Bulging at the Seams With That "Can-Do" Christmas Spirit

'Tis the season of giving...where we open our hearts to share our good fortune...and our cupboards to share our bounty...with those less fortunate than ourselves...

...or so the old heartfelt sentiments they've instilled in us would have you believe.

Okay...back to that thought in a minute...I just wanted to say I was in a slump the last month and didn't write a blog. One could say I was tired of making the rounds to countless doctors' offices and, coupled with reading endless dismal news items centering on people killing children...or more precisely, their own children (or in their blood-line somehow) - like the one yesterday about a grandmother nonchalantly tossing their grandchild off the third floor Fairfax County, Virginia, mall's balcony to her death...well, I was figuring life itself doesn't hold enough jubilation for me to write about...lately.

That was...until today.

Today I went to yet another doctor's office and spied a ginormous sparkly wrapping-papered box sitting next to the television cabinet in the waiting room.

I, of course, went to peer inside as I am the curious sort.

Inside were a few cans. Oh, isn't that nice - a box set out for people to give to others who can't afford their deductible or health insurance to start with. Nice sentiment and all, right?

Guess again.

Out of the (maybe) nine cans inside...seven were dented. And not dented a little. Not like the ones that used to be in the mark-down aisle in any supermarket when I was a kid -- the ones we'd routinely consume because the difference between 35 cents and 29 cents was a large enough amount of money to risk your family's health because you were too strapped for cash to pony out the extra six cents. We're talking majorly mangled...bordering on seepage and explosion upon contact. I didn't look closely enough to see if the expiration dates were from the 1990's. Something held me back in the hope that human kindness wouldn't allow such a thing.



But then again...human "kindness" decided to go foraging for cans of stuff they bought ages ago (think "ghost of Christmases past" impulse buys like decadent French chestnuts or Dickensian English plum pudding)...or accidentally dropped from off the top shelf whilst looking for more "normal" things to eat. Then think of someone actually starting up their $48,000+ automobile and driving all the way to the doctor's office to gingerly insert them in a bedazzled box destined for people less fortunate than themselves to consume. Keep in mind these are the very same people who wouldn't think twice about tossing out a can of Fancy Feast cat food if it had so much as a friggen ripped label.

So, it's okay to give sub-par food to someone you don't have any ties to...it's okay...because, as they say: "It's the thought that counts."

Ugh.

(Written "the other day"...but not posted until today.)

What Made Me Cry Today

It's been 13 years to the day and I still can't do it.

I can't watch any show about Princess Diana without crying. And I've watched a ton of them...and another one just now (some 2007 rerun on The Biography Channel). If you weren't aware, she died 13 years ago, today, in Paris...after what is still considered by many people, very suspicious circumstances. But I don't think I'll go into that here...instead I'll try to tell you why I cry.

I don't really know how, living in New Jersey, and way before 200 channels on my television set...I somehow was mesmerized by a lithe shy creature all the way over in England by the name of Diana Spencer. Now I never bought People magazine or tabloids or watched "Entertainment Tonight" all that often, but somehow the whole fairytale princess thing captured me and held me fast.

I've always had a thing for England...I don't know why but I do. All the rock groups I loved were British groups, all the accents I could do were English (okay, I could do only one and probably not the greatest...but that didn't stop me), all the shows I loved..."Monty Python's Flying Circus", "To the Manor Born", "'Allo 'Allo!", "Doctor in the House", and countless others, were English. So, to love a real-live royal romance...in England...by a girl who was only a half a year younger than me -- well, was pretty much a given.

And it wasn't only me who found this whole dream-come-true fantasy fascinating...the whole world was transfixed and caught up in it, too. One can only speculate that Diana, with her cocked head and down-glancing ways, was just a glimmer of something magical yet to come. Hollywood way back when had a name for it: "It". Clara Bow was coined "The It Girl" back in the 1920s. And after that - you either had "It"...or you didn't.

I think Diana had "It" right from the start...and everyone knew it.

In the very wee hours of Wednesday morning on the 29th of July 1981, me...and a "few friends" - estimated at over 750,000,000 of us, sat enthralled, anxiously awaiting a ceremony the likes of which most of us had never bore witness to before. The only thing remotely in that realm was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953...and I wasn't around back then. This was, by far, the grandest spectacle I had ever seen in my life: a mere girl was going to be wed...a mere girl who would be Queen one day. Wow! All right before my eyes.

Now, I don't know about you...times have changed...but when I was little I wanted to grow up to be a princess one day. Princess and ballerina came first...writer came later. I would dream of having my Prince Charming sweeping me off my feet and then living happily in the lap of luxury forever after. We didn't have a lot of money growing up...so becoming a princess seemed one way to strike it rich (this was way before the lottery, too). But it wasn't just about the money...it was about the dresses and the balls, the kissing and the "grown-up" stuff grown-ups didn't talk about back then...and knowing which fork out a seemingly endless array of forks...was which. This was what being a princess meant to me when I was very, very young.

Then I grew up and realized I could never be a princess...but here was Diana...MY Diana...stepping up to bat for me...and millions of other long disillusioned "once upon a time" little girls...who were now, like me, expected to have grown up and out of all that fairy-tale nonsense.

But as we are all too aware, her dreams of being a ruling figurehead monarch of the British Empire never came to be...but the unimposing princess, like that ugly duckling in that other fairytale, transformed into a glorious swan instead. And she was adored by millions along the way. Her journey could have ended with just being content to be waited upon hand and foot and rolling her eyes at every daily function she had to partake in to appease the "little people" she would someday rule so she could keep taking those month-long vacations at Balmoral. But...she didn't. She made friends with all the "little people" instead, graciously shaking their hands in the endless lines they queued up in -- and made each of them think they were just as important as she was. Her humanitarian causes were legendary. Who could forget her walking through the minefield in Angola or touching AIDS victims who, at the time, were still shunned and ridiculed by a great deal of the population? Those images ended up being much more synonymous with Diana than that 25-foot train of her bridal gown ever could.

And, on that tragic night in that fateful Paris tunnel...it all came to a screeching halt.

Literally.

The "People's Princess" was no more.

Tears are welling up in my eyes as I'm typing this. Tears shed for a person I've never met. Tears shed for a person who was chose to step out from the self-indulgent, grand facade opulence of her world...and step into the real world and lives of those less fortunate...and into the hearts of people...just like me.

A Play, With Words, In Three Parts

For your 'entertainment' I present...a "blogumn" in three parts (all basically read in the present tense):

Past:

Here I go to sit in yet another doctor's office - frantically showering, dressing and guzzling a glass of water before I proceed in my attempt to break the sound barrier in order to make it from my house to my destination in less time than is humanly possible without the intervention, or invention, of a time machine...unless I hit absolutely no lights, which I am sure the likes of Stephen Hawking NEVER add into their equations when formulating new theories.

Calculations aside, only being assisted by a wormhole, alien abducted or...perhaps...could it just be that nothing says "drive and determination" like driving WITH determination?

Past Present:

Suffice it to say - I made it there on time...and even managed to jump out of the elevator before my riding occupant, i.e., another lady, did. Yes, I am, in such cases, psychic...I just knew she'd go into the same office as me...and she did.

So, I filled out my form, same form as always - info never changes. Why they make you fill it out each time is anyone's guess; they just must like having something to shred at the end of the day. The shear bulk of my pre-shredded slips of paper over the years alone would undoubtedly have amounted to one "less than full-sun-given" scrub pine by now.

Enter my former elevator companion. "I'm sorry, but we ARE running late today...so it may be a while" the receptionist, outwardly begrudgingly...yet inwardly relishing, alerts her. Now those are fourteen words no patient wants to hear. Why...oh why can't they CALL you to let you know that you can indeed use the brake pedal en-route to your appointment? You know, they can put a man on the moon (or at least fake it well) but they can't call you on your cell phone to tell you they know full well it's going to be a LONG wait??? It's not like we are still in the days of Gilligan's Island...no Professor and a coconut phone. Wake up and smell the Venti Latte Decaf Two-Percent Sans Sugar...technology HAS progressed a bit, correct? Would a call kill these people? They could even write it down and shred it at the end of the day just to add to the pile of stuff from my life which gets tossed without so much as a sideways glance. Aren't I worth it? I mean, they still do take my checks and not just the number...so my paper heap must be worth at least a [parking] token...which, by the way, they don't dole out anymore so I have to park in Lower Slobovia when I park, thank you, Baptist South - Morrow Tower people.

Now, with notebook (I am presently writing in) in hand, I sauntered back up to the receptionist station..."Can I 'borrow' a pen?" I ask (all innocently). She looks up ever so slightly from her "look who is going to be inconvenienced today by sitting unnecessarily long at the doctor's office" appointment book, and proceeds to tell me that I can use either the purple or blue one. I go for the purple. (My daughter likes purple.) Ordinarily this would be a massive clue for the more astute "Agatha-Christie-types"...only someone with prior intent to abscond with a nifty "drug company freebie pen" would give a flying fig about the exterior colour it was...but no red flags were raised and I am now writing with my "newfound" pen. The tiny things in life keep me going...and this was by far one of the tiniest. Lo and behold, I am called in to see my doctor...MY doctor was on time...THIS time. Time to put away my notebook which is supposed to scream "Johnny Depp playing J.M. Barrie in 'Finding Neverland'"...yes, take note everyone sitting in this waiting room, for *I* have a notebook...I fancy myself on the writer's playing field of the guy who penned "Peter Pan". Sigh...I am such a dreamer. Wait...isn't that what that film was about??? Hmmm...ironic?

Present:

I gave my daughter a pen today. It was purple. I wouldn't say it was the cheapest present I've ever given her as it cost me $165.66 with back payments duly tendered. And, speaking of irony...I even had the audacity to write my check out with their...uh...strike that...MY daughter's pen!