Blogging For Kicks

So, Christmas is over, everyone’s gone, and I’m left alone to think. Dangerous proposition, no matter how you look at it. But, here I am, just the same, and no one to share those thoughts with but you…..so here goes.

Three of my six kids made it home for Christmas. .500 is good in baseball, but not in Momland. See, that still leaves three others I haven’t - and won’t - have with me at Christmas for at least another year, and that’s simply unbearable. I’ll fess up here, since it’s just you and me: when everyone left I sat here and cried like a baby at the thought of being alone again. Pathetic or what?

I finally figured out that I spent two-thirds of my life with my kids. Forty out of sixty years…..that’s longer than most of you have been alive, probably, and certainly longer than most careers last. It’s all I know at this point, and now it’s gone. I need the hustle and bustle of my kids around me or I’m simply a useless lump, sitting here blubbering like an idiot. I guess it’s called depression, really, and I could go get some pills for it, but to tell the truth, it wouldn’t help. Nothing will help except to have my kids here, and that’s not going to happen. They’ve grown up and gone their own ways, and that’s what I raised them to do, after all.

Man, I should have known better, you know? I mean, had I known it would be like this, I’d have tried to cripple them emotionally, keep them tied to my apron strings for fear they’d never be able to do anything right without me. I see older ladies with sons or daughters always at their sides, never marrying, never moving on with their lives, and while it used to make me sad to think how much those kids were missing, it now makes me envious of the mothers. They’ll never wish there were someone there to talk to, and they’ll never have to make dinner for one. God, that’s the saddest thing of all, making just enough for yourself. It’s like wasted effort, you know?

So, anyway, here I sit, feeling sorry for myself, wanting more than anything to have all my kids move back home with me so I can hear the echo of their voices ringing through the house instead of just the thumpa-thumpity-thump of my own heart beating. I keep the TV on day and night now, just so I can hear something else, voices saying inane things that matter not a whit to me, but at least it’s noise. The quiet is deadly, you know?

Before you start thinking I’m a suicide waiting to happen, let me assure you I’m far too chicken to do anything like that. Nope, I just sit here crying my eyes out, waiting to hear their footsteps on the doorstep or their voices on the phone, and wish I’d taken more “me” time over the years, gotten my own life instead of working so hard to make sure their’s were full and as happy as I could make them. But had I done that, where would they be now? Would they be able to live their own lives and be happy doing it? Would they have gone out on their own, found their own niche, and built their own happiness around it? Or would one or more of them be following me around like my puppy dog, never becoming the person they are capable of being because of being bound to me? All things considered, I’m glad of the way I raised them, and I’m very proud of the person each has become, where they are in their lives. I just wish I could see them a little more often. Is that too much to ask?

I heard a song on the radio yesterday that so completely matched what I’ve been feeling that I swear I could have written it. It was called something like “Where is Christmas”, and it talks about how everything has changed and the singer just can’t find her Christmas Spirit. It hit so close to home I actually started crying, and then felt like a total fool about it.

Christmas and I haven’t gotten along very well for many years now, but once the day was around the corner, I always began to feel it. This year, however, there’s nothing, only an empty feeling and huge sadness at the fact I’ve simply lived too long at this point. I never thought that could happen, but it did. I’ve outlived my usefulness and most all of the people I’ve loved over the years. It’s not a great feeling, you know?

I remember Christmas as a child, spent with one set of grandparents or the other, and the huge gaggle of relatives that always went with it. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins by the dozens…..you couldn’t get up and walk without tripping over someone, it was so crowded at these gatherings. It was one of the times when you got to see the people you loved, find out how they were doing and what was new in their lives. The noise, the games, the smell of the food cooking, the hugs and kisses, sneaking fudge when the adults weren’t looking….those are the Christmases I remember and long for.

Then, later, when I had my own family, there was the cooking, making sure everything was perfect and I had everyone’s favorites; the days of shopping for just the right gifts for each one, trying to remember sizes and wishes and what each had asked Santa for on our yearly trips to see him on his throne at the mall; picking out just the right tree and putting the decorations on over hot chocolate and gingerbread men. And of course, Christmas morning, when the house was full of laughter, shouts of “Oh, my gosh, I got exactly what I wanted!”, and “Mom, can we go outside and play with this”…whatever that was. And of course, shredded wrapping paper all over the floor that had to be picked up and shoved into the overflowing trash can. I remember wishing there was less work to do, more time to just sit and enjoy my children’s happiness, but now that I have all the time in the world and no children left to watch, I really miss it.

My last child left home a couple months ago, moving clear across the country. As maudlin as it sounds, I am finding it hard to even care that Christmas is a week away. I have nothing to prepare for, nothing to worry about getting done in time, and no money to do anything with, anyway. I’ve had Christmases when there wasn’t enough to do all the things I wanted for my kids, and those hurt a lot, but this……this is simply torture. Maybe if I were still married, had a husband at home that I finally had all the time in the world to devote to, it might not be so bad. But I have no one, and wandering around my empty house is the worst punishment I can think of. I’m not sure what I did to deserve it, but here I am, and I hate it. Christmas? Bah! Humbug!

So yes, I’m officially a Scrooge this year, unhappy with my life and hating this upcoming Holiday that I’ve loved for so long. It’s like a husband you’ve loved and cherished, worked hard to support and nurture for years on end, and then one day he just up and walks out, takes off to the Bahamas with some young, nubile, empty-headed trollop, and you’re left wondering what to do with the rest of your life…..or even if you want any more life to have to wonder about. Christmas is a fickle spouse, here in the good times but disappearing at the first sign of trouble, leaving you to deal with it alone.

So, I sit here without even the urge to hang the lights or find a tree, let alone decorate it, and wish I could quietly slip into one of my happy memories of Christmas Past, staying there for as long as God keeps me breathing. I wonder if I could figure a way to be a child at my grandparent’s house and yet have my own kids there with me? Now, that would be the perfect Christmas. They say anything’s possible when you dream, so maybe that’s what I’ll try to do. I wonder how long I can sleep?

So, God and His son Jesus were kicking back on the clouds, watching the world they had made. “Man, it seems like things are getting really crazy down there, Dad”, Jesus said, and His Father agreed. “Yes, my son, man having been left to his own devices has become more and more unstable as the generations have passed. We knew it would be this way, tho.”

“Yes, I knew the general plan, but I had no idea it would get this bad before it was all over. This is horrible!” God watched his creations living their every day lives for a few minutes before responding, nodding His head all the while. “Well, it’s what we knew would happen when we gave man free rein to choose his path in life. It really shouldn’t be that surprising.”

Jesus thought for a moment, then replied “Yes, I knew man would manage to mess things up, but I really thought those who followed my teachings would do better. That’s the part that bothers me the most. They seem to have learned nothing from the things I taught them.” “Oh, not all those who heed your words are like that, son. There are many who follow your words, living their lives as they should. Those are the ones you should concentrate on. The others are earning their rewards, and nothing can be done at this point.”

They sat in silence for a while, watching life on earth go by. They smiled at times, such as the birth of babies and the Godly acts of those who lived as they should. And when something happened that wasn’t good, they looked away, not able to bare the sight. But they knew it was happening, and they knew where and by whom. Their hearts broke each time, knowing those that were doing these things were most surely lost to them.

As they watched, they saw something strange. One human, a man who claimed to follow Jesus’ words but never really lived them, made a hateful statement, and claimed God himself had told him to say it. God was outraged! “How can he say something like that and blame me for it?”, He asked His Son. Jesus was unable to explain it.

As they watched, they heard the man say one hateful thing after another, and each time he claimed God told him to say them. “Now, he’s gone too far!”, Jesus exclaimed, and he raised his hand, ready to strike the man down. “NO!”, God said, grabbing His Son’s arm and stopping it. “That’s not the way we handle sin now, you know that. Just let him be. He will pay for his blasphemy soon enough.” “But Father, he is leading many people astray! They truly believe he speaks for us, for you. We have to stop him!”

“No, son, we can’t. We clearly told mankind what we expected of them, and what their rewards would be, depending on whether they followed your teachings or not. As much as we may want to, we can’t change the rules now. All those who follow him willingly do so at their own peril. They have had the same chance as everyone else, and it’s their choice.”

Jesus sat back down on the cloud and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He knew His father was right, as He always was. Once he had calmed down, they turned their attention from the man and watched others, trying to concentrate on those who were doing as they should. And that’s the way Pat Robertson was saved from having his rear end handed to him on a platter by the One who he was slandering with every vile word out of his mouth.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my family. I do, and nothing is better than having them all together at one time. Really. But I’ve got to tell you, nothing is as tiring, stressful, and flat out nerve-wracking, either. You simply can’t have that many people in one place for all that time and not feel at times that you’d rather be anywhere else than there.

I love seeing my brother and niece. Last year was our first Christmas together in 41 years, and it was the first time I had seen Sandy in real life. It was really a wonderful thing. Having them come back again this year was a blessing, and I hope it won’t be the last time they make it here. But, to tell the truth, I heaved a huge sigh of relief once they were gone. Is that horrible?

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I didn’t love having them there, it was just the constant need to keep them entertained, ensuring they wouldn’t be so bored they’d never want to come back again. I live in a small town in a rural setting, and there’s simply not a whole lot to do around here, so it’s hard. And it gets expensive to go where there are things to do every day, something I’m not able to handle. I would love to win the Lotto and become rich enough to keep the good times coming all the time, but I’m a realist, and I know that’s never going to happen.

We did get to go searching for our long-lost roots, and we had our share of pizza, chinese food, buffets, and home-cooked feasts, but let’s face it, life is more than eating. Adding to our problems was the fact that we had rain every couple of days while they were here, making visits to any of the many outside activities we usually love to do impossible. I tell you, I’m just not an activities director-type person, and it’s not easy to come up with exciting, fun things to do. Actually, I’m very boring on a day-to-day basis, and that’s the problem.

But, frazzled as I am, I am so glad they were here all week. My oldest daughter was here for New Year’s, too, and that was great, although I didn’t get to see her as much as I would have liked to. She and my middle daughter had a problem a couple of years ago and MD will have nothing to do with OD, so that made it that much more of a hassle. I keep hoping she’ll get over it, but she’s very stubborn and feels she was wronged in the worst way, so it hasn’t happened yet. She goes to church all the time and claims a very Christian life, but for some reason Jesus’ admonition to forgive seems to pass right over her head, unnoticed, and she swears it doesn’t apply to her anyway. Go figure.

The other dark spot was the fact my oldest child, my son Andy, couldn’t make it here. He came up last January and stayed for a week or so, and I was so hoping he could get the time off to be here for Christmas this year, but it didn’t happen. Hopefully he’ll be able to get away later, like he did last year, but it would be so nice to have him here for Christmas again. It’s been years, actually. He has been globe-trotting, or at least it seems that way, and the job he has keeps him busy during the holidays, so it’s just not possible. Maybe next year I’ll be able to go see him at Christmas. That Lotto prize is still out there, you know.

Anyway, it’s over for another year, and I can finally kick back, put my feet up, cry my eyes out to get rid of all the frustration, and breathe deeply and evenly at last. Oh, yes, and I can finally relax. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh, what a great feeling that is. But……I can’t wait until next year! It will be so nice to have my family all around me again…….

You know, I’ve been considering buying my daughter a portable DVD player to take with her when she takes her kids on trips. It seems like a good way to keep them interested in something and make the trips easier for their parents. There’s nothing worse than tired, cranky, arguing kids in the backseat when you’re trying to get somewhere on time. I’ve been looking around at the prices, trying to find the best deal. One thing I found out today, tho, is that no matter what the price at K-Mart, I won’t be buying it there.

I saw a commercial for one today, and it really bugged me. Maybe I’m being picky, but I really didn’t like the message it portrayed and I don’t want to reward whoever thought it up by giving them my money for the product.

The commercial shows a man and woman in a car, obviously on a long trip, with two young children in the back seat. Those kids are yelling, pushing, arguing, and carrying on like savages all the while, with the parents sitting up front feeling sorry for themselves. All at once whatever they were arguing over, whether it was a book or a game I couldn’t tell, went flying into the front and whacked the mother upside the head, and still neither parent did anything. The announcer then comes on talking about how a portable DVD can make traveling easier, and you can get one at K-Mart.

Now, I grew up traveling with my parents from one end of California to the other, and at least three of four times each year we traveled from wherever we were living at the time to one or the other of my grandparent’s houses, sometimes to both in one trip. My brother and I knew that we were to sit quietly, read our comic books, play car games, or whatever, and that’s what we did. To put it simply, we realized if we didn’t, we wouldn’t like the consequences. My dad wasn’t above pulling the car to the side of the road, getting out, and spanking both of us while reminding us that we were not animals and needed to act like decent human beings. We learned to behave.

Are we really so afraid of disciplining our kids these days that we will allow them to act like wild animals and do nothing rather than teach them how to act right? And if we do let them act that way, do we deserve any pity because of it? I think not. I was taught to be quiet when told to be, to be courteous to my elders, no matter whether I liked them or not, and to respect my parents. I knew what I could and couldn’t do, and tried my best not to do what I shouldn’t. I never “sassed” my parents, I never “sassed” any other adult, and I survived just fine, thank you very much. My psyche never suffered because I was taught manners and made to use them, and any spanking I got never left any permanent damage to my rearend.

I don’t understand why parents feel they have to let their kids do whatever they want to do these days, as if any restrictions on them will somehow turn them into criminals or freaked-out psychos. Kids need limits, they do better when they know what those limits are and live by them, and they actually learn to live and let live. My mom was a “Mean Mom”, and so was I, because I realized the value of what her “meaness” had taught me. I’d like to share something I found on another blog today. It so well describes my mother’s parenting style, and my own, and I think it might do some good. So here, courtesy of supermom at Sending Smiles Across The Miles, is “Mean Mom”.

I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, 
with whom, and what time you would be home.

I loved you enough to be silent and let you
discover that your new best friend was a creep.

I loved you enough to make you go pay for the
bubble gum you had taken and tell the clerk, "I
stole this yesterday and want to pay for it."

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours
while you cleaned your room, a job that should have
taken 15 minutes.

I loved you enough to let you see anger,
disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must
learn that their parents aren't perfect.

I loved you enough to let you assume the
responsibility for your actions even when the
penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say
NO when I knew you would hate me for it.
Those were the most difficult battles of all. I'm
glad I won them, because in the end you won, too.

And someday when your children are old enough to
understand the logic that motivates parents, you
will tell them.

Was your Mom mean? I know mine was. We had the
meanest mother in the whole world! While other kids
ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal,
eggs, and toast. When others had a Pepsi and a
Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And you
can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was
different from what other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all
times! . You'd think we were convicts in a prison. She
had to know who our friends were, and what we were
doing with them. She insisted that if we said we
would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an
hour or less.
We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve
to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We
had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to
cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash
and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie
awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time
we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had
eyes in the back of her head. Then, life was really
tough!

Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn
when they drove up. They had to come up to the door
so she could meet them. While everyone else could
date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until
we were 16.

Because of our mother we missed out on lots of
things other kids experienced. None of us have ever
been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other's
property or ever arrested for any crime. It was all
her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated,
honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean
parents just like Mom was.

I think that is what's wrong with the world today.
It just doesn't have enough mean moms!

I grew up in the fifties and sixties, and I spent a lot of time at school under my desk, hunkered down with my arms over my head. No, I wasn’t that shy, although not far from it. That was our standard emergency position. Be it earthquake or atom bombs, whenever we heard the sirens sound we hit the floor and assumed the position, which was supposed to protect us from all harm. Our desks, you see, were make of super strong materials and could withstand anything, even an atomic blast. At least that’s what we were told, and that’s what we believed.

We were so afraid the USSR was going to start launching bombs at us any day, and we never knew when we left for school in the morning whether we’d ever see our parents again, because God only knew what they’d use to hide under since they didn’t have the standard school desk at home or at work. Is it any wonder we grew up to be so unsure of the future that we learned to live for today and forget about tomorrow? Yes, the Free Love generation that believed you should do whatever felt good and not regret it was born of the cold war mentality this country had.

We hated the Soviets. We feared them, too. We knew they were just minutes away from trying to take us over, that any day we’d see the bombs start to drop on us, and the mushroom clouds would obscure the sun. If you ever saw the movie “Red Dawn”, with Patrick Swaze, then you know what our fears were each and every day of our young lives. We were sure it wouldn’t be long before the Rooskies would be here, taking over the country, or trying to. They simply counldn’t stand freedom.

We fought against their totalitarianism long and hard. We knew how they worked. They hated any country that thought differently than they did, and felt they had to stop them in any way possible. That’s how they got to be the Soviet Union in the first place. A country didn’t like their way of doing things, didn’t think Communism was the way to go, and wouldn’t bow down and do what they were told, so the Commies would gang up and overrun that country, sucking them into their Union and not letting them go. The best day in the life of this country during my lifetime was when the USSR dissolved and all those countries were allowed to be themselves again.

Now, you would think that, since we spent so much time, energy, and money defeating these guys that we would never consider using their tactics, wouldn’t you? But that’s simply not true. We didn’t like the way Saddam was running Iraq so we invaded, and we’re still there, trying to get the best of them, with very little luck. Oh, we say we’re not there to take them over, but I see very little difference, since it stands to reason if the new government doesn’t go our way and goes back to the old way, we’ll be right back in there, doing it all again. I hope not, but unless we get the war mongers out of the White House and Congress and keep them out, that’s what we’re going to get.

But that’s not the worst part of what we are doing now that we’re the only Super Power left in the world. No, we are determined to have everyone who considers themself to be our friend do exactly as we say, and if they don’t, we are quite willing to turn on them on a dime and make them pay for their impertinence. Case in point: France.

France has been our friend almost from the first, and our beloved national symbol, the first one seen by so many new people coming here for a better life, was made and given to us by….France! The Statue of Liberty. But how quickly we can turn on our good friends when they don’t do what we want them to. France decided there was no reason to invade Iraq, and they have paid for it ever since. Now, they are a soverign nation, just as we are. That gives them the right to decide what they want to do, right? I mean, we certainly don’t want anyone telling us what we have to do. But it seems that right is ours alone, while everyone else must follow our plans or suffer the consequences.

Some people have been making France pay for their independent feelings ever since they first told us “no thanks, we’d rather not get into that”. A Congressperson with more gall than brains even started a movement to ban the name French Fries from America’s favorite potato snack, and make them Freedom Fries. And instead of laughing at the fool as any thinking person would, a lot of Americans went along with it. Can you imagine? Just how stupid, childish, churlish, and selfish can we get? It’s ridiculous.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what got me started on this tack today. Well, I’ll tell you. I had to run some errands today and while doing so I followed a pickup out of a store parking lot that had a bumper sticker on it reading “Boycott France!” As there was a longer than usual wait before we could pull out of the parking lot and go our seperate ways, I had a long time to study the bumper sticker and reflect on it’s message, and I simply didn’t like it. I thought it was childish and moronic, so I came home and wrote this rant.

My wish is that we could move past all this. I mean, we’ve learned that the French were right, more or less, in their belief that there was no imminent threat from Saddam and sanctions should be continued, along with more inspections. Those things HAD worked, according to the people who studied it, as Saddam had not been able to rebuild his armies or his WMD programs, he wasn’t a threat to his neighbors or anyone else, and there were no Al Queada training camps in Iraq. Yet we still want to punish them for having the cahones to say “no” to us. I simply can’t believe it.

We hated the Soviets for their bullying ways, yet now that they are effectively gone and over with, we seem to be taking their place in the bullying area. I, for one, am upset and ashamed about that. We aren’t the only country in this world, and we don’t have the right to act as if we are. We wouldn’t want any other country telling us what to do, especially when it comes to putting our own people in harm’s way, so if we are truly the Christian nation we claim to be we should live by God’s own rules, one of which tells us to do under others as we would have them do unto us.

We should be ashamed of ourselves for deserting our Freedom-loving roots and turning to the Dark Side. In other words, we have become the enemy. We are exhibiting the worst of the old USSR standards in our own dealings with others by demanding total obedience to us and our wishes, or else. We are heading down a path that will only put a larger target on our back, and we are making even more enemies of people who are only too willing to try for that bullseye.

I, for one, do not want to go back to the days of my youth, when my days were tempered by worry about whether or not we would even see the sunset because of the enemy who wanted us gone at all costs. And I certainly don’t want to be seen as part of a band of bullies who are willing to punish anyone who doesn’t want to do as we say. I just want to be America, Home of the Brave, Land of the Free, and live my life out knowing we have lived up to the promise this country has always held out to the rest of the world. Is that too much to hope for?

Usually when a woman speaks about frogs, she’s talking about all the Mr. Wrongs out in the dating world. As the graphic says, most of us feel you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. Well, I happen to believe that applies to the world of politics, too.

Every time an election gets near, it seems potential candidates come out of the woodwork every day. That’s par for the course, I guess. This time - and I really don’t remember when it’s been this bad before - the candidates were being shoved in our faces the day after the 2004 election. It’s crazy.

What’s worse is the fact that these aren’t even people who have expressed an interest in running in 2008, just those others think might run, or are afraid will run. There have already been a lot of names brought up and sent back to the pond, and it’s only been a year. We have three more to go before we vote again, so I can only imagine how many there will be by then. I have the feeling pretty much every Senator and Representative, Governor and State Legislator, Hollywood actor and musician, and even newscasters will have been put out there, studied, critiqued, and shoved back by then.

I have been watching all this with a mixture of shock and bemusement. Shock because it started so early, and bemusement at the names and charges made so far. I honestly don’t know whether to be upset or laugh half the time. Is Hillary running? How about McCain? Rudy? Jeb? Condie? How about Lieberman, or The Donald? Warren, or Arnie? And that’s just from the first couple of months.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in worrying about who’s going to run until a year or so before the actual election date. For goodness sake, we don’t even know if any of these people will still be around by then. Why worry about them until we know for sure they are running? I’m not going to try to predict who will or won’t run at this point. Once they start throwing their hats in the ring I’ll worry, but not now.

You see, I’ve never been big on kissing frogs. If it’s green, slimy, and warty I want no part of it. I am willing to keep my lips to myself until my Prince does show up, and then I’ll worry whether he’s the Prince for me or not. And I’m not going to start deciding who I want to vote for in 2008 when it’s that far out in the future. You guys keep doing all the frog kissing you want to, just don’t expect me to join you.

God, I love chocolate! I always have. I loved anything chocolate, but for some reason my mother thought that was a bad thing. Whenever she bought ice cream for my brother and me, I always begged for chocolate, even just chocolate chip, but she wouldn’t hear of it. It would be vanilla, or maybe Butter Pecan, but never chocolate. She told us once that when they made ice cream, if they dropped it on the floor they’d just pick it up and put it in the carton anyway, since you couldn’t see the dirt on it.

Look, my Mom wasn’t a stupid person, she was pretty smart, actually. She just had some really strange ideas about things. Now, I understand how that could happen, since I carried the beleif with me up into high school that my eyes were actually bigger than my stomach. After all, Mom told me so, and Moms know all, right? Anyway, I believed mine did, right up to the time I mentioned that little known “fact” to a teacher in the middle of class. Yep, there’s not a better way for a kid to find out Mom is fallable, after all. Now, actually, it was my young brain that took a silly saying and gave it the varnish of truth, but at the time I was humiliated and that made it all her fault.

But, back to the chocolate ice cream remark. Now, I have no idea, based on my experience with the eye/stomach thing, whether she was serious about it or not, but it sure seemed to me that she was. I finally understood her aversion to the Nectar of the Gods, anyway. But, it didn’t make me stop wanting it. I didn’t care, figuring if I couldn’t taste the dirt it wouldn’t hurt me, and I just kept wishing she would give in just once. But, she never did.

I was left having to get my chocolate ice cream fix when I was with my Dad, since he wasn’t worried about dirt in there, either. His favorite ice cream was vanilla, but if chocolate was what I wanted, chocolate was what I would get. I loved going shopping with Daddy!

The reason I’m bringing this subject up now is quite simple, really. Last year they came out with the news I’d been wishing for all my life - chocolate is really very good for you! Yes, it is better for your heart than the ever popular red wine, better than broccoli, better by far than vanilla or Butter Pecan. Yes, those wonderful scientists had come up with a finding I could really get behind full force. My one regret was that they hadn’t found this out when I was a kid so I could have let my Mom know that it was actually a good thing to eat chocolate.

But here’s the kicker. Barely six months after learning this wonderful, marvelous news-of-all-news, I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic!! Yes, my mother got her way again. She was always a very tough, determined woman, and you either did it her way or paid dearly, so she pretty much always got what she wanted, and now she wanted to not be seen as having been wrong. Yes, all those years she told me how bad chocolate was for me could not be all for naught. Oh, no. She had to be right, I tell you. Now, as it was when I was a child, chocolate is again a no-no for me.

Do you have any idea how many new kinds of chocolate delights they’ve come out with over the last year or so, since I became unable to enjoy them? More than I care to remember, that’s all I can tell you. I have to sit here and watch beautiful people on my tv screen obviously enjoying the soothing, sensuous, scentillating chocolate cookies, candies, ice cream, cakes, pies, and pudding treats, knowing I can never be one of them. Oh, sure, I could take a small bite every once in a blue moon, but come on, who but my Mom could be satisfied with one bite of a chocolate treat like that?

I’m sorry, all, but today seemed to be a particularly heavy chocolate commercial day, and I feel like an addict who can see her drug of choice sitting right there in front of her, but she can’t get to it because her arms are tied to the chair. That’s really harsh, I tell you, and as I sit here reliving those wonderful chocolate splurges of old I can’t help but remember all the chances I could have had to eat my favorite thing in the world, if only my mother would have known what we all know now. Isn’t that just the way my luck runs, tho?

Well, it was a nice dream, but it’s over now. America’s best baseball team, bar none, fell tonight, and the hopes of another World Series Championship to add to their already long list are gone. But, we may be beaten and bloody now, but you just wait until next year!

Ok, it’s true, they didn’t do so well this year, anyway, but they came on like gangbusters at the end and won the AL East Championship again. You can never count the Bronx Bombers out, not until the last out of the last inning has been posted. They just keep on ticking, those Pinstriped Boys of October. They beat themselves this year, as usually happens. Very few teams that beat them actually play better than they do. The problem comes when they don’t take advantage of the opportunities they are offered.

How many times can you strand one, two, even three men on base because the batters just don’t get it done? Apparently with these guys the number is infinitesimal. IT is my belief, based on my observations, that had all the men left on base during each of the first three games had been brought home by those batting behind them, there would have been no need for games four and five, because the Yanks would have swept the series. Again. It just wasn’t to be, however.

And tonight, one play in the outfield buried them. Sure, there were other things done wrong after that, but nothing that would have mattered if either Sheffield or Crosby had called the ball in right center field. That collision and the resulting runs that scored instead of the final out of the inning would have made the difference. But, nothing can be done about it now.

So, the baseball season is over for we Yankee fans for this year, but once again you can hear the murmurs from East Coast to West - “Wait ’til next year.” So we will.