As Winnie the Pooh says...

This is the time of year for graduations -- although -- I prefer to think of these ceremonies as commencements -- as beginnings.  The signs of celebration are all over the place in displays of party products, in ads for gift suggestions and even in special wrapping supplies.   High Schools and Colleges are keeping the tassel/cap and gown people smiling for sure. Some families are planning parties. 

Here is my greeting to the Class of 2016 wherever you are:

Congratulations!  You are on your way.  Hopefully you have already learned that your work is just beginning.  Hopefully you realize that you need to sort it all out now and find your own way. Hopefully you will decide to be a giver and not a taker. Hopefully you will be mindful enough to know the difference. I wish you well....

Good luck to you and remember the words of Winnie the Pooh -- "A grand adventure is about to begin".  

Tchotchkes and Other Assorted Treasures

Any of you who have been reading my work for a while now, know that I am fascinated by words. This week I am particularly interested in the word tchotchkes, although kerfuffle, chutzpah and bubkes are also at the top of the list of words with which I would love to play at some point in time.  I think each of those words is fun to say, and all of them are most effective in describing as only solid adjectives are able to do -- even though each of those words is actually a noun -- albeit a colorful one...

It is only recently that I came to know how to spell any of the words mentioned above, and that makes it only more fun to write about one of them.  I have to tell you that I am not a good speller, never have been, in spite of the fact that I love words. The age of spell checker has changed my life.  Auto-correct still has a few issues as far as I am concerned, but spell check or the red underline in word processing that gives you options -- heaven for me. (Thank you, whoever you are. You are a language hero as far as I am concerned.)

Anyway --  I do love stuff and a bit of that are tchotchkes.  When I was much younger, I was big into pennants of places where we traveled on summer vacations and then later on I displayed pennants of the colleges of my friends. There was also the charm bracelet of my teenage years that I wish I could find today. (Have you noticed that they are coming back in the updated Pandora fashion of the moment?) But anyway -- the tchotchkes that are at the top of the dust gathering list for me are the two trophies that I have "won" -- two -- in my entire life. The first was a junky trophy made of compressed paper and bits of wood that has since disintegrated. I was so proud of it -- I won it in Junior Golf -- it was the kind of trophy that one wins for participating with a good attitude.... I was never a good athlete -- not that girls had many sports in which to participate back in the day.  The second trophy is the one I won in a speech competition when I was in high school.  It was for an original oration and I beat a young man who had won his previous eleven competitions. Over fifty years later, I still remember his name. Wonder if he is on Facebook? Recently I discovered that I still have a note that my sister wrote me from college at that time telling me congratulations  -- celebrating what she called my gift of gab. (I cherish that note.)  But -- back to the focus of this blog -- that trophy is, I know, somewhere here in my office. I distinctly remember putting it on a shelf when I moved into this house now fifteen years ago.  It's for sure behind some books... you see - many of my book shelves are two rows deep with books.  Are books tchotchkes of a sort? Probably not, but the things I display in front of them and in back of them are -- those "things" may be dust collecting trinkets, but they are also memory keepers ... treasures for sure.  Tchotchkes....

Sometimes raising children is like being pecked to death by a chicken ...

No matter where you live, raising children is not for the faint of heart. Needless to say a sense of humor is a most important survival skill. I find that day to day life is much less stressful when your kids are all grown; you have somehow survived, and now it’s time to enjoy grandchildren – the most wonderful of all creations. I am totally “into” my grandkids, who are, of course absolutely wonderful in every sense – even when the younger ones band together and begin to lurk and skulk about in tandem – silent little Ninjas on an imaginary mission of some sort. If they would start not to be wonderful, I have learned that whatever the problem is, it will pass with a little love to get them through – or - I can always send them home to their loving parents. (Actually I haven't had to do that yet.)

I figure that I am entitled to enjoy my grandkids as I survived raising a son and a daughter… good kids, but they still dragged me kicking and screaming through the usual growing-up challenges – I found myself to be ever captive but … willing to help. I have to tell you that my hair is totally white. The loss of color happened prematurely, and I earned every single white hair. Frankly, I blame it on my son’s four wheeler experiences in combination with a certain fearlessness and his belief in his own immortality and on my daughter’s tendency to love and adopt animals – of all sorts… hamsters, fish, bunnies, dogs, cats, horses. She actually trained an old pulling pony to jump logs. She was about 7 years old at the time, I think -- maybe even younger.

Further -- I feel compelled to mention that the poor driving skills of both of them during the first year or so of having a driver’s license also contributed to my premature white hair phenomenon. My daughter totaled a car shortly after she passed her driving test. I think it may have been one day after. One Day! The terror that comes with that sort of experience tends to hang on for a long time in a mom who tends to worry over even minor things. I will say though that at least she didn’t have speeding tickets in four states in one year like her big brother, so there is that for which to be thankful. By the way -- I no longer ask him about the status of that "tickets in one-year" record. I just assume that he has matured on that front + he lives in a Midwestern state that already has a high speed limit -- one which I find excessive to say the least. What can I say? He comes from a family that has a race car driver in its background. He feels the "need for speed" -- or did at one time.

Nowadays -- I have to admit that I take a certain perverse pleasure in listening to both of my children discussing their child rearing "situations" as well as when they call to ask advice.  I particularly love it that my son called to ask how I handled it when he was out late past curfew which, in truth, was never -- that I know of. He laughed when I told him that I used to go to bed early and set the alarm for 15 minutes before he was supposed to get home, so that I could be at the door to give him a nice long hug and to ask about his evening.  It worked for the most part – both kids knew I would be giving them that hug when they got home.  It was always my hope that they would think about that hug and welcome home talk.  I think they did. Then again – they may have left the house after I went to bed so that I never even knew that they were out – I don’t want to even think about it.  I have told them not to talk of such things in front of me as I am just starting to relax a bit on the worrying front now that they are handling their own stuff and raising their own children.  They are, by the way, doing an excellent job of it all.  (They now ask me nicely not to share their stories in front of their children.  Oh the struggles of temptation….)

What are you thinking?

There was a time when I thought that the hula hoop was the best invention ever. Then later on it was a certain feminine hygiene product.  Time passed -- it became the disposable diaper or the post-it note that was at the top of my "major discovery" list for a while, and now, I often think that I will be eternally indebted to the individual who invented painters' tape. When I think about inventions during my life time, I am a bit overwhelmed. I find it difficult to decide what is most important. Most seem at least a bit important and many have changed all of our lives -- at least those of us who have moved/been dragged out of the cave, and that covers, I think, almost everyone in the entire world now.  Think about it...  even those who live in the most primitive of conditions are touched by the outside world. There is no escape. In most case scenarios -- our lives are improved -- hope so.  Anyway --

From time to time I have thought about the significance of the fact that many of our grandparents moved from a wood stove to central heating, from horse and buggy to automobiles, and from work horses to tractors. Remember that they were one of the generations who walked up hill both ways.  Then again -- our generation has experienced leaps as great -- and in larger numbers perhaps. Our world is changing so very quickly, and... we find out about new "stuff" in record time -- sometimes even years before the common folk have access to whatever it is. Our world is both smaller and larger at the same time.  

Of course there are a multitude of medical discoveries and a bunch of scientific developments that I know nothing about and wouldn't understand even if I did explore them a bit -- like the whole fiber optic "thing".  I know that these inventions are making our lives better and am thankful for the smart people who figured it all out. But turning to things that are more readily understandable and more frequently utilized brings us to such things as -- personal computers, cell phones, video games, the World Wide Web (does anyone call it that anymore?), and then there is GPS as well as DNA testing, etc. (Lots of letters in our world today; that's for sure.) 

On a more personal level -- I love my garage door opener (especially in bad weather), central air conditioning, and...  I am fond of the TV remote control, Roku, Netflix, and Acorn TV.  I also enjoy the convenience of the ATM machine and cordless tools with interchangeable batteries. I even comprehend, on some level, the importance of bar codes. Now that I think about it, there are a great many "newfangled" things that are changing our lives and in some cases -- becoming necessities. These are things that fulfill needs and wants that we never knew we had before their creation.  Swiffer products and microfiber cleaning cloths are cases in point.  Is your mind spinning with other inventions that have come into your life in a big way? Feel free to share.

Many times I wish that I had thought of that - whatever that is. Seriously -- how did someone know that pet rocks would become such a hit or that Chia pets would last as long as the did? ("Ch-ch-ch-chia!" has been running through my head off and on since the '80's for cryin' out loud.) I don't know about you, but I would like to have an idea that worked out well... that brought fun or, better yet, an idea that helped someone out a bit.  The thing is if I ever had an idea for such an invention, I didn't stay with it long enough for it to come into focus or I remember the idea after someone else had actually brought it to fruition. I guess the place to start might be with what people seem to need help with. Some research is necessary here.  

It is a fast moving and interesting world we live in. At times I wish we could all put on the brakes and slow things down so that people could catch up a little bit. Remember that "game" Would you rather be deaf or blind?  It's a game that made you really think about and appreciate important aspects of your life. Well let's play a variation -- Would you rather have transportation of some sort or access to media?   I am just wondering what you are thinking.  
Call it research.