Bfth's Boring Blog

No, this post is not about the Disney movie... (Sorry fans) It's about how I feel on this hot summer day.  Frozen.  I mean it.  FROZEN. It IS summer.  It IS hot outside.  I do my morning walk and come home sweaty and smelly.  I open the windows and doors of our house in the morning to let the breezes in and then have hubby close them up mid-morning.  I re-open in the evening (before locking up for the night of course.)  We use ceiling fans.  There are window units in the two bedrooms that run all night long. I dress in appropriate summer office attire.  I'm a warm weather person.  I've moved the cold weather clothes to the far side of the closet. (Since we have limited storage space.)  I'm happy to be putting on sleeveless blouses, summer skorts and sandals.  No tights or pantyhose for me.  I can bypass the coat rack.  I can jump in the car sans hats and gloves.  I can roll down the windows (a...

S chool's out for summer!  But that doesn't mean summer vacation for everyone.  While my kid may have the summer off (which I have filled with lots of fun stuff like camp and trips with both sets of his grandparents), I still have to work.  My "vacation" this year consists of a 4 day weekend revolving around my son's birthday.  I may have the days/time, but I don't have the finances for any wonderful trip this year.  (Was it a year ago that we traveled to Disney World?  My blog posts of 2016 tell me so.)  I keep thinking next year...I'd like to travel to Disneyland.  Or take a cruise to Alaska.  Or visit the Bay of Fundy.  (For some reason I'm really obsessed about this and it's probably the most realistic of all the vacation plans I have tied up in my head.) But plans of next summer are just that.  I still need that sofa for the living room.  (Anyone have ANY leads on a sofa that is NOT a plain brown, tan or gray?) ...

I'm not talking about the spice.  I'm talking about the renowned (rightfully so), album put out by the Beatles 50 years ago.   If you know me, you know I am a big Beatles fan.  "Back in the day" I ran a Beatles fanzine.  I married a Beatles fan.  (We met as a result of being Beatles fans.) We merged our collection (selling off duplicates).  We have a "music" room that is pretty much dedicated to the Beatles.  If you come to our home, there is no doubt that we are Beatles fans.  I even have a Beatles inspired personalized license plate, but only a true fan would be able to pick it out. Sgt. Pepper is a revolutionary album.  It is an astonishing work.  It changed the music world.  But if you asked me to rank my favorite Beatles albums, it would be near the bottom.  While I recognize it as perhaps the Beatles most important work (though I suppose, that, as all things, is debatable), rather than move me, it startles me....

Father's Day falls just on the cusp of summer.  The days are getting warmer and the school year is wrapping up (if it's isn't already over).  Summer is the perfect time for Father's Day.  And for my father summer is the time when the two things that he loves the most (other than his family of course) come into play:  gardening and sailing/racing.  His dedication and expertise to both benefit not only my family, but friends, neighbors and people who might not even know him. My mother says that because my father didn't have a sandbox to play in when he was a child, he turned to dirt as an adult.  For as long as I can remember, little cups of seedlings would appear around the house in the spring.  Often starting in the basement under a grow lamp, moving to the porch when they got larger and then eventually transplanted outside.  When I was younger (and he was too) there was a huge strip of land in our backyard in which he toiled.  (We ha...

It's the morning of June 15, 2017.  So far, now news of any gun violence...but there is a full day ahead of us.  Yesterday, the news carried two stories of shootings:  one in Alexandria, VA at a Congressional baseball practice and one at a UPS building in San Francisco, CA.  Of course those were just the stories that made the national news.  Gun violence is on the rise in our country, which I'm sure comes as no surprise to anyone.  But the below statistics from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence should.  (And if you don't know how and why the Brady Campaign started, Google James Brady.) Every day,  93 people  die from gun violence:  ·          32 are murdered ·          58 kill themselves ·          1 are killed unintentionally ·          1 is killed by ...

The school year is almost over.  That's a sigh of relief for my son and for my husband and myself.  No more homework; which means my husband doesn't have to oversee it.  No more early morning classes; which means I don't have to rush out of the house.  (And hopefully that my son will be less grumpy.  He is NOT an early morning kid. Neither is my husband.  On the other hand, by the time they get up, I've been up and going for nearly 2 hours...) It means I can get up "later" (maybe 5:15 vs 4:25) and my mornings will be a little less hectic. This past year, particularly the past two marking periods, have been exceedingly difficult for my son, and hence my family.  I thought 5th grade was rough!  Boy was I wrong!  The drama!  The highs! The LOWS!  (Oh, the low, low, lows!!!) To be fair, this has less to do with school and teachers and more to do with my son.  It was just recently that I realized that he was in full blown...

Today, June 12th, is Loving Day.  Sounds like a sweet, Hallmark card kind of holiday.  But I doubt as if many people have heard of it or that anyone makes a card. While Loving Day has a lot to do with love, it's so named because it actually marks the anniversary (50 years today) that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff the case of Loving vs Virginia.  The Lovings were Richard and Mildred and their "crime" was marriage, as Richard was “white" and Mildred was "non-white."  They were married in Washington, DC (where their marriage was not a "crime"), but lived in Virginia where it was.  (It was also where they both grew up, had family and lived most of their lives.)  I'm amazed that "interracial" marriage was still prohibited in some states in my lifetime. I just want to shake my head and say:  "Seriously?  This was an issue?  We've faced two world wars and countless horrors but we were arresting pe...

Today we celebrate my dad's birthday.  Happy birthday dad!  I love you, but I wish you were younger... I say that out of pure selfishness.  My father is a great grandfather.  I remember the first time he held his grandson.  How scared and cautious he was.  How careful he was.  And how much he loved holding him and napping with him.  He'd come over to our house, sit on our love seat in the living room and take a nap as my son took a nap on him. I think we ALL wish that could still happen! But that was nearly a dozen years ago.  My father was younger and more active.  They say getting older beats the alternative, but that doesn't make getting older easier.  (I'm just beginning to find that out myself.)  My father's been through a lot in the past few years health wise.  Illness can take A LOT out of you!  And it can age you, more so than physical years.  As a result of infection and illness, my father is...

When I first interviewed for the job that I now hold, I sat in a lobby/reception area waiting to meet with my employer.  The company is in an office building that houses several different businesses. While waiting, I could see out to the hallway where people from other companies would pass by on their way home for the evening.  I hadn't been sitting there long, when a woman passed by, talking on her cell phone.  I saw her; she saw me and stopped. We had worked together years ago at a company that was maybe 3 miles away from where we both now were.  I knew the company that the worked for (not the one that I was interviewing with), but I didn't know they were housed in this building.   Though on the phone, she mouthed:  "Are you interviewing?"  I nodded and she mouthed back "Good luck" and continued on her way.  I took it as a good sign.  I think it was.  Three weeks later I was offered the job.   Although she works in one...

As an "upper" middle school student (does that even make any sense?), my son was allowed to chose three cycle/elective classes for the school year.  ("Lower" middle school students don't get to select their cycle classes; they have 6 assigned throughout the year and how they know when to move from one to the other is as confusing to me as it is to them, or so I assume.)  We got the form early in the spring and looking over it I immediately saw two classes that I knew he'd want.  As for the third, I thought I knew what he'd select, but he surprised me.  Even though selections are not guaranteed, I was pretty certain he'd get the three he wanted (along with health which is a mandatory part of the cycle.) Form was turned in and that was that.  Or so I thought. Monday, less than two weeks before the end of the school year and the last FULL week of school, we, along with other parents received an email from our son's math teacher.  The note sai...

Fifty is coming to an end and I'm about to turn fifty one.  Yikes!  Somehow that seems more like a "steady" number.  While fifty was a milestone, fifty one is REALITY.  Look lady, you're really middle aged now, there's NO denying it.  You're not fifty; you're fifty ONE! So what has this first year of my half century brought? Well, certainly not weight loss.  Remember how I was trying to lose weight before I turned fifty?  I'm still trying (half-heartedly most times).  I've lost and I've found.  Finding pounds is the ONLY thing that I seem to find easily.  Everything else is easy to loose:  keys, glasses, shoes, jewelry, that blouse that goes so well with my gray skirt, and of course, my sanity. (If only finding my sanity was as easy as finding those extra pounds I'd be the poster child for mental health!) I've had some really great times in year 50.  There was the family trip to Disney World (detailed thoughts of...

Not to be too maudlin, but today is the 5th anniversary of my brother's death. What bothers me most is that he seems so far away.  The memories that I have are receding.  I have to focus more to remember times we had together and I don't want that.  It bothers me that I DON'T think of him more often. I drive past the cemetery where he is buried just about every week day (on my way to work).  But I don't stop in often.  Maybe once or twice a year. I have lots of photos in my cubicle at work.  But he's not in any of them.  I have lots of photos on my mantle at home.  He's only in one of them (from the day that I was married). It bothers me that I can barely remember the last time we were together.  It was in April...I only know/remember this because my son, my husband and I had been to Disney World for spring break and I brought back an Orange Bird " sippy " cup for my brother.  I know I gave it to him...I don't know wha...