.  The others I can't vouch for.  But perhaps if you talk to Thor and set some boundaries, he may be able to rein them in."

Loki closed his eyes and his head dropped to his chest.  If he were one to fidget, as Thor was, he would have kicked at the dust.

"I was kidding myself that it would have lasted much longer," he said, completely ignoring the part about his brother.  "I lied to her.  Lies fall apart eventually."

The wind tossed a tumbleweed across the desert in front of them and Loki lifted his head to watch it.  "I...you are not in my way.  Nor are the Warriors Three, really.  Although I can't say I'm particularly happy to see them, nor are they to see me."

Thor wouldn't listen to the boundaries he wanted to set.  Thor never listened.

 

 Sif wasn't one to take sides, and now was no exception.  Seeing Loki so downtrodden was difficult though, and she felt the need to try and make him better.

It was difficult to see him without the confidence she was used to.  A twinkle in his eye as the wheels turned behind the green pools.  Always thinking, always a step ahead.  Jane had somehow rendered him useless and Sif wasn't okay with it.  Yet, she knew he was past in love.  He was in too deep, and losing her would break him further.  It was a hard line to walk. 

"That is true.  Lies never lead to anything good."  She smiled at him.  "But you've never let that stand in your way before.  I have never seen you let the downfall of your plans get in the way.  You just dance back out and carry on."

The little smile stayed on her lips, wind dancing in her hair.  Maybe she was only making it worse, but someone had to try.  While everyone else was content to tip toe around the issue, at least Sif was going to face Loki one way or another.  

 

Those words grabbed Loki's attention and he turned to regard her fully, eyes open wide.  The full weight of the words hit him like Mjolnir and left him just as stunned.  Sif was right.  Even a child could see that Sif was right; so why hadn't he?

It was the questions' fault.  He had spent every waking moment since Jotunheim questioning everything he had ever learned, everything he had ever known.  Questioning himself most of all.  It was as if he had descended into a low lying fog of doubt and whenever he tried to crawl his way out of the bog something else would be there to stand in his way, to make the questions come back.

"Give me some credit, it has yet to be a day since they last fell apart," he told Sif with a smile.  It was almost like one of his old ones.  "I'm still thinking."

He looked back over the desert, the wheels starting to turn again.  And then he hit a wall he didn't expect to hit: fear.  It was almost as if Sif could see the confidence she had managed to build back up a little bit crumble back to the ground.

She regarded him for a moment, wondering what was going on in his head.  For a moment she thought to offer him an ear if he needed it.  As the only other person that seemed to know the truth behind his relationship with Jane, she was in a unique place to help.  deciding against it was hard, but she knew that Loki would never fully confide in anyone.  Perhaps not even Jane.  She didn't know.  That was how it was with Loki, you never knew.

Like a whisper she left his side and went back inside.  The other men were silent, looking at her. 

"What?"  She arched an eyebrow.  "Just because none of you have the manhood to talk to him, doesn't mean I don't."

 

 

The creation of all that I am

The weight is crushing.  These little lives that we have created are nothing more than a dream and yet the weight of their hearts may very well kill me.  Things are out of control, far beyond my reach.  I intended none of this, yet it happened and I must live with the consequences.  Each turn they take endears them more, pushes harder on my heart.  They hurt and I cry real tears.  They triumph and I dance.  I am past connected, I am one with them.  I want all of them to win and none to lose, like children I want only the best.

How is it that I could have created something fictional that effects me so deeply?  Does it effect others the way I hope that it does?  I bear my soul by creating theirs, and I give it freely to be judged because that's what fiction is for.   Is this what I really am?  I hope so.  This is what I always want to be, deep, emotional and fun.