Farting, freezing, and hand sanitizer

Posted by random olio

My flight was uneventful last night while flying back from California. A good smooth flight, but you know when you fly in a puddle jumper life is just a bit different in the friendly skies. Over the course of the 1+ hour flight someone (whether they were aware of it or not) could not stop breaking wind. As stated in my post last summer, about Farting on an Airplane, I know it is not always something individuals can control, but this was out of hand. Here is the list of things that came to me while making my trip back to Portland:

Overhead bin is so small, it is like a glove compartment
Someone keeps farting
The guy next to me has a cell phone with a revving motorcycle ringtone going off throughout flight
It is freezing, not above me through the vents, but around my ankles and no blankets on board
The person behind me keeps kneeing my back
Someone farted again
The guy next to me across the aisle will not shut up
The bathroom is so small, there is no sink, and they just leave hand sanitizer out for you
When the person coming out of the bathroom grabs my headrest as they walk by and I think now I do not want to put my head of hair on the headrest, because all I can think is, “Did they use the hand sanitizer?”
Someone farted again
I wonder when they last wiped the tray table down and the seats themselves
We arrive at our destination a half hour early only to stand while they take 20 minutes to figure out how to get the ramp to connect to the door
Someone farted again

Have you had enough?

Happy Mother’s Day, Sis.

Posted by random olio

For many years after my mom was gone, my sister was like a mother to me. I loved and hated it about her. She is older, so it was natural for her to step in and be the older, wiser sister, and I often resisted it. We fought a lot, which often ended in tears. Yet we also laughed a lot, which also ended in tears. I did not want to be mothered, and yet we both in our own ways, wanted to be mothered. We wanted that connection of family. There were ebbs and flows of times when we yearned to have our own family. We always had different individuals in our lives that were an inspiration to us, maybe not mother types, but individuals (yes I did not say women, because mothering can come from a man too) who gave us the mothering that we needed.

Each year as Mother’s Day comes and goes I have to say it is a strange day for me. It has been 20 years since I saw my mom’s face, held her hand, or gave her a hug. I have lived more years of my life without her than I had with her. Some years are tougher than others. On years when my sister and I lived in the same city, we would often have a sister brunch on Mother’s Day. Other years, I just go about my day as though it is just any other Sunday in May.

This year, my sister became a mother. Sunday will be the first Mother’s Day for her as a mom. While Charlie is too young to dote on her mom, I hope my sister cherishes the day. I hope she remembers that while she has had extremely less sleep, and most likely not much of a life in the past few months, it has all been worth it. I know she will say it has been.

Love the hell out of that precious little baby. Enjoy every moment as a mom. I only wish our mom could be with you on your first Mother’s Day, she would love the crap out of, lil Charlie.

Happy Mother’s Day, Sis.

Missed moments

Posted by random olio

By the mere fact that you are reading this blog it means you are on a smartphone, an iPad, or on your computer. A device that lets you connect to the Internet and go to a webpage. I love all my blog readers and followers, but for today I am going to tell you, read this blog today, watch the video below, and then turn it off for the day, or better yet, pick a day of the week to put your phone away, or a day a month, or if that might be hard for you, start by putting your phone down for an hour a day, and maybe gradually increase that to more and more time.

Some of you might have already seen this video, or it has been displayed on your Facebook or Twitter feed. Regardless I encourage you to watch it again and think about how many opportunities have you lost because you were too busy reading emails, scanning your Facebook feed, sending a tweet, or posting to your Pinterest board? I am just as much to blame. Yesterday I was at a conference and found myself in and out of a distracted mind between work emails, the presentations, and feeling completely out of it. I took ideas away from the day, but what if I had just turned my phone off? How many times are you in meetings and you see the same behavior (yourself or others) throughout the day?

I have written before about Sliding Doors moments, and I wonder if our phone is often that train that means that because our head is down, or our focus is off, that we miss out on important eye contact, fun moments, and maybe worse of all I wonder if our distraction actually makes others not trust us. Do we ever lead people to think that our phone is more important than they are to us? Yikes. There are times when Chris and I will go out to a nice restaurant and have somehow over time built a pact that we are there to be together – aka – no phones.

Watch this poetic way of getting us to realize how many moments we miss each day.

Check out my divot

Posted by random olio

My grandma loved watching golf. She would watch it most Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Over the many years I spent time with her, and eventually lived with her off and on, I learned quite a bit about golf rules. Somehow though I never played golf. I have been to driving ranges, and played my fair share of putt-putt, but a full round of golf has never happened in my life.

Last Friday I went golfing for the first time. Yes, can you believe it? I had an absolute blast, and so far I might be a new convert. It started out as a gorgeous afternoon and 70 degrees at the beginning of May, what Portlander would not be stoked to be outside? As you can tell by this picture, the sun eventually hid behind the clouds and it cooled off a bit. Still a perfect day for a nine holes of golf. I was with colleagues who were patient and taught me some of the basics (of course so many more things to learn). I now understand a bit more about an iron, driver, and a putter, and I think I quasi know when to use each club.

I even had one or two initial drives down the green. As you can see by the photo of me, not all swings were successful. Actually on most holes I tee’d off quite a few times before I actually hit the ball. The photo shows during that swing that I took quite a bit of earth, aka a large divot. Notice the chunk of mud/grass sitting on my ball. Yes, I may have no idea what I am doing, but at least I played with all power and zest. By the way, do not ask me how many different balls I used (and lost) in the course of nine holes.

I will definitely be visiting the driving range to practice, and would love to venture back this summer. Bring on the sunny days so I can see if the excitement is a short-lived adventure or if it is my new summertime exploration.

Any golf pointers for me?

“I only want to hang with my wife”

Posted by random olio

You know when you hear something and you think, “Hell yeah, or right on!” We were watching a clip of Ellen with Seth Rogen and he discusses one of his recent tweets:

“I really only want to hang out with my wife. I just want to watch Game of Thrones with my wife.” -Seth Rogen

10:14 PM – 21 Apr 2014

Um, hell yeah. I am not a Game of Thrones fan, but really this could read anything along the lines of, “I really only want to hang out with my wife [or husband]. I just want to watch [Scandal] or [The Good Wife] or [24] or [insert your favorite TV show]. I love thinking about how diligent we are with specific shows. There are plenty of shows that I would never watch that Chris loves and others I cannot watch for the mere fact that I would never, EVER get the story line out of my mind. This is how the scenario would play out:

I would wake up in the middle of the night and shake Chris and say, “I cannot sleep because that episode of 24 was just too real and is something going to happen at 3:00 AM when Jack does [insert whatever mayhem you want here]?”

Chris would then think something like, “I cannot say, “No.” because Tami does not do so well in the middle of the night when she really is not coherent and when I tell her something is not possible and it does not make sense to her well a lot of expletives spew out of her mouth.” He would then say to me something like, “Jack is safe at home with Chloe. All is good.” I would believe him and then go back to sleep.

So instead of watching shows together that I cannot even fathom watching (because of my never-shutting-down brain) we watch Scandal, Parenthood, Modern Family, The Good Wife, Orange is the New Black, and House of Cards, and I can sleep at night and all is well.

The next morning we will wake up and brush our teeth and say, “Can you believe what happened on Scandal last night?” or “I cannot believe we only have one more episode left of House of Cards, how are we ever going to wait a year to see the next season (you know all in one weekend like the rest of the world).” Is it sad to say that while we are watching our favorite television shows together, curled up on the couch together, that we are in some ways connecting? Yes. We are home together. We discuss what happens. We reflect on the storyline in relation to our own lives. Somehow we feel in a better place and, maybe, the world is in a better place.

Although after all that, the gist of Seth Rogen’s quote is really this: “I just want to hang out with my wife [or husband].” At the end of the day it is not about Game of Thrones, or Scandal, or Orange is the New Black. It is the fact that hubby’s want to be with wives, and vice versa. It is about snuggling on the couch or in the bedroom, toes touching, or legs intertwined, for that moment in time where spouses hang together. Life is never the same. We are never the same.

#lovemyhusband