Like Sands Through The Hour Glass

I heard this week on NPR that two tv soaps were cancelling after a 30 year run. "All My Children" and "One Life to Live"will cancel and that will leave only four of the remaining soap opera staples. The story talked about how watching soap operas had been a tradition passed down from Grandmother to Mother to Daughter to Granddaughter but now working women just didn't have the time or inclination to make the commitment to long term story arcs and decades long plot lines ( NPR story here. )

Days of Our Lives had been our female family tradition. I remember my Grandmother Lower (my Mother's mother) watching it every day and my stay at home Mom and I watching right along. I must have been pretty little or it was summer or both when we were all watching it together out on their 300 acre farm by Fair Play, but I remember it vividly. The story of Tom and Alice Horton and all the crazy things that happened to their family. Doug and Julie. Then came those Brady's and DiMera's (I always thought Tony was hot and dangerous). Man, those people had PROBLEMS. The story started in 1965. I was born in 1968. I don't think I missed much.

Everyone called it their Story back then, not soap operas. Days of Our Lives was the only Story I ever watched faithfully and I kept up with it up through college. In fact, I secretly scheduled my classes around it so I could make sure and see it everyday. Several girls on my dorm floor watched it too as well as my HS friend and roommate Becky. Those were the sweet days of bad boy Patch (yes he had a patch on his eye so he was mostly, rogue pirate biker bad boy but you knew he was good deep down) and Kayla (sweet blond innocent) who he even nicknamed Sweetness.

Man, I didn't think they would EVER sleep together.

 Finally they do it. Part one... click here for what I waited months and months and months for.

It took a long, long, long, long agonizine time. I would have given up on that boy much earlier. Or maybe not. I was a pretty successful stalker in my own right by then working on my own soap opera story.

Let's just say that when they finally did the deed. The roof came off the Gillette girl's dorm at Mizzou. It was a party of epic proportions. 

After college, I pretty much lost touch with the plot lines. The few times I did see my Story I realized that unlike those sands in the hourglass, the story moved slowly. Really, really slowly. And if you waited long enough it was just recycled. Sure someone new was possessed or brought back from the dead... again but basically Patch and Kayla were still having problems and the wheels of time grinded so slowly that it was almost better to skip ahead a few weeks, or months, or years.

Eventually, I didn't even watch at all. Now in the age of the DVR I could probably catch up but I think that ship has sailed because I really DON'T want to invest my time or feelings in decade long plot lines any more. Gosh, when it's your very OWN family sometimes you wonder if that investment is worth it, let along ficticious characters.

Now of course I see that those Story's and my Mom's closet of bodice busting romance novels was really just paving the way for my own escapist reading. So now I am the one possessed by paranormal romance books and a steady flow of naughty bad boys.

At least I finally caught one of my very own.

Happy Easter

Grace made this card for her Nana for Easter and I thought I would share it. 

Happy Easter!

It's a New Car!

This is my new car. It's a 2010 Ford Fusion and it is awesome.

Well, it was awesome, for four whole days until I realized the transmission was wonky. Thankfully, it's still under warranty and in the shop right now getting a renewed transmission. They gave me a nice 2010 Ford Edge to use as a rental while it's getting repaired so that has been helpful. This was the absolute worst week possible for all of this to have transpired with me having to drive back and forth to Rolla four days in a row, but with the help of Grandpa Medley, we somehow made it all work. That man is a saint and if he wasn't here I don't know what the heck we would do as far as taking care of Grace and the farm.

I was pretty excited about getting this car. My work has provided a car for me and paid my work gas for the past 10 years. I had one year in there where I did the Public Relations job and did not have a CBCO car but otherwise, I've relied on them for a steady stream of reliable vehicles which is a pretty dang good perk for a not for profit!

I put on a LOT of miles each year doing my job. I have the largest physical territory and averaged 33,000 work miles the past two years. Then with another 4,500ish personal miles (I didn't drive it very much except for work) that's nearly 40,000 miles a year on a car. I put 800 miles on this week alone.

When work decided to change the policy so that we couldn't have any passengers in our work vehicles, I had to make a change. I can't NOT take Grace to school or pick her up from time to time and the idea of coming home to trade vehicles and drive the truck back and forth was crazy. Thankfully, the blood center is VERY generous with their car allowance so I took a couple of days to car shop and then asked Bryon to drive a couple that I was interested in. This one I found at Don Vance Ford in Marshfield.

Bryon had been sick as a dog on his two days off that week but went to town and test drove two of them and agreed if I wanted to buy one I could go ahead.

I was pretty excited because this is the first car I've ever gotten to buy all by myself. I did it all and they gave me the keys and a new car payment. They were so nice to me and didn't try to pressure me or talk me into a bunch of crap (think the old Reliable Toyota in Springfield when they used to take peoples keys and throw them up on the roof of the building when they test drove cars so they'd have to stay and listen to the spiel). None of that. They were awesome.

So I had four whole days to bask in the glory of the coolest car ever before I noticed the transmission was most certainly NOT right. We had owned two Ford Taurus' in the 90's and I think my Dad had one too. We had to replace transmissions in all of them so I knew what was going on pretty quickly.

I can't blame the dealership because I only test drove it an eight mile loop and they do too. I'd say that's why the previous owner traded it in. I figure it's just payback Karma from the time we traded in our Monte Carlo with a cracked block. What goes around comes around my friend. Karma can be a ... well you know.

So it sits at Don Vance gutted until Monday when I hope to get it back better than ever and still under warranty for 50,000 more miles.

This car has every available option on it except for a built in dvd player. It has navigation, bluetooth, a built in hard drive that holds 2500 tracks (I had been feeding it a steady diet of cd's over the few days I had it), a moonroof and so many cool feathers I've been in mourning this week.

A girl can get used to the nice stuff pretty fast.

I figure I'll drive it for three years and then trade it in for another car. It will have 160,000 + miles by then and as long as I can still get about $5,000 out of it I think I'll break even.

It's going to be hard to find a car nicer or cooler than this one.

And no Dad, Ford does not stand for Fixed Or Repaired Daily.

I hope.

Retirement

So I'm a little behind but didn't want to forget to mention that my Mom is now officially RETIRED! The Bank of Bolivar had a very nice party for her with cake, punch  and several nice write ups in the local paper.

She was so pleased and now ... FREE BABYSITTING and CAMP GRANDMA here Grace comes, ha!

It hasn't taken her long to adjust to retirement life.


I've been thinking I'm ready myself! Only 24 more years to go. Eeek!

I think I'm going to need a plan B. That's just too long to wait.

Euphoric Recall

My friend Anne turned me on to the phrase "euphoric recall" about ten years ago.

Basically, euphoric recall is when someone remembers all of the good things about a particular time and not the bad.

This happens a lot actually.

One night this week, Grace was mad at me because she was not getting her way. We've been butting heads a lot lately.

As we were walking down the stairs, she looked up at the painting on the wall my former mother-in-law had done for us from a photograph. I love the painting. I told her she made me look better than I really do. More Andy Worhol than Botticelli (you know... he painted the chubby girls).

Anyway, as we were walking down the stairs Grace said, "When I was little, and you were nice.. You looked like that" pointing to the painting

Now if THAT isn't euphoric recall, I don't know what is.


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