Random impressions, opinions and ruminations from a woman who would really like to invite EVERYONE over for a good meal, a glass of wine and passionate conversation, but the dining table only seats so many . . . .
The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.
Old age and menopause (not always 100% the same thing) have loosened my tongue. No longer am I choked by the harsh words that bubble into my mind when I am assaulted, affronted, annoyed or attacked. They now pop out into the sound waves. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. No longer am I nearly ready to explode with pent-up resentments. But I have had to learn to make a quick getaway. Yes, yes, I do understand that we all go out into the world with our own individual makeup of education, experience, culture and personal sensibilities. I get it that many of the strangers we encounter won't have all that much in common with us. Strangers aren't necessarily friends we simply haven't met yet. They may not speak our language, even if we all appear to be spewing English. I am fascinated by the utterances that get a person's goat. Or don't. I live in a place where people seem, increasingly, compelled to throw words around at high volume. I'm as bad as the next old bag with a surly attitude.
Early in life, I learned how to deal with "Hey, Baby" and later with "Hey, Mama". Those come less frequently now, and most often when he can see my clothes, but not my face - maybe hidden a little by sunglasses or hat. I've yet to hear "Hey, Granny", but that could come. While I do not invite or appreciate those greetings, usually I put an end to the quick exchange with "Not your baby, not your mama!" I've always felt those gents are not looking for an actual dialog and the very sound of another person's voice in reply shuts them up. I believe those comments are made for some show of bravado for the entertainment of other males and really have little to do with me. More recently, the barbs contain the word "bitch" which angers me immediately. "F*#king bitch" or "old bitch" get me going. "Old white bitch" is worse. I feel like that takes unpleasantness to a new plane. I have found that women almost always use only the word "bitch" toward one another. Shame on us.
Replying to the unexpected verbal assault is tricky business. I'm already on record with the reasons I no longerflip strangers off. Nope. Not since July, 1976. So, for me at least, sometimes I censor myself out of concern for my safety and well-being. I'm small, older, possess no martial arts skills or weapons. If I assess that we're going to restrict ourselves to verbal warfare, I'm likely in it to win it. This works well with a pack of not too scary adolescent males who are too afraid to make eye contact. Maybe I decide not to say anything because of security worries, but walk off muttering brilliant bon mots to myself. Observation: the best riposte in the world loses steam if delivered over coffee with friends rather than right in the face of some lexical antagonist. One feels kind of chickenshitly brilliant. "Wish I'd said that right in his face."
It is important to me to explain I don't go looking for trouble, at least not out in the streets among strangers. Mostly, I do not carry a chip on my shoulder. By nature and by training, I am a peacemaker, a mediator. I'd much prefer to converse with a stranger about the 8-inch dog she's walking on a string than get into a mouth fight. But I grapple with the fact that I've also allowed myself to be attacked too much in life, abused, without objection. Turning the other cheek too often can result in sore, chapped skin. Neither aggressive nor timid, I am looking for the middle ground where I can live with myself. I try to weigh whether I'm ever going to see some spouting fool again, whether I think s/he is a threat to myself or others or offensive to people who cannot defend themselves. Then I decide whether to waste my breath. Mostly, I don't. Sometimes I cannot contain myself. Occasionally, I resort to good, strong Anglo-Saxon words of no ambiguity.
Each of us has our boundaries. I won't tolerate overt sexual epithets, or those that touch on race, gender, creed, disability and more, whether the comment is aimed at me or someone else. I have to bark back about those, unless my safety is in question. I get that men do not wish to be called "boys". I understand that certain descriptors of country-of-origin have changed across time and I try to be aware of the most acceptable, least hate-inciting versions and to use those. Having suffered a few pangs of my own when I pushed my biracial baby in her stroller, I try to walk very, very softly and carry no stick at all. Sometimes, the less said, the better.
I heard the phrase when I was a child and I thought it was hilarious. It contained no terrible individual words but conjured up, in my fertile imagination, contortions and results that I found funny. It packed a lot of sass and told the recipient just exactly what s/he could go do, short of the big guns phrase involving the word "f*#k". It is still hilarious to me and I might pay the price of - oh, say - lunch or a beer to watch an attempt made. I wouldn't attempt it myself.
School is out and there are vehicles everywhere filled with excited young people. I stopped at a red light, cars both in front of me and behind me. I read sign language well, and the gesticulations of the driver behind me indicated he wanted me to pull up a little so he could scoot around me. I guess he and the other 16-year-olds were in a hurry. I didn't intend to move. I didn't have more than 18 inches clearance. He tapped my bumper twice. I didn't care for it and hung my head out to say, "Look, Asshole." I used the appellation "Asshole" as if it were his given name as his mother christened him. He did not care for that and maneuvered his urban assault vehicle alongside mine, using bike lane and gutter/sidewalk. From a pretty sharp tilt, he began to go off on me, his face not 12 inches from my passenger's own countenance. When he stopped for breath, I unleashed it, my smarty phrase. "You go piss up a rope!" The young Turks in Asshole's SUV truly loved my repartee, but it appears Asshole took exception to it. I suspect it was his youthful inexperience that caused him to accelerate his Suburban right into the trunk of a pretty substantial palm tree located on the same sidewalk that had so recently given him a leg up.
So how about you? What gets your goat out in the world of shouted warfare?
Something that charmed me: I've driven past it for years, the Dental Implant Institute with the shaded, rolling green grounds that make me think about the place Simon & Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson went for her rest cure. Oh, the place clearly uses entirely too much water that we don't have to keep its lawns emerald, and I've never understood about the dolphin statuary here in the desert, but - hey - who am I? Maybe the owners love dolphins or come from an ocean environment or maybe there was a sale on dolphin sculpture. And I've pondered whether, should I decide to get dental implants after my free exam, they'd send their courtesy limo or their "fun van" to pick me up and deliver me safely home. So today, I'm rolling along the road. It's a little warmer than the past several days and soon we'll hit summer heat. WTF? I spun the block. New statuary at the Dental Implant Institute! Great big dental implants, brand new, judging by the condition of the paint. Custom made it would appear. Taller than I.
We already knew the wind would be an issue. It's a given. Besides all the weather forecasters seemed to be in agreement for once. The wind was going to blow. We came out of the AA meeting, did a little grocery shopping to hold my friend's grandma over until our return that evening, and went in search of lunch. Elephant Bar was a nice change of pace. We typically dine out downscale, but this afternoon was an outing and we intended to eat like it. Groaning a little, we made our exit and went to seek out our venue, which was very nearby and very easy to locate. "My god," I breathed, "look at the roof of the thing. Where do you suppose people sit, down in the ground?" We were off to see the wonderful Wizard of Oz!
I wasn't too far off the mark, as it turned out. The huge, industrial brassiere-inspired canopy covers a descending pit of 2,500 theater seats with grassy slopes and lawn chairs nearby for those who choose to dine and watch a show al fresco. Modern, clean, well-maintained, it occurred to me this venue might be a little high stepping for Henderson (which I have always called Hooterville), but who am I to complain about progress? "Meet Diane at Will Call," read our instructions. Um, yep, as long as I don't have to slither on the ground like a snake to find her. As volunteer ops go, I'd give high marks to both my organization Acts of Kindness and to the Henderson Pavilion for their attention to detail, clear vision of what they needed the volunteers to do, hospitality, instructions and materials to hand out, new vests and name tags no one had ever worn before. About 10 minutes into it, we knew what our afternoon held in store! By 2:45 p.m., we were shivering in our seats at the top of the arena, teeth chattering, bone chilling. Fairly good in a pinch, when I heard there would be a pair of volunteers needed deep down in the pit in the stage area, I elbowed my friend in the ribs and arched an eyebrow. She gave an almost imperceptible nod. She'd got my message. Likely, we came across as a pair of pretty pushy broads, but we secured our berth at the orchestra pit, ostensibly beneath the screaming gale that shot through the open area under the canopy. It wasn't perfect, but we probably had the best location under the circumstances. We did our share of pointing out restrooms and concession stands, solving the mysteries of Section B Left and Section B Right, keeping interlopers out of the orchestra seating if they'd not paid for the higher-priced ticket, and we finally settled into our seats to watch the show.
My friend has a degree in Theatre Arts. I do not. She said it was a very good play for what it is: small Shakespeare company, no money, large rafts of volunteers everywhere. The sound was great, the staging very good. I'll be honest. The Wizard of Oz is not high on my list of favorites. But this was fun and I'm glad I went. I am tucking a handful of good things into my experience basket and I'll definitely volunteer for these folks (both Acts of Kindness and the Henderson Pavilion) again. I got a bit more desensitized to flying monkeys, too, a long time terror.
A few things that charmed me:Opportunity Village is a Las Vegas institution - a non-profit organization serving individuals with intellectual disabilities. A good number of Opportunity Village clients played parts in the Wizard and they were amazing! We saw them arriving on the bus - so serious, practicing their lines or songs, carrying bright costumes. They drew many rounds of applause, obvious proud parents and friends cheering them from the audience. My favorite was a young man who played a guardsman in the castle of the Wicked Witch. He required a motorized wheelchair to move in line with the other marching guards. As he came onstage, his battle ax, affixed to the back of his wheelchair, proved too tall to pass under the doorway. The soldier immediately behind him reached out without fanfare, moved the shaft of the weapon about 15-degrees and the parade moved on. The entire time they were onstage, my eyes were drawn to that tilted war weapon and the smiling face in the wheelchair.
The star of the show was an SPCA rescue dog, a little Chihuhua mix named Cheeto who played the part of Toto. He was a pretty remarkable little well-behaved dog who endured a lot of handling by different people with equanimity. Until about the third act when the Scarecrow let fly with a fairly loud solo tune in the immediate vicinity of the dog who happened to be in Dorothy's arms at the time. That dog snapped and snarled, barking until Dorothy put him down with obvious concern. He was clearly pissed off at the Scarecrow for the rest of the show pulling back his lips in a snarl and showing his teeth.
Standing in place, stage left at the orchestra, I whispered to my friend, "Dorothy to starboard." My friend knows about theater, not about things nautical, so she looked both left and right before she spotted the child coming down the aisle. This child was Dorothy. The gingham jumper, the ruby slippers, the hair-do, the basket hanging on her arm. About 6 years old, her face glowing, she approached us for programs. We gave her several and commented on her beautiful costume. "Why aren't you backstage with the other performers?" we asked. "Oh, I'm not in the play!"Huh? We looked at each other. I guess the kid's mother dresses her up or allows her to dress herself up as characters when she goes out somewhere. I am a mom who encouraged imaginative play, including costumes and role playing, but this one made me pensive. I thought about the child and the mother at every break in the action. And I kept looking in the seats behind me to see if there was some damned flying monkey kid waiting to pounce.
Trivia question for a virtual prize: No fair Googling or Wiki-ing until one tries to answer! What color were the ruby slippers in the 1900 L. Frank Baum children's novel?
I cannot turn a cartwheel. Yes, I know any child can execute a beautiful cartwheel, but I could not do it as a child and I cannot do it now. I can perform other acrobatic stunts considered more difficult, including a flip (or at least I could in 1967), but the cartwheel eludes me. I can hula hoop until hell won't have me any more. Funny, because I cartwheel across that imaginary plane of free association so effortlessly. Want to come along? OK, join me.
I just looked it up. The comedienne Rita Rudner is almost precisely one year younger than I. That makes her 57. A Virgo, like me, she would be meticulous, diligent, a perfectionist, if one puts any stock in astrology. I see billboards for her Las Vegas show whenever I take the Desert Inn Road flyover to avoid the traffic at the Strip when bisecting the town east to west or vice-versa. What the hell is Rita thinking with that splits thing at her age? Yeah, I know she is a trained dancer. But those splits! I wonder if she has to be assisted to rise from the floor after the photo shoot. I wonder if her good-looking trousers withstand the strain without giving way and whether the photographer's assistants have to artfully drape the legs of those trousers so she looks more . . . natural. Natural?? I've never seen her show. She is really good looking and when I have heard her interviewed on local radio or TV, she seems like a regular, good citizen who drives her kid to school and worries about some of the same things that bother me. She seems to be an older mom, as I was/am . . . but those splits! Readers must tire of Las Vegans continually bitching about the wind, and I promise that I sicken myself in that respect, too. However, I'm not sure I recall anything like last weekend, just when we'd been enjoying promises of warm, relatively calm days. Those who are more tightly wound than I in a literal sense may pick this to death, but I read the Severe Weather Alert. We had an airport watch in effect, with winds sustained at 34 knots and gusts to 47 knots. It was damnably windy. On Saturday, my hair was nearly torn from my scalp as I went in to an AA meeting. Coming out of the Wynn casino at 2:30 Sunday morning, I observed, "Well, we've been in there for 10 hours. Maybe the wind . . " With that, the skirt of my dress was tossed over my face and the rest of my comment was garbled. Throughout the day, the screaming blow only amped up, rendering the air a dull brown with flying dust and grit. I have experienced stronger winds, once in the desert, camped in a gale we later learned was likely 75 mph, for a shorter, overnight duration. It scared me. I was not scared this time in the house, listening to things - some of them remarkably heavy - being tossed around and into the pool. But I am driven nearly insane by it. If it were possible to die from allergies, I might just do that, eyes and nose streaming, lips and tongue adhering to my teeth from too many antihistamines. I am reminded of an AnaisNin essay I once read wherein the characters were driven nearly psychotic because of the scirocco. I comprehend that. The essay was not really about the wind, but she depicted it as a vivid character, an important part of her story. And though I am seated in the wrong part of the world for a real scirocco, I deeply felt the sense of madness approaching. The windchimes created a hellish din, and I remembered that a Scirocco is also a Volkswagen . .
An AA acquaintance has been grounded by the courts for a short time and I have been providing rides. AA places great emphasis on the many benefits of alcoholics helping other alcoholics, considering even the simple act of making the coffee for a meeting a "service". From my perspective, giving rides to someone who lives halfway between my home and AA is easy. It is my pleasure to help where I can, and I am grateful that my fat is not in the fire for once, driver's license revoked and possible jail time in the future. We make our way along some of the older, more congested and always-under-more-road-construction thoroughfares of the city, along the Boulder Strip. People get fidgety in the gridlock, and so do I. "You handle it pretty well," observed my companion. "I'd like to just start flipping them all off." My gut clenched, I broke into a sweat and began to babble, "No, no. No. Don't do that, please. No." I drew a pretty strange look as I sat, miserable in the driver's seat, recalling the last time I flipped anyone off except in jest in the privacy of my own home. July, 1976.
My Volkswagen was not a Scirocco, if those even existed at the time. Mine was the ubiquitous Beetle of the proletariat, 1972 model, yellow, with not the tiny or the huge tail lights of the earlier or later models but the mid-sized ones, regular old, beloved stick shift, not that silly Automatic Stick Shift thing Volkswagen offered at the time. That bug and I were well-suited to one another and I'd had many an adventure behind its wheel. Flying - oh, yes, way too fast - around the curve of one of the cloverleaf configurations of the LA freeways, I once came quickly upon an overturned truck that had deposited many dead cows in the roadway. Although quite distressed, I downshifted my little chariot, got onto the brakes and neatly, but narrowly avoided any cow collision. My timing was less fortuitous the time I got behind the semi-truck full of oranges that had spilled onto the Golden State Freeway, but oranges are less deadly than cows in a collision. I squeezed fresh OJ for about 10 minutes and went on my way. The VW had moved Ex and me, four kittens and all our worldly possessions to Las Vegas only a couple of weeks earlier. To my disappointment, it took Ex only about 14 seconds to find people to drink and play pool with. I was on my own in the evenings a lot.
It was monsoon season, something I'd never experienced. Hell for hot and humid enough to make it rain indoors. I drove to the 7-11 nearby and got an obscenely huge cold drink - it would have been the fully sugared stuff in the day, lots of ice. On the way out of the store, a man made a remark to me that I didn't care for. Given that this became such a life-altering event, one would expect me to remember the exact words, but I do not. It had to do with my appearance, in words I instinctively knew he thought were complimentary, but which I did not appreciate. Without giving the notion sufficient forethought, I flipped him off. Oh, it was a gentle flipping off, not truly intended to call the man out. If I'd chosen words instead of gestures, they would not have been the words typically associated with flipping off. The man ignited. He set his jaw and started to walk across the parking lot in a resolute way. Scared, I jumped into my car, started it and went out onto the street. He was on me in a minute, Barney Fife in the patrol car, chasing down a perpetrator. All he lacked was a siren. I knew how to handle my car and exhibited some fancy moves, spurting forward, dashing between other cars. He never missed a beat. I took parking lots at a fast diagonal following sharp, last-minute turn-ins. He was right there with me. Pouring sweat now, I was 23, shaken, didn't know the streets and we'd been at this for 20 minutes or more. There would be no cell phones for decades.
Appearances count for much in Las Vegas. We don't like to scare the tourists away. One of Metro's finest pulled me over on the Strip, probably for driving unbecoming a local or some such infraction. The angry man stopped and waited for me to get my ticket, apparently so that we could take up our chase again afterwards. Mortified, I told the officer my story. He went and had words with the angry man who finally moved on. "Are you new to Las Vegas?" I said I was. "From California?" What, was it stamped on me or something? I already had Nevada plates on the car. "Come on, honey. I'll see you home. I'd advise you not to flip people off in Las Vegas. They don't care for it." I've never done it again. It's the last time I felt kindly toward a traffic cop.
Something that charmed me: My fragile, ancient VHS videotape of "Enchanted April" has played as white noise and flashing gray/black/white/soft color distraction for days on the equally ancient 19" TV retained for the very purpose of playing those old tapes I'm not ready to toss. Enchanted April is . . narrow, I suppose. It doesn't appeal to hordes of people, but it is a firm favorite of mine. Ex tolerated it a few times a week and Amber became as dedicated a fan as I. Once a man who loved me agreed to sit by my side and try to watch it. Within 10 minutes, his book was open on his lap, but he stayed beside, hand occasionally patting my thigh, remaining together despite Enchanted April.
Anyway, the opening scenes take place in an impossible-to-fully-describe sodden, gray morning in London just after World War I. As Lottie rides in the bus, crushed in with disabled veterans and heavy clouds of cigarette smoke, one can feel the damp chill, smell the wet wool uniforms, lunches carried in baskets, shopping items perched on laps, some passengers standing in the aisles. The rain pounds on from a solid gray sky. Lottie sees an advertisement in The Times on the back of the newspaper being read by a man seated across from her. She dreams of "letting" (leasing) the vaunted villa on the Mediterranean just to escape London in April . . . The first 2-3 minutes of the video bring my words to life. Skip through the opening credits, if you must. And, yep, the first strains of the lead-in music are like nails scraping a blackboard. It's still worth that visual of 1916 London in April.
I didn't intend to do an Enchanted April snippet until a quote grabbed me: "It's easy to understand why the most beautiful poems about England in the spring were written by poets living in Italy at the time." [Philip Dunne, 1908-1992, American screenwriter]
And now, I shall cartwheel myself to a hot bath followed by sleep if I am lucky tonight, for tomorrow is to be busy and I need to be on my game. I surely do thank the reader for company during my mini-vacation for which I only had to travel as far as the confines of my own head. Have I mentioned I am pretty easily entertained?
I'm already on record about hating to waste precious time performing stupid tasks. I don't want to run errands such as the dry cleaner, the pharmacy, grocery shopping (my own and the cats'), or picking up the certified letter at the post office when I was home, inside the house, when the letter carrier went by with it. Fiddling around pisses me off, and - mostly, I am truly sorry to say - I am further pissed off by many people who "help" me as I perform these tasks. I am nearly as crabby assed as my father and Donald Duck, particularly about poor service in a place where I am spending my money. On the other hand, more sensitive readers, I spend time writing notecards, sending e-mails or delivering homemade cookies when I've been served in a manner that exceeds expectations. I'm just not called upon to do that very frequently.
For most of my adult life, I have been the champion of all errand runners, especially considering that I detest it so. Oh, I could take a route of 7 establishments, carrying a written list for each, take the shortest, straightest route to each, get the bargains and return home having completed each list. I could even incorporate a little "picking up" for my mother or the elderly woman next door. I watched the stores year around for holiday gifts and birthday gifts to be purchased and I had an eagle eye for new products on the shelves. My erranding prowess was a source of contention between Ex and me. I am sorry to say, in retrospect, that I turned it into a competition for which he felt no passion. No bright red letters marked next Tuesday in Ex's DayPlanner as "Errands" day. Others have been heartily appreciative of me. It's a mixed bag of stuff, like everything else. Yes, that bright red streak in the parking lot was me!
Life changes, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. I divorced and was no longer responsible for being the errander for 3 full-time. My holiday and birthday lists were whittled down to manageable. However, I remained efficient and thorough. It should be noted that I miss nothing as I drive through the streets. New store over there to be checked out! Oh, no, another Fresh & Easy location boarded up. My god, the Sahara corridor is like a ghost town with all the businesses and car lots shutting down. That branch of Borders is closing its doors - like I didn't see that coming. A new Ross Dress for Less ~ let's see, is it Geezer Day so I'll get my discount? Oh, bite me - now there is an 89-Cents store, apparently set to vie with all the 99-Cents emporia. I notice when buildings are painted a different color and I recall the storefronts that existed when I lived here years ago. Sometimes I can even recollect what sort of business was housed there in the 1970s. No, nothing on the land escapes me, and sometimes I spin around the block just to make sure I saw what I think I saw, losing no time on my route. Add to all of this the fact that I have a memory like an elephant. Oh, a mind that is a veritable index system of pretty much trivial data to anyone except myself. Welcome to my head.
After my alcoholic meltdown, I found I had misplaced a number of things I'd called upon for many years, if not an entire lifetime. I found I could not rely upon my head 100% of the time. This frightened me. My heretofore admirable stamina had evaporated. I was not physically capable of prolonged activity of any kind. Isolation being a strong element of alcoholism, I'd become fairly agoraphobic. Lists seemed a good idea. Perhaps they would help ground me. But I couldn't think of anything to write on the lists, or why I was writing one. I never lost the imprinting of the sights on the streets, but I didn't file them away with a snort or a giggle or a reminder to "take a picture of that and write something". Please note that those statements are written in past tense. I am in a program and a state of recovery. Recovery is a fluid thing, not static. I am not the exact same person I was in any other frame of the film that is me. I like the present one best, so far. And I arrange my errands across a wider span of time and a shorter space of distance now.
The weather had turned from wintry on the weekend to hot by Thursday and Friday. I reminded myself to take it slow, perhaps make some outings in the dusk or first thing in the morning. The first heat slam takes a lot out of everyone. All the stores and public buildings engage their air conditioning systems for the first time of the year, rendering the ambient air temperature about 20-degrees, it seems. Note to self: take spray water bottle for cooling off and sweater to wear indoors. I had a destination only about 6 miles from home, driving on streets and through areas of Las Vegas I'd never seen before. The eastern side of the valley was settled long ago, some communities and commerce arising shortly after the arrival of the WPA workers who came to build the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. There exists the "Boulder Strip" of casinos and resorts, which caters to a different clientele than those who prefer the Strip. Interspersed with some of the "big houses" are shabby little relics of bygone days, here a lush, shamefully water-wasting garden oasis, there a dirt patch that never supported any form of life. There are many pedestrians, but they are not exercisers. Walking appears to be their only mode of transportation, their worldly possessions upon their backs.
I am clumsy about people who stand at stoplight intersections with cardboard signs requesting money. I have never failed to have a heart plunge about such persons, not knowing whether their situation was as they present it or not, but definitely feeling sorrowful. I was rejected when I attempted to assist once. I'd seen a very young woman at an intersection I passed through each day. She looked physically worse by the day, it was hellish high July, and I was distraught. I gathered clothing I could spare, bought underwear new so she could see the package and know they'd never been worn, put together some toiletries, got a few fast food gift cards. I provided bottled water and I'd put much thought into keeping it all compact - her backpack wasn't huge. She told me loudly on that corner, attracting much attention, exactly where I could put my handouts. She wanted money. But I digress . . . .
The man at the intersection was of the bold variety, not only brandishing his sign, but walking up and down between the stopped cars, bumping against the fenders and doors. Look, I don't have any money. But if I did, and had I been inclined to part with some, he'd lost me with that car bumping. I may want to give money, but one may not demand it of me by bumping. I immediately got very busy eyeballing the attractions alongside the road. Even the panhandler could not have mistaken my intense concentration. He still bumped, but it no longer bothered me. For I'd landed upon the sight of the Lucky Cuss Motel and it pleased me. I am going to guess that the Lucky Cuss is about my age, circa early 1950s. It shows its age, but it has been well maintained with a fresh coat of paint. (Please, may that be my fate, as well.) I grinned to think of hipsters pulling into the Lucky Cuss parking lot when it was a happening place. In the parking lot I spotted a car that would be appropriate to the era in my head. Hmmmm . . . . imprinting the sights and making up stories. Well!
April Alliteration - Alcohol
My month-long musing about my alcoholic journey
Happy ending (at least for me) 100% possible
Installment 2
I do not recall ever hearing one word about alcohol relating to my Morgan relatives (my father's family). He comes from a sizable brood, with 7 siblings plus Grandma and Grandpa. I take this lack of comment, lack of anecdotes, to mean alcohol is not an issue for the Morgans. My father says he has never been drunk. "What, Dad, not even in the Air Force with buddies?" He says, "No. I was always in training for boxing." In addition, my father is unwilling to surrender his self-control sufficiently to become drunk. On the few occasions he has "tried it", he has not cared for the taste, nor felt a need to repeat the experience. Once, at a fine French restaurant, I saw him order a glass of non-alcoholic wine, to the server's clear disdain. He has a particular contempt for "drunks", my father. "What the hell is the matter with people? Just don't drink it!"
My beloved Granny and Grandpa O'Farrell, my mother's parents, did not have problems with alcohol. Each and every one of their 12 children is/was an alcoholic. 100%, ranging from one who had only moderate difficulty functioning in the world to the one who died in a spew of blood from cirrhosis of the liver while seated on the toilet. Then there was the handsomest, most loved of the brothers who died at age 24 having made and consumed home brew created from wood alcohol while onboard ship in the Navy. In my generation of the 40 cousins, I'd be hard pressed to say how many of us has struggled with alcohol and/or drugs. Let's say "many". Let's say "most". Let's say my favored cousin, John, was dead from all of it by age 45. Some of us, from both generations, have found the way out.
During my childhood, my parents always kept a bottle of something available for visitors who might want a drink. In my junior high years, a group of school-ditching kids descended upon my house and the kids razzed me because of the paucity of booze. No one sneaked a nip from this bottle, ever. My mother's alcoholism (her assessment of her problem, not mine) wouldn't show itself for many years. I can recall a time or two when my parents went to the holiday party given by the bank where my mother worked. My mother must have had a drink or three, because on the following day, my father was silent and disapproving. It is not my impression, even today, that she did anything as outrageous as swinging, partially clad, from the chandelier. She was just so well-positioned for embarrassment and disaster if she took even one drink.
Imponderables. Headscratchers. Baffling things. Elusive concepts. Things that make you go hmmmm . . .
I can easily work up a big old donkey laugh about many things appropriate and inappropriate, raunchy, clever, funny only to me or just simply silly. I do humor pretty well, even when I'm the only one who understands it. In our company's infancy, we gave some business to every advertising salesperson who came our way. We did direct mail and door hangers, coupons, YellowBook, Yellow Pages and on seat cushions used in the bleachers at high school football games. Our vans have excellent, expensive signage and we had magnets made that we can place on the refrigerator at every home or business we enter. We plunged into craigslist and the mysteries of Yahoo and Google at which David quickly became a wizard ~ one wants to cheer out loud for his brilliance. From the first job we booked, part of our script has been to ask, "How did you hear about our company?" It's not rocket science. We were trying to learn which of our advertising dollars were paying off. In less than a year we knew exactly what we should stick with and we eliminated everything else as unnecessary expense. At least in our community, 99% of our business come from four sources plus the technicians' repeat business gained by the good work they perform. I have now spoken with about 4 bazillion people in the big city and there is a behavior among certain of them that I don't get. When I present the question to someone who found us on the internet, the answer is quick and short: "Googled you!" or "I found you online." OK, easy enough. Write that down and move on. However, when the caller's reply is "In the Yellow Pages, " it is followed nearly 100% of the time by an ascending trill of laughter or a giggle. It's not that this annoys me. I don't care. I just need the information. But I muse on why so many people find locating a business in the Yellow Pages so amusing they have to laugh out loud.
Blogger baffles me, not infrequently. It's got little twitches and hiccups that annoy me, mainly because I don't fully understand why they occur. I am very detail-oriented. When I write a post, I'm scrupulous about the words I select, the layout of the post, the presentation of illustrations, the unveiling of what is in my ears right now and something that charmed me. None of which is meant to imply that there is anything special about my blog except that I know what I want it to look like. Imagine my surprise when I take a look at a post that's been up for awhile and the photos are all askew! Huh? How did that happen? Who's been in my blog and monkeyed up the works? I do not like lots of pink air space in the blog's appearance. I edit in html vigilantly to make sure there is no excess. So where has it come from when I sometimes look in a few days later? Who's blowing air into my blog, and will they please discontinue from doing so? But the worst . . . oh the worst! I had been blogging for a short while and I had my hard-earned first four or five followers. That feels pretty heady, and all you other bloggers know it. One values the followers, whether "declared" (publicly following) or simply showing support by appearing and commenting from time to time. I logged on, only to find that all of my followers were gone. Not one. All. I will admit to spending a bit of time feeling very uncomfortable, wondering what I could have written or illustrated that would make everyone run off at the same time. And, of course, soon enough, whoops! There they were again.
My phone script is designed to get enough information from the customer to understand the scope of services we might provide. Part of that includes getting a list of rooms to be cleaned and that is a tall order for some people. In reply to my statement, "I need to get a list of rooms you'd like us to clean", I get such recitals as "Well, it's 1,800 sq. ft." No, please. I don't need the square footage. Just a list of rooms. "The carpet isn't very dirty." Please, tell me the rooms. "It's all the rooms in the house." Yes, but I don't know your home, do I? So I developed a little verbal assist - I talk to far too many people to go through this continually. Now I say, "I need to get a list of rooms you'd like us to clean, like living room, dining room, bedroom . . . " That really works for most of the women! They usually begin a quick, orderly, accurate listing of the rooms that compose their home. An astonishing number of men, even the ones who now understand what I'm asking for, begin to sputter quizzically. They simply can't tell me what rooms are in their homes. Some mutter, some express frustration with me, some say, "I'll have to call you back." I'm not male-bashing, reader. I'm simply observing that a startling percentage of men can't relate simple details about their homes. A smart-ass on the other end of the phone might be tempted to ask, "Well, do ya live there?" Both men and women make me grin with this: about half of the homes we clean include a staircase. Nearly 100% of the time, the caller tells me in exactly this way, "Oh, and we have stairs going up." Now this is a thing that makes me go hmmmmm. Don't those stairs go down, as well? Do I need to be concerned about 50% of the denizens of Las Vegas ascending their stairs and being trapped on the upper floor because the stairs only go up?
A rose by any other name . . . . When I learned that I was going to give birth to a daughter, I gave her name a great deal of thought. Ex and I consulted frequently about it and landed on a name we considered perfect. For we wanted that child to have a euphonious appellation. I figured it would be the same for any parent. Oh, maybe others would be compelled to give a traditional family name, or a name to honor something in nature. My point is that I thought any parent would consider naming a child an important piece of business. David had answered the phone and sold the carpet repair job. He hollered out to ask me to book it. I began my list of questions and soon learned the woman's first name is Lady. Her real first name. The one her mother gave her. OK, home girl. Whatever. The next day we got an online booking from a man who is a little tightly wound. I know this about him because he was so anxious about having two rooms of carpet cleaned, he felt compelled to exchange about 10 e-mails with me. I noticed that he seemed pretty proud of being a doctor, because I never was privy to his first name. Just Dr. Jones. Every time. After the homes cleaned his carpet, the work order and a check were turned in. Imprinted on the check: Doctor Jones. I furrowed my brow. "That's his name, Les. I asked him. That's what his parents named him." OK, well why not a Doctor in the same week I booked a Lady? I couldn't believe it when I saw the online booking come in. What the hell? A customer put Mister as his first name. Mister was also part of his e-mail address. Come on! Because he booked online, I never had a conversation with the man, but I was now so name hinky I put a sticky note on the work order. "Homes, ask him if that's really his name and then let me know!" I watched Joseph and Mike on GPS as they pulled up to the job. I waited while they inspected and got a signature for services. My BlackBerry chirped. "That's his name, Les, given to him by his mother and father." OK, well why not a Mister in the same week I booked a Lady and a Doctor?
In my ears right now: What else?
Something that charmed me: I dispatched a team of two to a customer's home on Plaid Cactus Court today. This made me go hmmmm. For I am a woman who has spent a lot of time in a number of desert areas. And I don't think such a thing exists. Although I have seen a lizard with so many colors and patterns it looked like it had been made of spare parts from other lizards. But a plaid cactus? Nah!
Those who visit here regularly already know my job is important to me for many reasons. Oh, sure, it is additional income to my pension. It keeps me busy, off the streets, and out of the casinos. But those are not what appeal so much. I like being part of a successful David business in a staggering Goliath industry going down for the count. I love being part of a tightly-bound team, doing my part and more. I love the connections I have made with the others ~ they are family now. I am amazed at the things I do - and well - that I would never have expected. Design and maintain multiple websites? Huh? Saleswoman extraordinaire? Oh, no, no. I don't have the personality for it. Create a realistic business budget, keep to it, know where to pare it in bad times and keep track of it on QuickBooks? Um, it is a challenge for me to balance my checking account correctly. Schedule multiple service vehicles and multiple technicians to cover the valley, make appointments timely and be able to handle the uh-ohs like machinery breakdowns? I was not good at this for a long time. I am now. We have never failed to arrive at one appointment! Learn and execute the steps of suing a party in small claims court and relieving them of their property as part payment to us? Yes, I did! I learned by making multiple errors at every step, and trying again until I had it. Last Monday David told me that when he hired me, he wanted me badly but he had a concern: that the job wasn't good enough for me and that I was too good for the job. Little carpet cleaning office job. What?
I have written extensively about the company and our work and I do not intend to rehash what's already been told. If the reader is interested in David's momentary questioning of his sanity for opening a business that would bring the general public down upon us, it's been related. To read about the meteoric rise, the agony of the tanking economy and the head-scratching about whether we were seeing a rebound, go here. If the reader wants to know about the dead body or the day the cops came to collect me or all about the wonderful anniversary party held in my honor, it's all there. And if one likes misery, there's plenty to read about when things became too slow, the customers began to be difficult, and times were not very good. But that's not what this post is about.
Among other things I did not expect to become, I am rather a statistician/trend predictor/crystal ball-rubbing observer. When times went bad and I was no longer so busy I could scarcely breathe, I began to gather information. I do this when I suffer many kinds of distress - start pulling in data to examine. Someone I admire told me that fear is simply not having enough information and I suppose my actions support that theory. I started making charts and spread sheets that talk to each other. I made friends with the Farmer's Almanac and my own work order history, the local and national news archives. Within a few months I was able to make some fairly accurate predictions. But once my body of information grew, and combined with my memory for names, places and events, I now may qualify for soothsayer status! For I can state what day of the week this was last year, what the weather was like, if the schools were open, whether a holiday approached, what the economy was doing, what was in the headlines . . . . and what that will mean to our business now. For whatever reason, folks, I have a very high degree of accuracy. I can't contemplate why. I never intended to predict the future. By the way, David is also very good at calling the trends, but he is more visceral. He gathers information with which to make predictions differently than I do.
We have a number of catchphrases that we use in our little world. "Dandruff" spoken on the radio, means the customer is a flake. "Batshit" indicates "this woman is crazed". Some go longer: "When Les is in the house, nobody else answer the phone ~ she gets the jobs." The holiest of the holy, however, the one that has guided us through some very tough times, is David's: "Just keep doing what we do so well. Keep showing up and doing it right." It's how he lives his life and runs all of his businesses. He provides the best of absolutely everything there is - technology, service vehicles, cleaning solutions, machinery, uniforms. Then it's on us to do our jobs. We muse sometimes on those who do the best they can and are satisfied with that versus those who do their jobs the best it can possibly be done by anyone. The latter is what we prefer. And, mostly, that is the sort of worker who has remained through the down times.
Last fall I took a call for some tile and grout cleaning. It was for a church with a name that struck me as way out there - sounding almost cultlike. It had an address on a street that intersects with the Strip and I knew by the address number that it would be near the Strip. Hmm . . . . cult for tourists. The young man who booked the job said he was the facilities manager. I thought, "OK, home dude. Whatever." The job was unusual in that he wanted same-day service and it had to be squeezed between church services. Most similar jobs would be arranged for night time service when no one was expected in the building, but we were so slow, I would try to accommodate anything. I sent Cesar, among our best ever. He did his usual exemplary work, moving double time and putting down fans to dry one area as he moved on to clean the next, clock ticking. At the end of the job we took an American Express card and never heard from the customer again. When Cesar came back in, I asked about the cult. "No, Les, it's a Catholic church." Hmmm . . . I know about Catholic, and that name doesn't sound right, but OK. Cesar knows. "I think it's pretty big, but I didn't see it all. The building is big, but I was only working in the entryway and the big double doors were locked. I couldn't see inside."
Over the past two weeks, the pace has picked up. Dramatically. Last week was the best week we've had in many, many months, both in terms of new jobs booked and money earned. I've been listening very carefully to potential customers as they call in, trying to feel the pulse, and reviewing the events of the past 18 months or so. I pulled out all the impedimenta that make me the forecaster I have become and I began to concentrate. I landed on a theory that says we are beginning a slow, but steady climb out of the darkness, with the occasional windfall. I went to talk to David about it. "David, I'm no John Maynard Keynes, but I think I'm onto something and here are all the reasons why." He sat bolt upright. The next morning at staff meeting, he had me go over it with the homes. They agreed with my theory and were able to add some other indications from what they've experienced out in the mean streets. Today is the first day of daylight savings time and I am reminded of the home dude who once called me an octopus because of my ability to handle so many phones, pens and a keyboard at the same time. Today is an octopus day. The phones are screaming. I'm booking jobs.
Last week on a nasty wintry day, an e-mail dropped into the customer service inbox. Both David and I access that account and we saw it come in at the same time. Oh! Home dude from the church from last fall. Because of the "phenomenal" job Cesar did on the tile and grout, home dude wants an estimate for a "very large" area of carpet cleaning. ". . . the church, the gift shop, stock room, front office, back office and wedding chapel . . . " We each leapt to our feet and nearly collided in the hallway. I began an intense exchange of e-mails with the facilities manager and made that man my own. Now he was bonded to two of us, Cesar and me! The next morning, I had Cesar wear his "dress uniform", the shirt with all the certification badges. He took the digital, rolling measuring device - no pedestrian tape measure for this! I watched him cross the city on GPS. I counted the minutes while I knew he was inside. My BlackBerry chirped: "Les?" I do not have to see Cesar's face with my eyes to know what facial expression he is wearing. "Come on, Cesar, don't toy with me. Tell me." To put it in perspective for the reader, it will require every man and every van. It will take 8-10 hours, in the middle of which I will take lunch to them. 11,000 square feet of carpet and 156 twenty-foot pews! March income!
"Just keep doing what we do so well. Keep showing up and doing it right."
In my ears right now: The Dixie Cups ~ Goin' to the Chapel. Why the YouTube image shows The Shirelles ~ Will You Love Me Tomorrow, I'm not certain. I wasn't in charge of that.
Something that charmed me: I can think of few single days more objectionable than last Saturday. The wind was frightening. Only once have I personally witnessed worse wind and that was nearly a life-altering experience. But this was epic, too! When I stopped for red lights, it troubled me to see the big light standards bouncing wildly in the wind. Sunday was slightly better, but still the wind screamed out of the north sufficiently to make us pull the plug on a walk only a few miles into it. Today we expect 71 degrees and this will be the coolest day of the week. St. Patrick's Day will be 80 degrees! And the wind slumbers. By mid-morning, I threw open the big double doors that were nearly sucked off of the building on Saturday. The birds outside trilled at the little birdies inside . . . .
In the good old days when the rocket ship was heading for the moon and not crashing back to earth, we had a certain number by which we weighed whether a day was good or bad. If I booked that many jobs, it was a good day. Today I exceeded that number of bookings! I'm going to be straight and say it was stressful, as I am rusty. And I'm not complaining.
After a really long day Tuesday, I sat down at the computer instead of packing for holiday camping as I'd intended to do. I noodled around on blogs and left my mark wherever I was moved to write. I checked my e-mail inbox almost as an afterthought. After all, the BlackBerry had not breeeeeenged me to attention, announcing incoming. However, the network had been acting oddly all afternoon after the wind began to roar, so I decided to take a look. Therein awaited a true treat ~ Mother Badger sent the chattiest e-mail in a long time and she made me laugh out loud in the privacy of my own home.
As she is wont to do, Mother Badger had been perusing blogs. She doesn't comment on the blogs, but makes her statements and asks her questions privately, through e-mail. So she dished with me about being "Les, the ex-Limes" and she claims she has entire generations of trigger points for her body worker to go after. I shall soon attempt to one-up her by sharing a statement Stephanie once made: "Leslie, basically your complete left butt cheek is a trigger point." Well! By the way, this week Stephanie went after the tibialis anterior muscles for a real treat. Let's just say that she found a number of trigger points commensurate with the number of miles I walk and it was a pretty unpleasant experience. I'm big on using Lamaze breathing techniques to ease discomfort - hey, it worked for me during childbirth which was about half as difficult as these leg trigger points. But that's not what I meant to talk about. I meant to say that I went to sleep Tuesday evening, grinning with delight over Mother Badger.
The view from my office deck as I arrived at work. Yes, those faint lights on the horizon are the fabulous Las Vegas Strip.
Wednesday morning I was pensive as I walked my miles. I have managed to keep an even keel across these holidays, mostly by trying to do many things differently. Westerman, who advises me about many things, counseled me to avoid certain people and certain subjects and to put some things on the back burner just for a month. He reminded me I needed to get more sleep and eat well. Every single day. I've tried to do that.
The view from my office deck after the coffee brewed.
What we dreaded has come to pass. The holiday season in which we got no crush of business. Down on the ground you see a couple of my war wagons. We used to have more home dudes than war wagons and there was a spirited competition between the homes to claim ownership of a particular chariot. Everyone wanted #3 - it has a great sound system. No one wanted #12 - it's the oldest in the fleet and behaves that way, too. We're smaller now, but still standing. Some days it feels as if I talk to more out-of-work carpet cleaners than potential customers. "Sorry, we're a bit slow ourselves right now." The vendor who sells us our cleaning products tells us weekly about the demise of yet another small business, and that vendor has reduced staff, as well. Sometimes I book a job and the customer will say, "You're the only company that answered the phone. The others are disconnected or the phone just rings." Yes, well, they've had to close their offices and the carpet cleaner can't hear his cell phone ringing while he's cleaning carpet.
I'm not depressed or panicked, but I am very concerned for what has happened to all of us, all working class Americans. I'm fed up with reading that the recession is over and then reading that reports of the recession being over are overly optimistic. In the last few days I have talked with potential customers who go far beyond the usual "pain in the butt" or "odd". Yesterday and today I spoke with one man and one woman whom I would classify as genuinely, certifiably batshit crazy. I didn't become annoyed by them. I reminded myself how stressful the whole world seems right now and it's the holidays, to boot. How do I know what they might be suffering? The technicians radio from almost every job now, to say, "This is a really sad situation." Husband lost his job, house is foreclosed, people are sick and can't afford medical care.
It's time to get ready to go away for solstice. I'm going to set everything down for just the few days and breathe deeply, feel the sun on my skin, dance in the solstice moon. It will take an effort to let it be for this short time. Sometimes the dance of guessing and second-guessing takes on a life of its own. I want to have a crystal ball. I want to know how it will all end. I want to know what's waiting just outside the tunnel. I want to feel confident and secure.
It is time to ready my little birdies for the long weekend and make several trips with packages to my car. It is time to make the special foods to be transported to the dunes. It is time to lay down the things that make our days difficult and find some brief respite. Soon I will sleep on the ground in heavenly peace. For just a little while. And when I come back, I will feel refilled, refueled, refreshed.
In my ears right now: True deal, Erin O'Brien's fault again. Who knew I was so suggestible? Love the song. It invites twirling dance with a long, flowing skirt. I agree the viedo is unremarkable. This is about the music.
Something that charmed me: Despite my trying to swear off the Christmas Nazi stuff, I made a 2:30 a.m. trip to Wal-Mart this morning. I'll confess the details in some other post. Another woman and I kept coming across one another in the aisles. She stopped to take off her coat. She draped it across her cart and I noticed she had her sweater on completely inside out. Not slightly mismatched buttons or a collar turned up. Label flapping, big bumpy sweater seams showing, inside out. I waited until there was no one else in the aisle with us and I mentioned it to her quietly. Hey, I'm a woman who'd want to know if I was trailing toilet paper from the back of my slacks or wearing my sweater inside out. "Mind your own damned business, you bitch." Yow. You know, I need a break.
Our phones are too quiet at work and everyone is a bit tense about it. If history repeats itself, they should start to jangle about Friday this week, or perhaps tomorrow, the oddly placed Veterans Day holiday when we are open while most people have the day off. And if history repeats itself, even in the recession we're supposed to believe is nearly over, we will roar until about February. It is the time of year that home dudes work many hours a day, every day, and take home fat paychecks. Tempers can flare from the pressure of the pace, but it's better than the quiet times. Quiet means no money in our world.
This morning before our sales huddle, Justin approached me. One of the things I like about him is that he just says things. If it's in his head, it comes out of his mouth. He's both straightforward and forthcoming. "Limes, can I get a $20 loan until payday? I ain't gonna lie. I don't have lunch money. I have to eat."I produced the $20 bill and we proceeded with our discussion of the day's jobs, what I'd perceived about the customers, and the potential for earning.
Home dudes were pretty gleeful about the Smith job. Miles of carpet to be cleaned, pet urine throughout (We're experts at urine eradication and it is a good producer of revenue. Yes, it takes specialized treatment to get urine out of carpet. Basic steam cleaning won't do it.), tile and grout to be cleaned, an SUV to be cleaned . . . this surely would be the job of the day. Cesar and Justin together are my most solid team. I sent them off to dazzle the customer and deliver the goods.
I watch the guys on GPS throughout the day. Not glued to the monitor, but I glance fairly often. I know some stoplights in the city take 6 minutes to change. I can tell if the technicians are pulling up on their next job or if they're driving in circles looking for it. "Home dude, you need some direction?" Last December on a snowy day, Justin radioed in distress, "Limes, I don't like this driving in the snow. I don't know exactly where I am. Can you pick me up on GPS?""Justin, make the first U-turn you can. You're headed into Red Rock Canyon and the snow is going to get worse almost immediately. You're going dead opposite of the way you need to!" So this morning, I saw Cesar and Justin pulling up to the Smith home.
It took the typical 20 minutes or so to hear from them. They always go in, meet with the customer, inspect the areas to be cleaned, give a firm quote and call the job in to me. It was Cesar on the radio. I probably read him the best of all home dudes. As soon as he said "Limes", I knew things were not going well. With disgust in his voice, Cesar told me another carpet cleaning company had been at the residence yesterday. It's never good for us to have an appointment on the books and learn someone beat us out by a day. "Limes, this carpet is disgusting. They've overwet it so badly it's squishing when we walk on it. You can see all kinds of spots and stains still on it. It reeks of pee. Obviously, they didn't do anything about the pet urine except reactivate it when they overwet the carpet."Cesar is good at what he does. He explained to the customer that he and Justin could clean the carpet properly and get the urine odor to go away. "Nah!" said Mr. Smith who already paid someone yesterday to clean his carpet and isn't going to pay someone else today to do the same thing. Cesar, however, did get the tile and grout and the SUV.
I took down the amount of the job and how long it would take to complete. My BlackBerry sounded again. I looked at the screen and said, "What's up Cesar?" I could hear Cesar chuckling and Justin raising hell in the background. Little in my work world distresses me as much as hearing raucous discourse on the radio coming from one of my technicians. Too many times it has been a panic call or an SOS, and I don't care much for those. More than once, a home dude has rubbed a customer the wrong way and he's called in to ask me how to handle it. Once a customer refused to pay for services and I had to dispatch Metro. It's against the law to contract for services and then refuse to pay.
"What's going on, Cesar?""Limes, these people have seven kids. Well, seven different ones that I counted.""Yes, and . . . ?""On the way to the job, Justin bought a Fiesta Pack of tacos so we could eat. He didn't finish his by the time we pulled up here. While we were pulling our hoses one of the kids went into the van and ate Justin's tacos." Yow. He borrowed money to buy those tacos the Smith kid ate.
In my ears right now: Justin, calling in the completion of the job. "Limes, I have a check here in the amount of . . . ". The Smiths gave a very generous tip. "Well, Justin, that should pay for the tacos, right?" "Limes, I can't eat the tip I won't actually get until next payday. I was hungry!"
Something that charmed me: Justin was laughing by the time the job was completed and he radioed in. We have an odd little work world. We all get terribly beaten up by those strange creatures - the general public. Each one of us tends to go off once in awhile when it has just simply been too much. But mostly, we step up, withstand the assaults, tell the stories and laugh like hell.
