in the dash

Nellie Aquino Dec. 25th, 1914 - March 30, 2003
Joseph Aquino ? - 1986
Ada Coughlan 1913-1995
Myles Coughlan 1889 - ?

Me June 15, 1981 -

I saw an obituary yesterday for a woman who passed away at just shy of 97. Right below her smiling picture, it said that the dash that separated the dates of her birth and death could never sum up the whole of the life she lived between those two days in time.

Wow.

I had NEVER thought about it that way. Any daily newspaper or history book is filed with the summation of a life with a XXXX - XXXX that we read without a second thought.

In the list of my grandparents there is only one who's dates I know clearly. Of the four, I met three, clearly remember two, and dearly miss one.

Grandma Nellie's birthday is cemented in my mind because we ALWAYS had (have) big family Christmases together and we NEVER missed her birthday celebration. We still celebrate it now every year with a birthday cake for Mama/Grandma/GreatMum on Christmas. My Grandmother came from Switzerland, survived a disease that should have crippled her at the age of nine. There was no choice then; she had to get better or miss the ship to America. My grandmother would go on to marry the dishwasher at the restaurant where she worked. He was an immigrant from the Phillipines. In the 1930's when they got married, it was illegal for an interracial couple to get married in California. I suppose they could have just as easily given up, but they persevered and did it anyways in another state, despite the police harrasment whenever they walked down the street, despite the prejudice they both faced, despite all the things that could have prevented them from going against the system. There's so much more to her dash that I could write on and on about. She was quiet at times, but don't underestimate a woman who raised six children. She had spunk and tenacity. I like to think I got some of mine from her.


Grandma Ada - she died right around a holiday when I was about 12 or 13; it was Christmas I think. I can still remember her voice but I couldn't begin to guess what her birthday was. I do know this: when she was a few years younger than I am now, she got pregnant with my dad and married my dad's dad. Twelve years later, my dad's dad died and Grandma Ada was left alone with two children to raise. She wasn't a great mother; from what I've heard she wasn't even a good mother at times, but she did love her children. Looking at her life through my eyes, I can't imagine the hurt she experienced in her life right up into her 80's when she fell that Christmas morning.

Grandpa Joe - really he's just "Grandpa" since he was the only one of the two I ever met. I have just a few memories of him and a lot of tales that I've heard from all my aunts and uncles. He died when I was 5 but I can still remember visiting them and sitting on the top of the couch cusions right behind him, combing his white thinning hair straight up and laughing! He would just sit there quietly and let me give him a full headed mohawk. He used to sneak and give me one of those strawberry candies in the strawberry printed wrapper from the stash he kept in his bedroom. This of course was despite his full blown diabetes; which is supected to have finally done him in. He used to collect all his pennies and put them in big plastic jars with screw on tops. He gave me one of those once. I remember carrying it out of the house at 5 years old thinking that it weighed more than I did! Those are the only two memories I have of him. To see him in pictures is like looking at the most familiar stranger I've ever laid eyes on. To look at him and then look at me, you would never think we share the same blood line, but he is MY grandpa and that's good enough for me.

Grandpa Myles - I really feel strange calling him Grandpa. I never knew him. I never even had a chance. I don't know much about him other than he was born 2 centuries back. Not 200 years ago, but his birthdate fell in the 1800's! He was nearly 50 when my dad was born, and my dad was nearly 40 when I was. I know that Myles was from Bantry Cork, Ireland and he died from pnemonia in the hospital after a car accident that happened when him and my father were walking across the street from the grocery store. That's all I know, but you know what? That's ok too, because despite that, it was the in between, the dash, that he became an eternal part of my family history.


So you see, it's not the dates that matter. It's the dash. I'm in my dash now. If you're reading this, then so are you. It's never too late or too early to make something spectacular out of that little line.

Waterwings optional

I just read this quote in the Austin, TX city guide.

"Travel is more than just A to B. It should feed your soul."

Well, I want to go to Texas reeeeal bad, y'all; and when I go, I want to go floatin' on an innertube down the Guadalupe River. Kinda lii-yke this:


I'm just a simple girl with simple requests. All I need is a rope to tie off my floatin' water cooler full of American beer and a few hundred neighbors decked out in cowboy hats and lifejackets. Waterwings optional of course.

Smalltown, USA

Being in the service of others is hard work. There are just people out there you don't give a damn to work for or represent. Thank God for patriotism and a sense of duty because everyone really should have a chance.

I went to the parade yesterday. I only go every so often now since I was a kid when we went all the time. It was a tradition - wake up early, have pancake breakfast at the church down the street, and watch the parade go down Main Street. It still has that small town feel and some of the same floats as it did 20 years ago, but you see it with a whole different set of eyes when you're an adult. Hokey as some of it is, I couldn't help but feel that there was something just undeniably American about it.

Want a friend? Be a friend.

What do I want to say in this blog? Everything. I don't even know where to start with all this, but I'll give it a shot.

This one's been weighing on my mind a lot lately. Weighing might not even be an accurate description - festering is more to the core of the matter. I've been wondering, what is the cost of friendship? Is it a matter of dollars? A matter of loyalty? Both? Well, I don't have a definitive answer for that other than it seems to be a matter of worth one way or the other. Worth the time, worth the phone call just because, worth the late night bottle of wine when you and your boyfriend break up, worth the present in the mail just 'cause...basically when it comes down to it, its just plain and simple worth the effort. I can pretty easily categorize the real friends from the friends of "convenience" based aloen on the theory of who takes the time and effort to contact me without any pretext.

Funny, you can be a great friend for a long time and during the course of that friendship, you can slough off all the little things that seem to bother you, but when they start to mount and you can't get them off your chest, those little things become the big things and the big things are the friendship deal breakers. One person always having to make the call or send the email is a little-big thing.

I've always said that honesty is the best policy and with such a policy, I've lost a lot of "friends". By "friends" I mean people who blow smoke up my ass and want to be uber-friendly only when they need something from me. Or even greater is the people who say that they love my friendship and my cut-to-the-chase approach with life, until, it applies to them. Yes, yes...when that happens, I know, I know, I'm the bad guy and the "you were supposed to be my friend!" friend. Well...when you're acting like an ass and I apply the same thing that you admire about me to YOU, how does that make me the bad guy? Because I didn't kiss yours ass blindly in the name of being best buds? Guess what? I realize I'm not God or anyone's judge, but I do have a high expectation of my friends to be decent people and act accordingly. How great of a friend am I to sit idly by and let you make an ass out of yourself and a fool out of me?

Don't get me wrong. There are a small handful of friends who are on the same honest page with me and those are the ones who I have known through thick and thin. As for the rest, they say the best rise to the top, but I'm going to choose to see that as the fattiest rise to the top and they are the ones who ultimatley just stick on you and weigh you down until you you run them off!!!

Uuuugggghhh!!!! Ok, well it felt a little bit better to get that one off my chest.

Glee

The only life worth living is the one that you're passionate about - Glee

Drugged

Seriously. I know, I know. My body is trying to tell me to slow down, but really, does it have to feel like I snuffed aerosol roofies everytime I lay down on the couch? This like the 4th time this has happened this week. I literally cannot control my body, move when the phone rings, turn the music off when it starts to blast through the house...I swear, someone put roofies in my couch.

BITCH

Here I was yesterday thinking that I must have an incredible knack to just piss people off and wondering if I felt bad about that or not. Well, I don't. I've come to realize that I can get pretty nasty if I get pushed hard enough, but for the most part I've just decided that everyone can whatever with their life, but I've just to stopped playing the fake games that everyone else plays. I'm sick of blowing smoke and kissing ass so that I just don't rock the boat. How fitting that the 70-something, 4'10", petite grandma would send me this. She knows. She's the sweetest thing you'll ever meet but she's had the same policy since long before I was on this Earth.

BITCHOLOGY

When I stand up for myself and my beliefs,
They call me a
Bitch.

When I stand up for those I love,
They call me a
Bitch.

When I speak my mind, think my own thoughts
Or do things my own way, they call me a bitch.

Being a bitch
Means I won't compromise what's in my heart.
It means I live my life MY way.
It means I won't allow anyone to step on me.

When I refuse to
Tolerate injustice and speak against it,
I am defined as a Bitch.

The same thing happens when I take time for myself instead of being everyone's maid, or when I act a little selfish.

It means I have the courage and strength to allow myself to be who I truly am and won't become anyone else's idea of what they think I "should" be.

I am outspoken, opinionated and determined..I want what I want and there is nothing wrong with that!
So try to stomp on me, just try to douse my inner flame, try to squash every ounce of beauty I hold within me.
You won't succeed..
If that makes me a bitch ,so be it. I embrace the title and am proud to bear it.

B - Babe
I - In
T - Total
C - Control of
H - Herself

B = Beautiful
I = Intelligent
T = Talented
C = Charming
H = Hell of a Woman

B = Beautiful
I = Individual
T = That
C = Can
H = Handle "anything"