Archive | December, 2012

Cookie Dough and the Haircut

15 Dec

The Cookie Dough:

Earlier in the week I took a hike with a girlfriend.  We are very close friends and have known each other since our teenaged years.  Why include that information in the intro?  Because it should highlight our deep rooted connection which has been forged by many decades of interaction.  …it should, I hope it does.  So here we were huffing and puffing up a hill when my friend told me of her cookie dough dilemma.  Apparently, several months back she had succumbed to the charms of a young boy and his door-to-door knocking plea of, “please pre-order cookie dough, pay now and I will deliver it to you in a few weeks.”  Being that her children are in the private school sector, she thought this a good opportunity to support the local, public elementary house of education.  And so she handed over her twenty dollars, wrote the boy’s name down, and tucked her anticipation away until the three week marker was set to arrive.  Well, according to her, three weeks has turned into three months.  And her question to me was, “I have his name and I know his school, should I call them and ask for my cookie dough?”  My answer was quick and firm…”No.”

I went on to explain that life is unpredictable (as she too is aware), and as such, impedes upon plans and/or intentions.  I suggested that we don’t know the circumstances surrounding the boy’s life and perhaps, in this instance, he (or his mother and father) could benefit from receiving a little grace.  I also recognized the potential that the boy took her money and also enjoyed her cookies as well.  But my thought is, if we look at the circumstance as if weighing it out on a balance, the extension of grace proved the ‘heavy’.  …’nough said.

The Haircut:

Thursday, (only a few days after solving the ‘cookie dough caper’), I took my son for a haircut.  It was an unplanned excursion (especially as I am the usual coiffeur to the Bent family), and took place because we had to kill some time and he needed a cut.  The little barber shop is located within the Long Beach VA facility and the resident barber is Judy, a woman.  She was on the brink of finishing a cut for an older male veteran, so she offered us a place to sit while we waited.  In a short amount of time Judy and her prevailing customer learned of my son’s “Wounded Warrior” status.  And wouldn’t you know, when the man in the salon chair was finished with his cut he turned to Cole and said, “Son, it would be my honor to buy you your haircut.”  Flabbergasted Cole said, “Are you sure?”  To which the white-bearded man replied, “Yes.  I thank you for your service and it is truly my honor.”  …well he tried to get that out, but honestly he got so choked up the words were having to fight their way out (if you know what I mean).  And of course, me being a sucker for a kind deed and an adherer to the policy of “no one cries alone”, I got watery eyed and was (still am) incredibly blessed by this older military veteran.  Not only because he paid for the haircut, but because the plight of my son made a mark upon this experienced man.  After thanking the stranger for his kind act, Cole carefully stepped into the chair of honor.

Judy proceeded to tell us of her credentials and a few personal accounts of her life, while in process of cutting Cole’s hair.  Once finished under her experienced hands, he asked if he could give her a five dollar tip and then handed her a twenty dollar bill.  She thanked him and handed him back a five.  Now the haircut itself cost $10.00, which the kind stranger had taken care of;  so in truth, Cole should have been given back $15.00, not $5.  I watched this transaction which then jet-propelled my ‘momma bear’ tactile instincts.  Though something within me held my tongue.  It could have been that Judy shared with us that she is a four time cancer survivor who lost her “dream retirement home” because of her medical bills.  She shared with us that the circumstance ended up being more of a blessing to her in the long run, and then gave Cole’s knee a pat and said, “see it was a good thing after all!”  It could have also been that she had another man awaiting her services and there was really no way to tactfully call attention to her monetary error.  Or it could have been that I had the twenty dollar cookie dough advice still fresh within me.

Which ever the case may be, it donned on me (as we were leaving the facility) that most likely she had forgotten that her previous client covered the expenses of her next.  Thus when Cole offered to give her a five dollar tip, his rightful change, from a twenty (considering his haircut cost ten) would have been a five-r.  But it wasn’t until my shower this morning that I was given the true message of the triangular transaction.  You see, I was viewing the circumstance from the perspective of my mommy lens.  And what I thought to be an infraction against my son, was actually an INTENDED double blessing from The Good Lord himself.  As she communicated, Judy’s finances were tight.  And unbeknownst to the stranger, Cole’s spirit was depleted.  In one fail swoop, Judy picked up an extra 10 dollars, and my son received a little boost to the soul from the sincerity of the gentleman.  Both were blessed, just as each one needed.  …Oh how my vision is so impaired!

To that end, the answer to my cookie deprived girlfriend still stands.  In fact, now more emphatically.  As if the two stories are not enough, I have more reason to advise my friend to consider the unknown before taking action.  This past week has been grueling for our family…to say the very least.  The “short” of it (as if I can tell a story short-handed):  We introduced a new medication to Cole’s regimen, last Thursday, which caused several severe adverse reactions.  The one I will focus on is the emotional spiraling which occurred on Monday (after my hike with my friend).  Oh there were other, very obvious, overtly physical, negative affects as well.  But the hopelessness that Cole was left to contend with spun him in the direction of suicidal ideation.  And he attempted to overdose on his pain medication, though his actions were thwarted by the entrance, into the room, of his little sister (who remains ignorant of her brothers actions).  Not a fun place for him, not a fun place for his parents (my husband and I).

Unfortunately we didn’t put 2 and 2 together that first night, and it wasn’t until Tuesday eve that we realized this new state of low, was directly related to the collision course of the new medication.  Now I beg of you, as I tell this story, to kindly refrain from offering loads of advice on the subject of suicide ideation…my armor is a bit weary.  The purpose of my sharing is to illuminate the full circle effect of choosing the road of grace, also known as mercy, especially when another option is present.

I will tell you that amidst our tumultuous week, the ‘normals’ of life continue to go on.  In fact, I was the email liaison/coordinator for a magazine photo shoot happening at our house yesterday (Friday), for a London based quarterly.  The photographer, the models, and the stylist were looking to me to ensure the times and locations were set and in place.  Now earlier in the week one of the models called to complain because the schedule for the event had to be tweaked slightly and he was irritated at me as a result.  …keep in mind, my son had just tried to OD…  But you know what I realize, the circumstances of my life do not cause the lives of others to stop.  He was completely in the dark about our familial hardship.  And yes, I could have enlightened him (and his single, no children life), to our heart wrenching scenario…but to do so was (and is) unnecessary.  Let me interject here…I had called upon my “prayer warriors” a few days earlier and my request was simple, “wisdom, please pray for wisdom”.  Not only does my Heavenly Father offer to grant wisdom to those who ask, as written in his word, but he provides the necessary tools for the actions required to enact the wisdom given.  Hallelujah for that.  And at this point in my story is where, for me, I see the fulfillment of prayer most profoundly.

Now back to “the short of it”…haha!

For him (the aforementioned male model), the change in plan was infringing upon his convenience.  And being he was receiving no remuneration for his time, he had every right to be a little testy.  I didn’t need to use my “E ticket” as I call it (E ticket=passport to the very best rides at Disneyland–until the changeover to the ‘all day pass’ was enacted), to override his concerns.  So I apologized and together we worked out a viable plan which ended up being the best choice for all involved.  After all, the beauty of gaining in years is that one is also gaining in wisdom (hopefully).  Now what good would all my wisdom be if it were left as an untapped resource!

Ok, ok…truth be told, the older I get the less I know.  Though there is one lesson life has been teaching me over and over again:

“Much grace I must give, for much grace I often require.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sandy Sheets

9 Dec

Sandy Sheets sounds like the name of a woman.  “Hello, my name is Sandy Sheets.  No, I am not in the porn industry and that question, I assure you, is getting old!”  That mini monologue is a figment of my imagination…a segment from my non-existent stand up comedy routine.  There is no such person, that I know of, called Sandy Sheets.  Though I swear she was a visitor of mine this past week, for the other night when I crawled into bed after a long day, I felt an odd amount of sand under my hand.  My hand happened to be near my pillow and my pillow was at the head of the bed…where it belongs.  I thought, “hmmm…”.  Yep, that was the best I could think, I was tired.  I then adjusted my blankets and stretched my legs downward toward the foot only to discover more granules of sand; more than I cared to sleep with.  My entire bed was sandy!  What the heck?  Was this revenge of the body scrub (being I had criticized the directions on the Skin Food product in my last post)?  Now I racked my brain to try to remember what had occurred last in my bed chamber which brought part of the beach to my sheets, and since I couldn’t remember being the culprit, I realized “Sandy Sheets strikes again”!  Though sandy she may be, I assure you she is no lady!  “She” is actually my husband…a he.  A surfer, surf-a-holic, he.

Brian Bent artwork

A Brian Bent original, 1930’s inspired

Be ye Not alarmed…this is not an ‘X’ rated post!

This post is actually about lines.  Lines in the sand, if you will.  Lines we draw and expect ourselves, and others, to NOT cross.  Lines such as, “don’t bring sand into our bed.”  In fact I began early on in our marriage with having specific lines.  Brush your teeth with toothpaste, if you want to kiss me.  Cheat on me and we are done (he had that one too, in fact it’s still quite definitive).  Drunkenness is a no-no (a line he crossed early on, only to learn of what I call, “the wrath of Rivka”).  But it isn’t just with marriage that I have lines.  I have drawn lines with myself, my children, my mother, my employer, and probably a friend or two.  Perhaps my siblings as well…they can better say.  And just like the ‘no sand in bed’ line I had drawn a while back, my lines have been pretty solid for as long as life allowed me that luxury.  As we amble through life together, inching every day closer to our impending finish line, we find our lines, once solidly striped, become blurry (if not non-existent altogether).  Actually, I will keep to myself…my lines are blurred and some of them are disappeared, where once they were very much my gospel.

After discovering the condition of my bedding, my first reaction was irritation at the fact MY line had been crossed.  Yet something within me stirred and asked, “so what?”  And wouldn’t you know, with that simple question swirling around in my head, I decided to not let the sand bother me.  After all, Brian and I have both had our plate quite full with other emotional and physical burdens.  Yes it is true I could have called the less-than-desireable conditions to his attention (though I knew he would discover them soon enough), but in that moment I recognized it was a better choice to cut him some slack.  Especially as our life, in this particular season (and I don’t mean winter, spring, summer, or autumn), is not.  Wanna know something?  Sleeping with sand is not as awful as I had thought.  I’ll admit it is still not my favorite to share my bed with particles from the sea, but it didn’t kill me to ignore the grit and relax (FYI: there was too much sand to just scrape it off to the floor, I would have had to undo my bedding and re-make the bed…which I was too exhausted to tackle that particular night).  And I am finding more and more that “lines”, or my lines anyway, aren’t so necessary for having a fulfilling life.

Another example, last night us ‘Fab Four’ were sitting on the couch when Brian discovered a long black marking on the sofa cushion.  He quickly pointed out the streak and asked, while looking at our daughter Esther, “How did this get here?”  To which she replied, “My pen exploded when I was writing on my pad, while laying on the couch.”  They both looked at me as if a big problem were present amongst us.  I just replied, “Well, there goes my museum!”  Esther asked in confusion, “Museum?”  To which I explained, “Yes, long ago I had to decide if I wanted a home or wanted a museum.  So now, I guess what I have is a home.”  And she nodded with a smile of recognition knowing I had erased that line I had drawn, to accommodate for a loving experience while in my house.  (Though in truth I was reeling with elation that she had used the correct tense for the verb, lie). 😀

It isn’t an easy task, mind you.  In fact today while sitting next to the defaced cushion I had a twinge of my old line resurface in my thoughts.  My old line being the desires which are still within me to have something go the way I want it to go.  Of course I don’t want to have a streak of black ink on my yellow cushion.  Of course I don’t want to crawl into a bed visited by Sandy Sheets.  Of course.  But more and more I am allowing my lines to blur, or eradicate completely, because relationship is the trump card I wish to hold.  And the funny thing about allowing myself to really take down some of my ‘neatly, put in place’ barriers, is I begin to reflect back to times where my desires (or lines drawn in the sand) were really the cause of much stress for me, and probably for others.  And though this reflection helps keep me pointed in the direction I would like to go, I am still far from having arrived.  I can say that at least I am done with the condescending thoughts toward the trespasser.  Even so, one can still find me putting a coaster under a guests drinking glass if they happen to set it down upon a piece of wooden furniture.  I can only promise to not consider my guest a neanderthal for their lack of good breeding.  But watch out if they do it twice…all bets are off and the wrath of Rivka most likely shall emerge.  I am on the path, not quite at the destination! 😉

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Mandibular Trauma

2 Dec

Though my last post was long winded, and I’m sure only those who take the time to read my blog from their place of employment could justify the long haul to the end of my story (except for one lady I know, but she is queen of the Woodglen thus time just spills from her plate–wink, wink), I could re-use my title, from that post, again and again and again.  “Unintentionally Imperfect”…I am pretty sure that is my crowning achievement as well as my pain in the ass!  Now the title, mandibular trauma, is just a beautiful grouping of words which have a syncopated and rhythmic effect when placed next to each other.  And because of that, I needed to investigate their connection further.

When I first read the words, mandibular trauma, they were written from a man who was describing Randy Newman.  Odd, right?  Well I think it an odd description, but then again, I have not been in the company of Randy Newman.  The man of many talents, Van Dyke Parks, was being interviewed about his work with various artists.  When it came to him describing Mr. Newman his response was less than favorable about Randy as a person, while keeping the genius of Newman’s writing intact.  To paraphrase and get to the point of my title, Mr. Parks sentiment went like this, “He suffers fools not wisely.  He has a tendency to mandibular trauma.  He comes out slugging” (Uncut July 2010, pg. 89).  I confess, I read and re-read that statement several times.  The description of, tendency to mandibular trauma, hooked me.  All of a sudden I found myself investing my personal ‘thought time’ (personal thought time=opportunities for following various trains of thought i.e while doing the dishes, applying makeup, folding clothes, etc.) into the contemplation of the description while trying to figure out what that means in a practical sense.  Did Van Dyke intend to say that Randy literally began throwing punches toward the jaw, either that of Park’s or himself?  Or, was the terminology used as a metaphor with no literal connection at all?  Meaning, did Mr. Newman spew out such hurtful words that Van Dyke Parks likened the verbal regurgitation to being traumatic to the mandibles?

Am I alone in this area of word scrutinization?  Am I the only ‘nut’ who reads, pretty much everything?  Yes, I actually do read everything.  You can find me investing good time perusing the manual of a new cell phone.  Or the warning label which is adhered to an electrical appliance cord.  Even the label on a mattress and/or pillow.  I read, read, and read…and sometimes it is just a bunch of junk.  Cereal boxes, hair care products, ingredients, fine print, etc.  Then I have the audacity to evaluate the meaning of said junk.  But on the flip side, I am a lover of language…its intentions, its construction, its etymology, its music.  And when certain words are used which, for one reason or another, catch my interest and hang out in the contemplations of my mind, I get excited to traipse down the road of clues toward unraveling the mystery of the verbiage.  Another example: Last year my daughter gave me a sample packet of a skin scrub from a company who call themselves, Skin Food.

Skin Food body scrub

Coffee Body Scrub…shall I eat it, or wear it?!

And just this past week I spied the packet hanging out next to my face lotion (ok, ok, anti-wrinkle cream) as it has been there every day since she gave it to me.  I asked myself, “What are you waiting for?  Just use the damn stuff already!  Then I corrected my brash tone to, “darned stuff”, and pulled it off of the shelf.  Being I am who I am, I turned the packet over to make sure I understood the intention of the maker…in case theirs was a supernaturally different body scrub and scrubbing it on the skin and then rinsing it off was not the proper modus operandi.  Well sure enough their instructions differ from that of my previous knowledge.  Though their variation is due only to lack of proper editing and attention to detail.  Here I type the instructions verbatim, “After liberally in the shower or bath, using gentle circular motion.”

Now really, what is a girl to do?  At least this girl, who is a fanatic about the cohesive use of language (and to this end, I apologize for subjecting you to my past written faux pas, as they are due to my laziness.  When I am tired, I turn from taking the time to properly edit a post and choose to “publish” with errors intact.  Bad form, bad form–though I am not marketing my prose for money…at this point!).  Well me being Bent Rivka and all, I conversed with the packet as if I were standing in front of the entire marketing team.  Once finished berating them their error, I had to get my head around the erroneous directions.  I played with word substitution for a bit, and then decided a complete re-write was in order.  At one point (and I admit I should have begun here), I said to myself, “Oh hell, Rivka, you know how to use stupid body scrub.  Now get in the shower and shut up!”  And so I did.  I used the product but could not bring myself to throw away the packet because the directions were haunting me.  I have been looking at that packet for a solid week.  I periodically pick it up and double check that the error doesn’t lie within my interpretation.  And now, I am utilizing this beautiful blog forum to lay to rest the confusion of the issue.  RIP, Skin Food…r.i.p.

Ok, the truth of this post is this, my son has been suffering to a significant degree this past week and a half.  As he struggles with severe pain, medication withdrawal, and the emotional stress of processing his prognosis, his dad and I shoulder his reality in different ways.  For me, to discuss the irrelevant and absurd, such as the word choice of the Van Dyke Parks article from 2010 and the beauty product from a year ago (though freshly opened last week), helps me release the pressure which comes from not being able to “fix” the hurts of my son.  After all, a mother is the one who comforts her children and who by doing so, makes all the wrongs right again.  In Cole’s case, I cannot touch that which ails him.  Additionally, as I shared in my previous blog story, this week has been filled with other circumstances of stress which are burdensome in and of themselves.  So skin food, Randy Newman, and Van Dyke Parks it is.  And thankfully, because I have this forum in which to deflate the ‘ol brain a bit, I can now throw out the packet of gelatinous goop which holds a smidgen of salt, sugar, and coffee grounds.  I can also assure you my jaw is doing just fine!   Once again, thanks for listening with your eyes. 🙂

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Newer Entries →