Server Writes

Things are looking up for me. I went on a spending spree for the house last week and kinda overdid it. The king size dual mattress adjustable bed Tim bought for us really needed Twin XL fitted sheets instead of one king size and have been meaning to get them for a while. They weren't cheap but at least now the sheets don't slip off when we each adjust our mattress to our different preferences. Bought some things for around the house and yard and before you know it, had spent my car note money due on the last day of the month.

Ooops...my bad.

I got the mail last week and had a letter from the teacher's retirement in Georgia. Seems during my seven year stint as (first) a lunch lady then asst. coordinator for the after school program where the kids attended elementary school had paid into the retirement plan with every paycheck. They had an opt out to cash it in and immediately filled out the form on line.

Bingo, had my car note on the way!

Then Zach called me on my way home from work the other night. When we moved from Newnan we had left Massey's old Aurora (affectionately called the Beluga) for a buddy of his to pick up. The guy is a mechanic and could fix it up. I settled for $300 just to have it gone. He'll probably get $1000 for it but will have to pay for parts and do the labor.

Well, I've been waiting since last October but the guy finally has it up for sale and said he would go ahead and give me my three hundred when he got paid this weekend.

And just like that...I was back on track!

The good news just kept on coming! Tim talked to the mortgage company about our house in Newnan this past week. All said and done, July 1st will be our last payment, freeing us of a $1461 monthly payment.

My nephew lives there now with his wife, renting the house. He cut back all the huge bushes in front of the living room window and has done a lot of work inside as well. It's a win/win...for them and us.

I think back to seven years ago when we were six months behind on the mortgage and often borrowed money from my bosses at Mama Lucia's just to keep the utilities on or feed the dogs.

These two people were so wonderful to me. They never charged me a dime in interest and never minded waiting an extra day (or week) to be paid back.

You get by with a little help from your friends.


Then "Ecco" happened to me.

I've never studied so hard to learn a job and it certainly paid off. Not only did I make more money than ever imagined I could as a server; I met (and worked with) some really awesome people.

All good things must come to an end, and it did.

I left the most perfect job ever... didn't want to but had to. I also left every person and every thing I'd known for well over half a century.

 I didn't want to, but needed to. Tim had spent over two years away from our family making a living for us. It was time to join my husband again, who had done incredibly well and now had even more opportunity to move ahead...in Orlando.

Sometimes you have to do things which hurt the most but are for the best.

I left my sister, my youngest son and moved to Orlando.

It's been the biggest hurt of all.

"This too shall pass." (small condolence)

I thought I'd transfer to the Orlando airport, be back to work in two days with all my (Massey and Zach's) insurance, benefits and seniority still in tact. Yeah, I'd take a huge pay cut but benefits are awesome to have, especially at my age.

Didn't even come close to happening.

I don't think, no...am absolutely positive I've never been more depressed than I was when I wasn't allowed to transfer and then found out was not only terminated but all benefits had been cancelled as well.

I tried...I really tried, to find out what happened, to no avail. No one wanted to talk to me; no one could tell me what went wrong.

Are you serious? I can't be hired as a server at Outback Steakhouse in the airport when there is an opening for one?

I stayed in bed for a good two weeks. My instructions were "Shut the door when you leave" to anyone who entered. I never opened the curtains and I never got dressed.

Not once.

Depression is the real deal and tends to be devastating at the very least.

I climbed my back towards the light, slowly with baby steps... but did it.

Here's the thing. I'm not the best person on this planet but certainly not the worst. I didn't deserve the way I was treated and didn't take it lightly.

After almost six months of constantly asking why, still don't have an answer.

Not one to ever let being wronged go, have finally decided to let the legal system take on my battle. Contacting the Dept of Labor, the EEOC and the Florida Bar. Since moving here have met two other people who have had similar problems with the guy who interviewed me.

I may just be a waitress, but where are my rights?

#serverwrites

Til next time...COTTON

Salt Water Therapy For The Soul

My daughter and I headed to the beach today for some much needed salt water therapy. Thirty minutes from our house, at a great little state park with free parking and all the needed amenities. It was a peaceful week day with not too many peeps and got a great spot right by the ocean.

I think my favorite part about a trip to the beach is the smell. It's the smell of serenity. Cocoa Beach is a great place to watch the huge cruise ships come and go.  Literally huge floating skyscrapers.

We had packed my trusty lunchbox with grapes, water, cokes and crackers. Other than that all we took was two sand chairs, a beach blanket and our nifty new binoculars. I'm not all about having to make three trips back to car carrying an armload down each time just for a day at the beach and certainly not all about having to do it all in reverse when leaving.

It's hard enough just walking in dry sand if you ask me!

Massey read a book for one of her classes and I read a book for  my pleasure. It was a most excellent day.

With all the hesitations and apprehensions I had moving from my home state of over fifty six years...this weekly ritual has made them all worth it. To be able to go sit on a beach and relax, thirty minutes after pulling out of your driveway is definitely the way to go.

It soothes your soul, looking at that huge ocean, rolling waves, seemingly endless sand and constant breeze.

It's our new Go To place...and we like it!

I'm slowly adapting to my new surroundings...and the scalping the little old lady (which means older than me) gave me at Great Clips last week. I look at it this way...I got my money's worth, all $14 of it. It's starting to grow a bit and like it more every day, just like living here.

My favorite spot in our tiny temp rental is now our screened in back porch. I've managed to turn it into my own personal oasis. Massey strung the lights for me, my plants are growing like crazy (porch faces east) and take care of theplants every single day, watering and spraying with a water bottle.

When I get home late from work, usually head out back first thing. The corner of our back yard faces a redunkously busy intersection across the street from a college campus main entrance but calms down late at night and is a great spot to sit and read or write.

I'll have to post pics of the front yard tomorrow as well, have made it pretty awesome too. I'm all about pulling into the driveway of where I live and liking what I see...and have done. 

I like our neighbors (on one side) as well. Young couple (Ashley and Justin) in their twenties, and have three dogs as well. Ziggy has a crush on the one they call Lilly. The minute they let Lilly out back, she runs to the part of the fence where she can stick her little needle nose under and Ziggy races to meet her. Every time.

She had started digging at the spot and could now see her eyes too when she came out. Thank goodness Ziggy has that fat boxer snout.

Our neighbors worked in their back yard last Saturday, putting down chicken wire at the spot on their side and covering it with lattice. I went out back to read and let Ziggy out with me. He heard them over there working and zoomed over to see if his girlfriend was around. (he's neutered so guess it's just his buddy)

I heard Ashley and Justin talking on the other side of the fence when Ziggy walked over to the exact spot where they were, hiked his leg andsplattered his urine through the slats of the privacy fence.

I immediately heard Ashley from the other side of the fence, not sounding angry but rather kind of insulted... saying calmly to Ziggy, "Well that wasn't very nice."

I called back over to them, "Ziggy's the bad boy next door who parents don't like."

I bet I've laughed about that happening ten times since then. 

It's been a change. It's been a hard change, but is beginning to be a good change.

I'm actually beginning to feel like myself again.

Massey was driving us home from the beach today, playing all her music on the stereo, which is okay.

I blast my music in the kitchen every time I'm in there... on the Bose speaker my brother gave me. They (Tim and Massey) never complain, mainly because am usually in there cooking for them. 

So we were almost home, tooling down the road with the top down...when a song came on and Massey said "I have to turn this up!"

I listened to it. I liked it. The guy had crazy vocal range but I liked the lyrics too. I told Massey, "That's the song to play when the groom is walking you back up the aisle."

Of course she one upped me with which song she wanted played when she walked down the aisle.

 I'm down with that. Weddings are always too uptight for the bride and groom. Let music tell the real story.

My cousin's  daughter walked down the aisle to "Fix You."

I'm okay with all this new fangled thinking. Actually I kind of like it.

Who's not tired of hearing "Here comes the bride"?

Just tends to make you nervous, not excited.

I've been nervous way too long and was starting to wear on my already worn tiny body.

The days I spent working with Massey at the airport were the best.

I can honestly say... we were loved, shouted out to on a daily basis and known by name from hundreds of people from concourse to concourse and shuttle to shuttle.

That does and will  always mean a lot to me, and should. We were known among the tens of millions at the world's busiest airport.

To raise your best friend is an awesome privilege.  I check and reign her in when necessary and as she matures often does the same for me.

After talking tonight, for a while...she told me this song changed her very way of thinking.

In other words, listen and learn from your kids what they are listening and learning from.

Til next time, COTTON

When Your Loss is Their Gain

Yep...that's my momma on the left. It's the last picture ever taken of her. She is sitting on a bench beside my high school BF's mom. They had both driven to pick us up from cheer leading camp in the late summer of 1977. She died unexpectedly two days later while out shopping with me and my older sister for school clothes. It was less than two weeks before I started my senior year of high school.

 Here's a fun fact that every single person who knows me from my childhood will totally understand. She not only sewed that top herself but the slacks too and even made the purse she's holding in her lap. The woman was a seamstress genius and one of the most talented women I've ever known.

She could also pop Wrigley's Doublemint gum like no body's business.

She also made both outfits my sister and I are wearing in this pic from a few years earlier. I absolutely loved that culotte sailor dress.

I don't think any of us have ever gotten over her death. It was probably even harder for our Diddy.(that's what you call your father in the deep south)

He lived until 2002 but never remarried.

I always felt cheated. I think we all did, but all carried on...toting our grief with us along the way. Over the years the pain dulls but it never leaves. It simply becomes easier to live with...one day way on down the road.

Now as I'm approaching the sixty year mark (sooner than later) understand why it all happened.

God was looking out for both of them...and us too.

So many of our friends have spent years and years taking care of their aging parents. Some aged well, some not so much. Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes and a plague of other diseases made not only the parents suffer but their grown kids as well, watching a long slow decline of the people who used to take care of them but now with the roles reversed.

I totally admire those (now grown) childhood friends of mine and salute their untiring albeit extremely tiring efforts, and commend them on being there for them every agonizing step of the agonizing way.

 To watch a parent turn into a helpless person is more than I would wish on my worst enemy.

Case in point:

Flash forward decades and decades and decades from this photo. The woman sitting beside my mother is the mother of one of my dearest childhood friends. We (shout out to Denise) remain close friends to this day. Her mother suffered from Alzheimer's for the last few years of her life.

My friend took care of her mother until she couldn't, then put her in the best place possible and visited her probably at least twice a day.

This woman dressed and looked every day of her life like she was on her way to a Gala. Hair perfect, makeup perfect and always smartly dressed and totally accessorized. That's a lot to be said for a single, working mother who raised three kids.

I remember my friend telling me one time that while in the assisted living (then eventually hospice)  all the nurses called her mother, "Miss America."

She may have been losing her mind but made sure she looked sharp while losing it, makeup and hair always done.

"Way to go Frances!"

I've watched so many of my friends go through the same thing with their own loved ones. Different situations but all with the same result...the loss of a loved one.

My brother commented one time a few years back, "Our family takes the express checkout."

He's right about that, and am grateful for it.

My mother died (from a massive brain aneurysm) in less than one minute. Had she lived, would have most probably been in a vegetative state for the rest of her life.

My Diddy contracted West Nile Virus at the age of seventy seven and went from physically healthy to being taken off life support in ten days. He had been diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's and hid it from us.

God simply took him from us so he (and we) wouldn't have to go that route.

Every so often I have to remind myself how lucky I've been.

I had the greatest and strongest parents in the world...right up to their end in this game called life.

I may not have a lot of money, and actually have been through times when there was none, but I was showered with God's Blessings and love literally saved me from every direction in every way possible.

Call us the "Check Out Express."

The reason for this post is yet another  of my childhood friends, who I grew up with in the above church both our families attended... has been taking care of her own aging mother while also taking on the roll of caregiver for her spouse of decades (not so) recently diagnosed and suffering from stage four brain cancer.

Talk about a double whammy.

Her beloved partner died yesterday after a courageous battle from them both.

I consider myself a strong person but the strength caregivers have... watching and waiting for loved ones to die while doing every possible thing to ease their pain, are the true strong ones. 

A book I am reading phrased it perfectly today as I sat out back in the sunshine reading:

"He used to say we all had a compass inside of us and what we needed to do was to find it and follow it."

My dear friend found her compass and set the course...yet knowing stormy seas were just ahead and would surely swell before ever ebbing.

Her beloved is whole again and out of pain, yet my friend begins the descent into pain from her loss.

Talk about oxymoron's...

Life is a fragile but sturdy thing.

You need to be strongest when feel your weakest.

When you feel empty inside you simply have to be full for those who need you the most.

When you have a devastating loss,  it is devastatingly hard to not be traumatized by their wonderful release from the pain, which in turn intensifies your own.

Brutal fact of life...We are all born to ultimately die.

Let the waves of grief wash over you. Cry until you can't. Then pick up that compass and continue your own journey.

It's called the circle of life...but should be a circle of love.

My heartfelt sympathies go out to Tracey and feeling a little bit ashamed I've been so spared.

Love every person like there is no tomorrow...because life doesn't come with guarantees or Do Overs.

Til next time...COTTON