My Commercial Issue For Today

 Commercials are a necessary evil when you watch TV. That's why I mostly DVR my shows so I can fast forward through them. They're like salad at a restaurant: just there to kill time until the entrée arrives.

But there is a commercial I caught when I was too lazy to fast forward. I'm sure you've seen it. And for some reason it really annoys me due to the ridiculousness of it. It's the commercial for Jardiance, the diabetes drug.

In this commercial, this woman comes out of her apartment building, singing about having a story to tell about a little pill. She's a pretty woman with a great smile and really nice teeth and hair. Then she goes to the town square and starts singing and awkward dancing with the other townsfolk. Then comes the mailman flashing his pearly whites at everyone, until he comes across the dancing woman. At this point they both have to break out their sexy and dance together (which is painful to watch) and then they both laugh and go on their merry way. She heads to what looks like wardrobe (outside), so her "stylist" picks out a dress for her and holds it up for her approval.

Now, homegirl is a short, plus sized woman (I can say that because I am too, just not short) so the stylist decides a flared yellow dress with a waist tie and big red roses would be the perfect dress for her. What?? Why do you hate this woman? Then after she changes into said dress (where?), she goes to hair and makeup where they brush her neck with a makeup brush and use a blow dryer on her already dry hair. Which looks exactly the same as it did, by the way, just like her makeup. Now she's ready to sing and awkward dance some more with the townsfolk, extolling the virtue of Jardiance, the little pill with a big story to tell. I just cannot. They should have at least let her pick out her own dress so she wasn't swishing around in that rosy yellow dress. 

Sometimes when I'm fast forwarding if I see that commercial I'll stop and watch it just to annoy myself. I think the thing I dislike the most is why is she changing her clothes in public to "glam up", when she's just singing the same thing she already sang. Seriously.

So that's my commercial beef for today. I'm so glad that's the only issue I have in life, ha ha. However, I'm entitled to my opinion and I know that you have commercials that get under your skin too! Trust me: that's not the only commercial. But I'll save the other two for another day 😀

Sorry Kitty: Not That One

 Kitty has a vast collection of Living Dead Dolls. Contrary to the name, they are eerily lovely gothic dolls that she began collecting years ago. She uses them for her stop-motion music videos (on YouTube kaiennasunshine5000) and has them on display in her room. 

A couple of years ago she came to me and said, "Mom, there's a new Living Dead Dolls Series 35 20th Anniversary doll out now. Maybe I can buy it." "Oh? What's this one's name?" "Legion," she replied. "Oh hell no," was my reply (no pun intended).

For those of you who may not know, 'Legion' was the name of the 2,000-6,000 demons that possessed a certain man during Biblical times. "1 And they (Jesus and disciples) came over unto the other side of the sea, ,into the country of the Gadarenes. 2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains; 4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones 6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, 7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. 8 For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. 9 And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many." Mark 5:1-9 KJV

So with that being said: doll or not, do you think I wanted anything in our house that is based on that scripture??? Not today or any other day satan!

Kitty has a pretty good grasp of the Bible and she said, "I thought you would say that. So no Legion: not ever." "That's right Kitty." "Okay, thank you mom. I know that is a bad name with a bad reputation." "Indeed." Yep: she's a pretty smart cookie.

However: this 'smart cookie' did get one over on mom. Usually when she wants to order a doll, she shoots a flare into the sky to see who wants to buy it for her (they're pretty pricey!). However, she has been buying them herself for quite a few years now. That's how this one slipped beneath my radar.

I got home from work one day a few years ago and Kitty met me at the door. "Mom! I finished my new video!" "What video?" "Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love'!"

Now that was one of my favorite songs! I couldn't wait to see how she had interpreted it with her dolls! We sat in front of my computer, I went to her YouTube channel and waited for the magic to happen. It opened with some of her female dolls as the backup dancers, as the intro music played. I am always amazed at the patience and time it takes for Kitty to do these videos. And then I see a male doll climbing onto the stage...

"Um Kitty, who is that male doll?" "It's Lou Sapphire." "Okay...why does he have horns?" She just looked at me. "Watch the video, mom."

I watched the video all right. Apparently, even though his name isn't spelled the same, I figured this one might have been named after you-know-who. "Kitty, the video is great but you got a doll named after lucifer????" "Mom, I honestly didn't think about it like that. I mean it's his first and last name, Lou Sapphire." "He has horns!" "Yes he does mom. But the devil doesn't."

This truly caught me up short because she is right. Contrary to popular belief: the depiction painted of the devil isn't accurate. He doesn't have horns, isn't red, doesn't have a tail or any of that stuff. Lucifer was the highest of the angels and had one job: to be the worship leader in Heaven. He was beautiful, and so musically gifted (the name Lucifer means 'shining one' or light bearer').  Yet he became prideful, and wanted to be above God and worshipped.

"12b Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold; the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou was created. 14 Thou are the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou was upon the holy mountain of God; thou has walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in they ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee." Ezekiel 28: 12-15 KJV

It was satan's lofty feelings of superiority regarding his beauty that corrupted him. "You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings." So after Lucifer tried to overtake Heaven God cast him out with the third of the angels that sided with him. However, he didn't lose his beautiful countenance. It just became...a twisted kind of beauty. After all, if you saw something like a man with hooves and a tail and horns and red skin carrying a pitchfork: are you going to go towards it? Of course not. Evil comes in many pretty packages, which is why people are drawn to things that aren't good for them because of the allure.

And finally: Lucifer lost that name. After being cast out of Heaven he became satan, as he was no longer that bearer of light.

Anyhoo, Kitty still has Mr. Lou Sapphire and he's well behaved, ha ha. But she knows that if she likes any other doll with a suspect name, she has to run it by me first!  And if you want to take a look at her music videos, just search kaiennasunshine5000. She has like 9 or 10 of those, and 2 or 3 actual "movies" that she created. Feel free to check her out (if you dare!).

 

Behind the Music: Fast Car

 I had to give this over to Brie today. Enjoy her "guest" blog; and I haven't changed a thing. Let me know if you agree that she needs her own podcast!!

BRIE                                  

I can’t think of a time in my life where I didn’t love music. And when I say love I mean LOVE music. I literally listen to everything, and I am sure that is due to my mother who was a radio DJ back in the day. She raised my sister and I on everything from oldies to disco, while my aunt (may her soul rest in peace) and uncle taught me and my sister how to head bang to heavy metal music and the infamous hairbands (probably why One by Metallica is by far one of my “happy songs”, but I digress).

Well one of my favorite childhood songs was “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman. Now mind you the way she would mumble sing (mind you I had little kid ears) kind of made it hard to understand but I got the gist of the song and sang it till my little heart was content. Fast forward a few years... or more (insert eye roll)

Luke Combs, one of my FAVORITE country singers redid the song “Fast Car” and I was so excited and fell in love with how it sounded. His sexy country twang just made the song sound so melodically beautiful and I could understand every single word of the song... boy do I wish I never had heard this version...

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL EFF??!! This song is freaking HORRIBLE!!!

Now this just might be me... I thought she lived with her father. I did not know she lived in a shelter with her father due to the fact that her mother decided she was bout done with her alcoholic husband and bounced! So NOW this teenage girl had to quit school and get a job to support her and her father. Thought it was sad there, NOPE shit gets WAY WORSE!! She meets some deadbeat asshole of a boyfriend IN THE SHELTER and he doesn’t have a job but he has a FAST CAR?!! So you are telling me this “child” is working as a cashier at a convenient store to make a little bit of money to put GAS in the non‐working boyfriends STUPID car?!! The EFF?? Lets keep going shall we...

She ABANDONS her father!! Now not only has the wife left him but his stupid daughter has abandoned him to?!! So now the drunk father has like NO ONE to take care of him?? RUDE!! But hey she got in the fast car with her deadbeat broke ass boyfriend and they left for the city. Found a NEW Shelter to live at and now she is telling him that she knows they will both find jobs and live in the suburbs (and in her mind I am sure it had a little white picket fence and everything...)

GUESS WHO’S ASS ENDED UP IN A TRAILER?!!!!! Little miss I wanna be with the guy who has a Fast Car, which by the way she now is not only working more than one job, and paying all the bills...BUT is also taking care of the crotch goblins she HAD with the deadbeat while he goes to the bar and hangs out with his friends and gets drunk on the regular and don’t spend time with his kids... WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?!!!!

Out of all of that you know what is the SADDEST... she told him to take his fast car and keep on driving...she said she had no plans on leaving and maybe she’d make something of herself... SHE BASICALLY ended up with her father if you think about it. Her momma did the SAME thing... didn’t break that curse huh now did ya?!

Can I tell you how much I wish I had just stuck to mumble Tracy Chapman’s version of this song? As much as I love Luke Combs, he has absolutely ruined this song for me. I can officially delete it off of my phone. Now if you’ll excuse me I am off to sit in a corner and cry somewhere... THANKS LUKE!!!!!

Thanks Brie!!

A Most Selfish Act

 Kitty called me at work yesterday. "Hi Mom! The traffic is really slow today." She was on her way to Build-A-Bear. "Well traffic is always backed up heading to Albany in the morning. Should be clear soon." "No mom, there was an accident." "Oh goodness, I hope everyone is okay."

It wasn't until several hours later that I found out everyone was not okay. For reasons unknown, a woman parked her car, got out, and then ran into traffic on the highway being hit by several cars. It was a horrific suicide; and unfortunately the driver of the first car that hit her died too.

I know that life gets really tough sometimes. However, I can't wrap my head around what was going on with this woman to make her choose that way to end her life. What if by some chance she had lived? What kind of life would that have been?

Let's think about the poor driver who hit her first. Probably didn't even see her coming until he hit her; and then he lost his life as well. And how about the other cars that also hit her? They were just minding their own business when wham!! A body bounces off their cars or they ran over that body. How many nightmares are they going to have?

Suicide is a most selfish act. You aren't thinking about anyone else: just getting rid of your own pain. You don't think about the pain it will cause those you leave behind. Those you leave behind won't even get your life insurance because it doesn't cover suicide. What if she had children? How will they go about their lives knowing that their mother thought so little of them, if she thought of them at all?

We often think that if someone is depressed they need to talk to someone: a trusted friend, therapist or clergyman. They could even be put on medication. But sometimes the medication that is meant to help you, gives you suicidal thoughts. Ironic, isn't it? How does that help? And when you talk to someone, you can fake getting better and cheering up. Yet research shows that once a person settles their mind on suicide: that's what cheers them up and helps them go through with it.

I'm just so incredibly sad for everyone involved with this situation. I'm not going to say now she's at peace because I don't know if she is. That was in God's hands, especially if she happened to be mentally ill.

I don't know if the authorities will ever release her name, or any other facts about this woman. I don't know if we'll know who else was also a part of this tragedy on the Northway. I just hope that this doesn't start a trend, because you know how susceptible young people are (thanks TikTok). I hope that there will be prayers for the survivors of this tragedy. They are going to need them.  

Prologue

 

I THOUGHT SHE WAS MY MOTHER

(But She Wasn't)

I was helping to clean out Lily’s house (which I shouldn’t have had to do). I was talking and reminiscing with my youngest brother Ceddy while we were in our sister's room. Suddenly, I remembered something from decades ago. “When I was around four years old, I was playing in the front yard. A car pulled up in front of the house. There were two black women in the car. The one on the passenger side rolled down her window. “Hello little girl! You are so pretty! I have something for you,” she called. Being a child, I naturally went over to the car to see what it was. She opened her car door, and she was holding a life-sized black doll almost as big as I was. “Would you like to have this?” she asked. “Yes!” I replied. She handed it to me. It was a pretty doll with pigtails and wearing a lacy white dress. I had never seen a black doll before. “Do you like it?” “Yes, I do,” I said as I cuddled the doll. “Good." She paused, and then said, "I am so glad I got to meet you; and maybe I will see you again. Bye now.” “Bye bye!”

"That's a weird memory to have," Ceddy replied as he put some books in a box. "Where did that come from?"

I looked around the room, which was filled with my sister's and Lily's belongings. My sister had died and Lily was being cared for in a lovely nursing home. Yet I could still feel their 'essence' all around me; and it was unnerving. "From being in this room. After today I'm not coming back in here."

He gave me a strange look. "Okay, I can understand that. But hey: whatever happened to that nice lady?"

"I never saw her again."

"That's too bad. It would have been nice to know who she was."

"Well Ceddy, all these years later, after all I had to see going through Lily's and our father's records for insurance and hospitalization and stuff, I have come to realize that she, not Lily, was my birth mother."

COMING FALL 2024

Is It Really Love?

 This thought has been in my head for almost 20 years.

I believe that people think love will always feel like the "first time". Maybe for some people it is like that. The butterflies in the stomach, the heart eyes, the high-pro glow, the tingles and shivers and all that jazz. The breathless anticipation, the long conversations and fun getting-to-know-you phase. Then comes the wedding and purported "happily ever after". However, it's hard to imagine that feeling lasting for 30 or 40 years. 

Maybe it's because of this, people enter into their relationships or marriages without actually thinking of the future spread out before them. The hardships that may come. The ennui that can settle in over time. The frustrations that can occur from money problems, child problems, or differing viewpoints on life. OR the fact that one of you wants to leave because your partner no longer looks like they did when you met in your 20's; although that shouldn't matter because you are both in your 50's or 60's now. And doesn't marriage seem like it's disposable? Unhappy: just get a divorce and try again! Where's the love then?

Marie and my father were married for about 46 years before he died in 2004. I had a ringside seat for most of their marriage, except for my "lost" years in Long Island. Like any married couple though, they still had ups and downs, but I never doubted that they loved each other. He had a heart attack when he was in his 50's, and after he came home from the hospital she took excellent care of him. Love!

But one evening he got into a huge argument with one of my siblings, and I saw Marie come between them. That night I had some doubts, but they stayed together. Sometimes they would argue after that, and sometimes it was bitter. I asked her once, "Why don't you and dad get divorced if things are so bad between you?" She gave me a look like I'd grown another head. "I love your father. I would never divorce him." Okay then... 

My father eventually started having more health problems, and Marie was right there by his side. If he was in the hospital, I took her there every day to see him. When he was in the VA hospital 45 miles away, I drove her there to see him every day: except one when there was a snow storm. When he was in a rehab facility 100 miles round trip: I took her to see him every day. Doctor's appointments, eye appointments, whatever: she was always there.

His condition worsened in February 2004. My mother finally decided that he had had enough: and brought him home for the final time. He had wanted to be home and she honored that wish. He was pretty much bedridden by this time. Although home care nurses would come to help: Marie did the lion's share of the work when it came to taking care of him. She fed him, cut his nails, bathed him, changed him, cleaned him up and never uttered a complaint. And when she wasn't in his room with him, she would be in the living room in the chair closest to the room, listening to him breathe. When he died in October 2004 that man knew he had been loved.

So what is love, really? I learned from that example Marie set. And it's how I judge men today. If something were to happen to you, and you became incapacitated, would I clean your butt for you? And if you puked: would I clean that up for you, and cut your toenails, and do all that you couldn't do for yourself anymore? No joke. If I don't love you enough to do that, then it isn't really love. To me: that's the true test of real love. It isn't pretty, but it certainly puts your feelings into perspective and gives you some food for thought.

I know this isn't the most graceful of blog posts, but to me the message is clear. As always: thanks for reading.