I have many things I should write about, have been wanting to do so, but I feel kind of lost. I love this place the best, but why go to all the trouble of writing one of my epicly long posts when the site might be shutting down? When will we know for sure whether they got enough money or not? What if life is crazy (as usual) and I forget to archive?  Should I get an archive after every new post?  That seems kind of a waste... 

Do I just move on and ?  It seems like any way I go I have to invite people to become a member there too, that doesn't seem fair.  I haven't found another site that has the things I like most about Xanga.

Well, I'm really sad that it looks like xanga is shutting down, I'll miss many aspects of it. (I'll miss protected posting the most!)  But, I'm looking at other alternatives.  I'm trying wordpress, but I'm not sure I like it.  I may set up a LiveJournal as well, we'll see.  Either way, I don't want it to shut down!

http://mamanightsong.wordpress.com/

So I started a new blog that will be public if you want to check it out:

http://dailydbt.xanga.com/

To clarify, I'll still be keeping this one, just working on that one as well.

The other day, I came across a picture of a cardinal on facebook.  It reminded me of a former coworker of mine, who had once shared that her mother loved cardinals.  Now I think of her whenever I see one, or a picture of one, and I shared the picture on her wall.

A friend of mine from Girl Scouts always enjoys hippos, and I think of her every time I see one. 

And this is how it goes.

An owl reminds me of a former friend of mine that is still dear to my heart.  A dragonfly, a friend that always wears a dragonfly necklace.  A turtle, a close cousin that I grew up with. An eagle, another cousin.  My friend's husband wants a pot-bellied pig for a pet, so I think of them when I see one.  The list goes on.

And apparently someone thinks of me every time she sees Ben & Jerry's ice cream. (She knows me well!)

Isn't it amazing what associations we form about other people, that seeing something makes us think of them?  What (other than ice cream and tie-dye shirts) remind you of me?  What do you think reminds other people of you?

Just a few pictures that I missed the other day that I think are pretty cool.

I always think it's so cool when you can see the moon during the day....

Locals get bonus points if they can name where this is. ^

Yeah, I'm kind of proud of that one. ^

No, of course I wouldn't take a picture of the sunrise while I'm driving my son to school.  Nope, not me.

And now, let the moon and the water bid you Good Night.

I'm posting these for @megabyyte.  She didn't ask me to, but I too enjoy taking pictures on occasion (although not nearly as much as her!)  so I thought I'd share some of mine.  Enjoy, dear! 

These first photos are from when I was 19, and I *just now* got them developed.  (Ummmm, I'm 34)

This was when I went on a camping trip to Shenandoah National Forest.  Officially that's an 8 man tent, but it was certainly a pain in the ass to put up!

This was a hiking trail through Shenandoah, I believe this may be part of the Appalachian Trail, but I could be wrong. It's been a long time, after all.

There's a story behind the picture of this tree, but it's personal, so I'm not going to share.  Sorry!

This and the next few pictures were taken on Dec 29, 2012 at Sharon Woods Park in Cincinnati, OH.

I'm pretty proud of this next one....

Eh, that wasn't the one I thought it was.  I guess I'll have to look around to find the one I was thinking of, although it's close.

^That was the one I was thinking of!  I'm kinda proud of that, I think it came out pretty good!

My artsy fartsy tree shot.  I was sad that you couldn't tell there was snow on the tree when it came out.

This was from a few years ago, and is actually waaaaaay back in this blog.  Forget snow men. Snow kitties are better.

I was kind of proud of this shot as well, I liked how you could really see the ice on the grass, although it may need to be bigger for you to really tell.

And finally, some sunsets to round off the landscape pics.

Hope you've enjoyed the slide show, all!

I think I wrote this, although I think I was inspired by some phrases that are copied from other sources.  Sadly, I do not remember what those other sources were.

February 28th, 1998

Remember the rainbow that danced across the sky?

The wave that flowed through the sand?

Remember the little bits of beauty that surround you?

For the same rain that grows the hay

will drown the rat

And the same sun that melts the ice

will harden the clay

It's the little details that make the whole

Yet they are forgotten, drifting in the wind.

Remember the beautiful sunset?

Did you notice the individual colors?

Details that form the whole

And sometimes,

The hardest lesson to learn,

Is the least complicated.

"You keep talking about that, but I think your social skills are fine."  Bryan said today.  Once again, my rebuttal is the same "I worked hard to get them this way, ballet on the playground in grade school isn't exactly normal."  This has come up a few times, where I try to describe the ostracism I felt as a child, and he tries to assert that my experiences in that area aren't all that far from the norm, trying to help me feel a sense of connection, help me to not feel so incredibly different and weird from everybody else.

My mind paints the picture. Is it 2nd grade? 3rd grade?  The rest of the class is playing handball at recess.  I could try to play also, I've even tried it a time or two, but I'm not very good at it.  I'm already the nerd.  The teachers would make them let me play if I wanted to, but I know they don't want me to.  Of course I would be picked last.  I'm not really fond of doing it either, except for wanting to be included as part of the group activities.  The ridicule I would receive isn't worth it.  I don't really know what else to do, so I do what all the adults say is the right thing to do: be myself.  I'm in ballet, so I decide to practice at recess.  I'm not very good at that either, but I have fantasies in my head of how really good I am at it, and how supposedly impressed everyone would be at how good I am, surely then they would come flocking to me to be my friend.  Of course it didn't work that way.  Of course it just led to more ridicule, but I hide behind a bravado as though their comments don't bite me to the core.  I seemingly embrace my "weirdness", making fun of how boring and ordinary everyone else is.  In secret, I yearn to just be normal, to just be like everyone else.  I desperately try to do so, and yet the concept eludes me.  The reactions that come naturally to everyone else are foreign to me.  I enjoy music, but the obsession with the person/group that created it confuses me.  Physical attraction to some celebrity that you've never met and most likely never will is utterly beyond my comprehension.  You want to talk about homework?  Learning? Reading?  Then you have my undivided attention.

Bryan tells me that in some ways, I'm still doing ballet on the playground.  Doing things that I don't even realize will draw attention to me, negative or positive.  I think I might know a little bit about what he's talking about (wearing the bright tie dye shirts, for example), but I'll have to think more on it.

I intentionally did not leave Bryan any voice mails this week.  It was one of the first things he commented on.  He said (jokingly?) that he felt left out. 

I had no sooner gotten out of Bryan's office and started towards lunch when I got a call from my Aunt, saying that Mom is back in the hospital.  I did not find this surprising in the least, considering that the nursing home had not given her her medicine for over 24 hours.  For my Mom, that can be a fatal mistake.  She came to the hospital because she had nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. She also still has those ulcers in her legs that still aren't healing (the whole reason for her going to the nursing home was for wound care).  When she got to the hospital, the resident under her normal Dr found that the nursing home had neglected to change her bandages even though they had gotten diarrhea on them.  (eeeewwww!) Needless to say, everyone agrees that she will NOT be returning to said nursing home for a continuation of care upon discharge from the hospital.

There's so much drama going on between my brother and my sister.  They each want to bitch to me about it, which is fine, but I refuse to take sides. I told Bryan today that if he thought *I* was ever immature, pray that he never meets my siblings!  I spent a large portion of my session today just bitching about my family.  I love them, and I will do anything for them, but it's really not good for my mental health to be spending this much contact with them. Drama, drama, all around and not a drop to drink!

Still no inspection notice.  It's kind of down to things that Bret is responsible for and that he really doesn't want me to help out with all that much (like cleaning out the man cave, aka the basement.) It sucks that our washer broke on Monday, they  should be out tomorrow to fix it.  So now we have a whole week's worth of laundry to catch up on, along with everything else, AND we're supposed to go out to his Mom's house on Saturday to show off the kids' costumes and such.  (I don't ever remember going to my grandparents house for Halloween.... it's like a whole 'nother family shuffle holiday, complete with trick or treat!  Why can't they come to US if they want to see the kids!  (OK, my Mom has an excuse for this one.)  /whine.

Reposted from Thursday, April 08, 2004

For those that have heard/read this story before, my apologies.  For whatever reason, it's haunting me again this evening.  It's been over a dozen years, and yet the terror remains.  Perhaps, by writing it out once again, I will figure out what is bringing this memory back so strongly at this time. 

I was 19, living in a small trailer with my best friend Jamie, his girlfriend Majic, and my boyfriend Aaron.  (Crazy times, that, but I digress.) That December night they were home watching a movie, I was working a shift as a loaner manager at the Silverton Pizza Hut.  They later told me that someone had mentioned around 2 a.m. that it was getting kind of late and they hoped I hadn't gotten robbed.  Oh, the irony.

It had been an unremarkable shift, neither too busy nor too slow.  As we closed up the store I only had a little bit of paperwork to finish up, maybe 5 minutes worth.  Policy dictated that the closing driver stay, but why make him wait?  I was 19, naive, and wanting to be seen as a cool manager by these employees that I didn't really know. So I sent him home, breaking company policy.  (It's all my fault!  It wouldn't have happened if I had just followed the rules!)  I finished up my work, set the alarm, and locked the store.  I wiped the snow off of my car and got in, ready to leave.  Only to look in the rear view mirror and see that I had forgotten to wipe the snow off the back windshield.  Annoyed, I got out of the car and wiped it off. 

I got back in the driver's seat and reached to close the door, only to feel the barrel of a gun against my head and a male voice growl, "Don't scream if you want to live to see Christmas." He definitely had the element of surprise in his favor.  "No sir, of course not sir." I replied.  He told me to get out of the car, and moved the gun from my head to my side, walking me in front of him.  He had me unlock the door and turn off the alarm.  I gave him the keys to the safe, but tried to explain to him that I didn't have the code.  It was a time delay safe, and as a loaner manager with more than enough change available to last the night and an area to drop deposits, there was no need for me to have the code to open the safe.  The cash drawer, which we did have access to, held only $16 in rolled coins. I was terrified, ending every phrase and sentence with the word "sir." He grew more and more frustrated as his efforts to open the safe were unsuccessful. 

Then he got up and grabbed my arm, leading me to the back room.   I didn't think my terror could grow any more than it was, but it did at that point.  Part of me figured that if he was going to kill me he would have already done so, so it was the fear of being raped again that I was most terrified of at that point, and even more when he pulled out a pair of handcuffs.  But all he did was take my left arm and handcuff my wrist to a large cleaning shelf.  It was over 6 feet tall and loaded with cleaning supplies.  Then he went back up front to try again to get in the safe.  After a bit I realized that he had no intention of killing or raping me, so I was able to calm down a little, enough to begin thinking.  I kicked myself for not paying attention sooner when I had a better view of him, but I took the time then to really try to memorize any details I could about his appearance.  He went over to the drive thru window for a bit, then back over to the safe and the cash drawer.  As he was doing this it dawned on me that he could still come back and rob me personally.  I had just cashed my paycheck that day, and had over $200 in the front pocket of my apron, money I needed desperately.  Thankfully he didn't, and eventually I heard the bell signaling that he had left through the front door.  I waited, terrified that he would come back.

He didn't come back, and finally it dawned on me that I would have to do something about being handcuffed to a cleaning shelf, alone in the back of the store, where no one would miss me for some time yet.  I tried desperately to get the handcuffs off, but only succeeded in making them tighter and destroying any trace of any fingerprints that might have been on them. This was long before I owned a cell phone, so that was not an option.  Finally I did the only thing I could come up with- dragging the cleaning shelf 20 ft. across the room to reach the phone.  I was grateful that he had only handcuffed one hand, or else this feat would have been a lot more difficult.  My area manager later joked that I should have at least taken all of the cleaning supplies off the shelf before dragging it across the room, but that thought had not occurred to me. 

I picked up the phone and called 911, telling them that the Reading Rd Pizza Hut had been robbed, and then having to correct myself that I was not at my usual store, I was actually in Silverton.  A short time later the police came and unlocked the handcuffs.  I called Jamie and told him to come pick me up, that I was not going to be able to drive home that night.  The police brought the dogs out and tried to find the guy, but were unsuccessful.    He hadn't even taken the rolled coins.  I felt so stupid, having been too paralyzed with fear to get a really good description of him when I had the chance, and then destroying any evidence that might have been on the handcuffs in my own clumsy attempts to get them off.  I called the area manager and left a message telling her what had happened, that I was taking the next day off, and that somebody else could drag the cart back across the room. The police took me down the street to the station to write down my statement of what had happened in every detail possible.  I was glad that I had called Jamie to come get me, because I was totally exhausted by then.  I was also glad that Majic and Aaron had come along, since one of them, Aaron I believe, drove my car home.

A few days later the police called me, asking me to come in and speak to a detective.  I tried to relate the details as best I could, but it was obvious that the detective wasn't believing a word I was saying.  At one point he asked if the robber had been white or black.  He had a mask on so I wasn't positive, but I told the detective that I thought the guy had been white.  The detective then replied, "There are no white robberies in Silverton."  I was stunned.  He said I was acting nervously, was I really telling the truth?  Of course I was nervous.  I was reliving that moment 5 years before when I had sat in front of another detective that didn't believe what I was telling him.  5 years before, the person had confessed and collaborated what I had said, but now there was no one to be found, and no evidence other than a pair of handcuffs that it had actually happened. The robber hadn't even taken the rolled coins. The detective asked if I would be willing to take a lie detector test.  Of course I immediately agreed to do so, but I was never called back for it.  To my knowledge they never found the guy.

I didn't realize the effects of the robbery at first. The immediate desire to avoid Silverton if at all possible was perfectly reasonable to me, although I did eventually get transferred and work at that store until it too was closed.  It wasn't until almost a year later that I got a glimpse of what was to come.  I had taken my teenage cousins to a haunted house.  I used to love haunted houses, laughing the entire time.  But this time as various characters jumped out at me I became hysterical- sobbing, crying, and pushing them away from me.  At first I couldn't understand why I had such a strong reaction to something I had previously enjoyed.  It took me awhile to realize the connection between the surprise of the robbery and the surprise of someone jumping out at me in a haunted house.  Those stupid so called funny videos where something/someone jumps out at you that were popular a few years ago also have the same effect.  Every snowy day in December I relive this memory.  It's not snowing tonight, but in writing this I have figured out what factors in my life are bringing this back.  Now, if only my body can remember that I'm not in mortal danger, I might be able to get to sleep tonight.  Maybe. Compound PTSD sucks, just in case you're wondering.