Down for the Count Up, 10

PICTURE THIS AGAIN, OCTOBER 3, 2016

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I found them. I found them in the last place I looked, which would have been amusing like the long-standing joke, except I wasn’t amused. I was done.

During my weeks of frantic searching, I found myself revisiting the same places.  When I didn’t find what I’d been looking for in any of the obvious places, I logically made a firm list, of course.

I won’t bore you with all the details, although there were some things that bear mentioning. I rediscovered reams of specialty papers, printable stickers, printable window clings, printable fabric, printable shrink-dinks, printable business cards and a complicated foldy-card thing that I’m not even sure I would ever attempt again.

As exciting as all that was, once I’d been through my list, re-searched all the places I’d searched before and more, I set it aside and let my eyes leak a little. Not just once, either, but when there’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing you can do.

Early Saturday morning, I took myself on a 3-mile walk. I came home exhausted, weepy and probably a little low in the sugar department.  Chomping a nectarine, I headed for a shower and fell apart.

The pictures had become a hangnail part of my life I just couldn’t properly trim off.

To be honest, writing this blog has been hard. I’d been avoiding truly crying for weeks; the overwhelmed, sobbing kind. But, the time had come and I gave in, voicing aloud what I’d been thinking so long.

“God, I need help.’ I choked. “I don’t want it to be ten years. I don’t want it to be any years!”

It took a bit to get myself together and decide I was being stupid. I figured I might as well seal this episode up and do what I had to do.

I needed to move some things from one location to another, so I did.

Halfway through that, there they were.

I didn’t recognize what it was at first. Randomly fanning/flipping through a few pages, I finally focused enough to figure it out.

I had been looking for a mailing envelope or one of those green marbley-looking cheap sleeves they used to give way back when you ordered actual picture prints by standing at a counter and filling out awkward envelopes.

Chronically arranged, in a sleeved booklet I had apparently decided need to be fancied up with scrapbook paper, was my lost capsule.

I wonder at the timing, wonder how I could not remember what I did.

Wondering. Just wondering.

Joyously sharing them with you now.

Thanks for helping me through this year of memories.

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An Anniversary, An Eggplant Plan

After the phone calls, after dinner, we settled into our comfortable spots.

During a commercial, we started talking about where we’d go for our 5^th anniversary dinner. There was no contest, really. Sal’s Italian Restaurant in Tecumseh. Close to our almost-in-town townhouse, it had been a great favorite Friday night, take-away spot for us.

It was the first place outside of New York, I’d ever had a good Italian Wedding soup. The garlic bread was perfectly garlick-y, beautifully buttery and sublimely sprinkled with parm. The red sauce was perfectly saucy, from an East Coast perspective.

Sal’s eggplant parmesan was wonderfully and deliciously authentic, too.

Not so long before Jeff brought me to Sal’s, I made this dish for him. We’d been dating about a month, and it was supposed to be our first stay-in, dinner-in, at my Okemos apartment.

It was awful. Bitter and mushy; with raised forks, we watched each other watching gooey, grayish globs weeping through the tines.

He asked me how long I’d salted it before cooking. I accompanied my dumbfounded look with the teary explanation that I had just winged it. “Gotta salt it,” Jeff sagely advised. “Even then, it’s not so great, sometimes.” We went out for Mexican.

I was so enthralled by Sal’s version, that Jeff happily tried a bite. Even though he’d been down that road before. Even though he wasn’t fond of that particular nightshade. Even if it had been salted, fried and layered with cheese, his aversion to eggplant rivalled my aversion to cauliflower, even if it had been salted, fried and smothered in cheese.

Sitting in Sal’s, I watched Jeff contemplatively chew for a bit, and laughed when he decisively summarized, “I’d rather have the chicken.”

Jeff mentioned Evans Street Station as an alternative. Because we’d already be dressed up for our church photo, I considered that. It was so sweet of him to mention the fanciest restaurant in town. A few years after opening, it was still on our to-do list. We just hadn’t made it there, yet.

“Maybe, some other time,” I smiled. “I’m really missing Sal’s. It’s the first place we ever went to dinner in town. So, that kind of makes it ‘our place’, too.”

“You won’t get any arguments from me!” Jeff grinned.

Quote for the Week:

 

Airlift, Hats

It’s easy to be disappointed.

The hard part is to muddle through to see what might be celebratory.

Knowing the other side of disappointment is rarely ever legitimately celebratory, doesn’t deter me.

With childish pluck, I still believe happily in inflated potential.  I still stretch on for the possibilities; grasping for the secretive brilliance of wisdom hidden in only semi-illusive balloons.

I can’t always catch those fully fulfilled higher floaters. So, I settle for a one-handed sweep through the semi-depleted lower ones; methodically elevating each ground- dragging line of hope to my wrist. They can’t help ballast behind me in an oddly staggered parade.

Despite the spectacle, I walk on prepared to face the awkwardness of progressively jerking my arm up and higher up, willing each tethered struggler the gumption to fly.

That doesn’t always work. It rarely does.  In all honesty, the only way to pull off airlift would be with the help of a stronger wind.

There’s no hopelessness or helplessness in that.

It might even be the prize to recognize all fragile questions are easily transformable into launchable helium prayers.

Commit to the search. Believe, chase, capture, discover, absorb, re-secure, and re-release.

Change the world.

It only takes one great inner-to-outer revelation, and a very generous willingness to sport a celebration hat.

Quote for the Week:

Our disappointments, our defeats, our times of disillusionment, do not separate us from God Almighty. They actually draw us closer to God. Try and hold on tight to your faith. Kemmy Nola

Enjoy this week’s discovery links:

Dream Dictionary – Balloon: http://www.dream-symbols.com/b/balloon.html

History of Balloons: http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.balloonhq.com/faq/history.html

A Little Something for Everyone: http://tinybuddha.com/