Do-Over, Anyone?

"Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana

"Insanity is defined as doing the same things over and over, expecting different results." -- Dr. Phil

There's a new show on SoapNet, courtesy of the CBC, called "Being Erica". The premise is that every episode allows 30-something Erica a do-over, assisted by her mentor, the ever-wisdom-quoting Dr. Tom. Tonight's episode had Erica, newly hired to a publishing firm, arrive for her first day only to find that the human being that hired her had been fired and replaced by a self-absorbed, snotty little blonde bitch who ground people up into emotional hamburger for the pure pleasure of it. Erica was an assistant, which means basically she made coffee and took notes at meetings. Erica wasted no time getting on this C-word's doo-doo list with an ill-timed faux pas, and the little blonde no-talent wasted no time in turning our heroine into a stuttering, sniveling waterworks. But only temporarily. After advice intervention from Dr. Tom, Erica remembered a similar situation with a college professor who intimidated her until she fled his class, never to return, and received an F for her trouble. Well, before you could say "Quantum Leap", Erica was back in that class, and after a false start during which she quoted from a Britney Spears song that hadn't been written yet, Erica appeared at an Amateur Night at a club filled with her professor, her poetry class, and other assorted ninnies, recited a poem that the professor had trashed, and faced him down. This, of course, gave Erica the courage to deal with her little twit of a boss, who stole one of Erica's ideas, fired Erica, passed the idea off to her boss as if it were hers, and tripped up when the old guy asked for some details. She called upon Erica, who nobly helped her out of her spot. Then she was forced to re-hire Erica and give her a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Well, we all wish for do-overs. I wish I hadn't blown 2003-5 spending what I didn't have; boy, could I be making hay now if I wasn't in debt! And didn't I know better, having spent 1998-2001 getting out of debt?

Well, the good news is, you don't have to be Erica to get a do-over. Chances are, if you divorce this ninny, you'll be dealing with his drunken, cheating, miserable ass all over again. No, not just in Divorce Court, sweetie. Across the breakfast table. With a different face and name. But that belch will sound awfully familiar. And, sure as the grass grows green, if you just cleared bankruptcy, without some money counseling, you're gonna wind up right back in credit card debt. Or if you had a problem standing up to that one 20 years ago, you're gonna have the same problem with this one now. Just like Erica. And you won't have Dr. Tom's words of wisdom to help you recognize where you went wrong then and how to fix it now.

But you will have a do-over. I guarantee it. Do-over after do-over. But will you recognize the opportunity when it comes? And will you take advantage of it?

Good vibes to all of you,

Claudia

Snapshot - Claudia's Life Philosophy

OK, so everyone has a life philosophy of some sort, right? Even if we may not be able to articulate it, and have never really thought about it enough to organize it down to a few simple phrases or paragraphs, I'm assuming most of us walk around with a set of beliefs we operate under most of the time. Shoot, that dude that wrote "All I Really Need To Know, I Learned In Kindergarten" made a mint off of writing about his life philosophy, etc. So, at last for public consumption, is Claudia's life philosophy, with the proviso that any and all sections are amendable and rescindable anytime:

Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

Virtually ANYTHING is possible;
Many things are likely;
Few things are probable;
Virtually NOTHING is definite.

Contrary to popular belief, neither death* nor taxes^ are inevitable.
Neither is much of anything else.

"Common sense" is really not so common.

Very few occurrences are truly accidents or coincidences.

There is, as Benjamin Franklin said, "a Divinity which shapes our ends." There is also free will, and thus we are responsible for the choices we make, and their consequences. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Love (i.e., caring concern for the other guy) really does make the world go round.

There really isn't a whole lot wrong that a hot bath, a good night's sleep, a change of perspective, the passage of time, and/or one really decent, loyal, compassionate loved one on your side won't fix. Eventually.

We all gotta help each other.

*Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 3:11
^Please! You don't want to know how many people don't pay taxes. Mobsters, survivalists, etc. And no, the government does not exert itself to catch them all, for many reasons.

OK, so that's my life philosophy. What's yours?

Until next time...

Good vibes to all of you,

Claudia

In Memoriam - Frank Meyers

Mr. Meyers was a cop. First and foremost. He was a loving husband and father of six. We lost Mr. Meyers November 4th. I ran into my old friend Scott at the library November 8th and learned of his death from cancer. It is a huge loss.

Mr. Meyers was an officer with the Penn Hills Police for many years. He was a big man, both physically and spiritually. He was an honest, hard-working, old-school cop. His wife was my babysitter, so I spent a lot of time with that family. I loved Mr. Meyers. We all did. Scott said it best --"He was like John Wayne to me." Exactly. He was like John Wayne to all of us: big and strong, loyal, willing to fight for what he believed in -- fight to the last drop of blood in him if it came to that. He had quite a few opinions, and if you were around him any length of time, you heard about them. But if you were a good, honest, decent person, Frank Meyers liked you. And if Frank Meyers liked you, there wasn't a damn thing he wouldn't do for you, give you the shirt off his back if you needed it and wouldn't think twice.

I remember him as a very kind man. I never saw him leave the house without kissing his wife goodbye. He loved kids, calling his youngest daughter, Lori, "Punkin", helping me with my math homework, reassuring me that my stepfather wouldn't be mad at me over a bad grade on a math test (OK, so Mr. Meyers didn't know everything), ready with advice and guidance for his large brood. And occasionally, a kick in the pants if need be. I never saw him disrespect his wife, and on the rare occasions I shared a meal with him, I never saw him get up from the table without telling Mrs. Meyers how good the food was. That was Mr. Meyers.

And though there may be those who wouldn't appreciate me telling you this, I saw him cry one time. I don't know for sure why, but I think something happened to his partner on the police force(?) Before Mrs. Meyers ordered me outside, I remember being astonished; I had never seen a man cry before. But I'm glad I did. It brought him down from a pedestal he probably wouldn't have wanted to think we had put him on, made him more human. It made me see that even the strongest men could hurt, and that we need to be care-full with each other. And a few years later, when I saw John Wayne, dying of cancer, accepting an Oscar with tears streaming down his face, I knew I was right. If The Duke can cry, anyone can.

One of my favorite memories of Mr. Meyers was the time they took their RV off to camp for a week. I was 7 at the time, and left in charge of their very old Beagle, Bulle. Twice everyday, I cut through Mr. Kassouf's yard to the Meyers' yard to give food and water to Bulle, and pet him and play with him a bit. He was a companionable old dog, and I enjoyed taking care of him. It may surprise you to know that it never occurred to me that I would be paid for helping out; I helped out at home, and at that time was not paid an allowance or anything. Hell, an adult told you what they wanted you to do, and you did it, no questions asked. On the appointed day, the Meyers family returned and called to let us know they were home, I didn't need to feed Bulle anymore. My mum called me out to the living room, and told me Mr. Meyers was very pleased with how well I had taken care of Bulle. I smiled, very happy to have pleased Mr. Meyers. Then she added, "He wants you to go down there a minute, they brought something back for you." Surprised, I walked quickly down to their front door, and was greeted by a smiling Frank Meyers, who had a really cute little yellow leather teepee in his hand. "Here, Claudia, we brought this back from camp for you." I thanked him effusively, turned to leave, and with a twinkle in his eye, he chided, "Didn't you see the zipper there? You better look in there, and see if there's something in there for you." I opened it and there was seven dollars in the wallet, a fortune to a 7-year-old in 1972. I just jumped up and down and hugged him in my excitement and he said, "Well, you deserve something nice for taking care of Bulle. Mrs. Meyers and I knew we didn't have to worry about Bulle with you taking care of him and that was real important to us." I told him that I liked taking care of Bulle, that he was my buddy, and we played a lot together when Mrs. Meyers babysat me. And he smiled down at me (he was so big) and patted my cheek and said his famous, "Atta girl!", and I went on home.

I heard that "Atta girl!" in conversation with Mr. Meyers almost everytime I talked with him. He had a way about him when he talked to you, like no matter who was in the room at the time, he'd rather be talking to you than anyone else. He laughed often, and his smile was as bright as the sun. I asked him one time why he became a cop, and he gave me the stock reply, "I like to help people." But when he came to our little William McKinley Elementary School to talk as part of a Penn Hills Police Drug Awareness Campaign, he was really in his element. 'Cause he hated drugs and what they did to people, families; and he loved kids. Helping people wasn't just a job to him, it was who Frank Meyers was.

We moved away from the Verona Hilltop area, and the Meyers', when I was 13. I wish now that I had made the effort to talk to him while he was still alive. Sometimes I wonder what he'd think if he knew my stepfather was a child molester; that in order to keep him from hitting us worse than he did, my mother would tell him, "If you don't stop I'll tell Frank, and you know how he loves Claudia." And most of all, I wonder what he'd say if he knew that, as a result of my childhood, I decided to become a Social Worker, and like him, be able to help people?

"Atta girl!"

Rest In Peace, Mr. Meyers.

Love, Claudia

Of Logic and Chowder

Hey, People!

Just a short post to throw a few thoughts out.

In the future, I thought I'd introduce something I'm gonna call "Snapshots". "Snapshots" will just be short posts on a random thought or two that cross my mind, or a recipe, or something like that. Point being, they will be shorter. Reason being, of course, I'm too busy with life to mess with long entries, and you're too busy to read them. And I'm thinkin' if I keep it short and sweet, I'll be touching base more frequently, and so will you. So...

Last night, I was listening to Coast to Coast with George Noory. For the uninitiated, C2C is a lively mish-mash of the unexplained, unusual, paranormal, and socio-political world we live in. That might be putting it mildly. Anyway, at one point, George and his guest, Brother Guy Consolmagno, and various listeners were discussing whether our furry friends go to heaven, whether they have souls, and just exactly what constitutes a soul. After some discussion, Brother Guy summed up his opinion (heavily influenced by Thomas Aquinas): If a creature is capable of recognizing others as separate entities from itself, and is capable of loving them, then it has a soul. The prevailing opinion, then, of course -- if it has a soul, it has the opportunity, if judged righteous, to go to heaven. Let it be added that this gentleman is a Jesuit and an astronomer at the Vatican observatory.

My mother and I have housed (I refuse to say "owned") four dogs and five cats in our 42+ years together, dating back to stepfascist days. When I was about twelve, stepfascist took my dog into the woods and shot him. All because Rex tore a hole in the couch when he was left alone for a weekend, and we forgot to put him in the basement. (I guess banishing him to the garage for a year, throughout one of the coldest winters in Pittsburgh history, where his food and water repeatedly froze, and my mother and I weren't permitted to play with him, or even pet him, wasn't quite enough punishment.) Many times over the years, I have wondered aloud to my mother and others exactly what the caller did -- will our beloved pets be waiting for us in heaven? Especially I want my dog. I was heinously deprived of his full earthly lifespan by the wantonly cruel act of a very sick man. I want eternity with my dog. And if he's not there, I certainly hope (and choose to trust) that God will have some suitable consolation to offer me.

So I was telling my mother all about last night's C2C show. And we've discussed this topic many times before, with my mother echoing my hope about Rex, and equally wanting eternity with her favorite of our cats, Rama. Today my mother walked past merely hoping by offering her very sensible and logical opinion on this matter. She said, "Well, when God made the Garden of Eden, didn't He have animals in it? It just seems to me that if He would make an earthly Paradise with animals in it, wouldn't He have animals in the heavenly paradise that He intends us to occupy forever? And besides, when He told Noah to build the ark, who did He tell Noah to take aboard with him besides the other seven people?"

Of course, I replied, "All the animals, two by two."

My mother smiled triumphantly and said, "Well, there you go."

My mother's proudest accomplishment: she graduated from nursing school in 1959 and was a Registered Nurse for 34 years, and rightfully so. Getting a nursing license old-school was no day at the beach; neither is a nursing career. My mother has no degrees in philosophy, theology or any other "y", but she's no dummy; no old-school nurse could be. She reads a lot. She's a student of life -- intuitive, very astute about human nature. And owing to all her years of reading true crime and watching Court TV, my mother can watch true crime stories on "48 Hours Mystery" and its ilk and tell you whodunit, how and why, and how they screwed up and got caught. And as far as I'm concerned, today she blew off the map entirely one Brother Guy Consolmagno; Thomas Aquinas; and for good measure, my former Logic 101 instructor; who might have had his class's textbook dedicated to him by its author, might know that All S are P, Some S are not P, Some S are non-P, and some S are not non-P, as well as which of these statements are contrary, and which are contradictory, but, believing that God is a sexist, racist mass-murderer, might never know that God has an Eden in Heaven waiting for him, full of real Bambies (as opposed to brain-mushing tests named "Bambi".) Hallelujah, and God bless my mother.

Claudia's Clam Chowder Recipe

1/2 lb. bacon

2 bunches leeks, each containing 3-4 leeks, thoroughly washed and sliced

4-7 oz. cans chopped clams

5-6 medium potatoes, peeled if desired, and coarsely diced

1 quart half and half

1 cup each cornstarch and water, whisked together

Spray 5 quart soup pot with non-stick spray. On medium heat, fry bacon till crisp; crumble bacon and set aside; leave bacon drippings in pan. Put in sliced leeks, cook till almost tender -- do not brown. Put in diced potatoes, followed by liquid from chopped clams. Reserve clams. Turn heat to high till the potatoes are boiling.  At this point turn heat down and let the soup simmer. When the potatoes are almost tender, pour in half and half. Turn heat up till it's all simmering again, then pour in cornstarch/water mixture slowly, pausing to stir frequently and check the soup's thickness is as desired (I like my soup thick; you can always put more milk in it when you re-heat it if it winds up too thick). Stir in clams and reserved bacon and heat through. YUM! Enjoy!

Good vibes to all of you!

Claudia

Mall Rat?

Hello again!

Yesterday, I went over to the Pittsburgh Expo Mart, located in Monroeville, PA, to the Coin Show sponsored by the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists. I used to be really into collecting coins, but I'm more into "pare down, unclutter, the less you have the less you have to keep track of or clean" these days. I kept some silver from Canada, Australia and China, a titanium coin, and a Pope John Paul 2 commem. Everything else I got rid of. What went out is too much to mention, but I got $180.99, more than I paid for it all, so I was happy. So much so, I splurged on the aforementioned Dairy Queen sundae at the food court of the adjacent Monroeville Mall.


I don't know about you, but going to the mall has lost alot of its appeal. I remember in my teens and early 20's going out to the mall with friends and thinking it was this big fun time. Ye gods!! I keep saying all the time now, I must be getting old. But I really must be, because as I took my turn about the mall yesterday, all I did was mentally shake my head. No National Record Mart or Tower Records, no Waldenbooks or B. Dalton (although there is a Barnes and Noble in the plaza whatchamacallit outside the mall and a Borders in a shopping center just down the road.) But, still. Where did the WQED/PBS store go? The Disney store? The G. Thanks? And the cheap jewelry kiosk where I got alot of my silver rings? I remember alot of people got excited when the new mall went in at Pittsburgh Mills in nearby Tarentum. My mum said to me, "There won't be anything in there for people like us." Well, at Monroeville, there's really nothing much that isn't high-end or at least highfalutin', mindless, soulless, or spiritless, except maybe Penney's and Eckerd Drug.

And the amount of people following me, trying to get my opinion on some damn survey. People, people. You don't want my opinion, trust me. I remember when this place called "The Truxell Opinion Center" used to be in the mall. My friend, Scott and I used to threaten that when just going to the mall wasn't enough fun anymore, we'd stop in Truxell's and give our opinion. "They don't want our opinion!" we'd thunder, only half in jest.

The food court yesterday was a different story: Manchu Wok, Uncle Charley's Subs, Subway, Sbarro's, Mrs. Fields Cookies, and of course, Dairy Queen. But, with my weight-loss plan goin' on, and the fact that I sold my coins for a check, not cash, I wasn't putting myself out for much food. That said, I think I'd like to spend my birthday (coming up in a month) at the mall. Just to eat, really. Then go to that plaza thingamabob with the Barnes and Noble and that other place with the Borders and really git down. Just like the old days...

News from the job front: I decided to sign on with the plaza again. It really was a horse race (no pun intended after the Queen-attended Kentucky Derby yesterday), but in the end the plaza offered the best all-around package of wages, close proximity, and length of workday, combined with being willing to work around my school schedule and my mother's increasingly fragile state. I was the only one surprised I ended up back there. Everyone else expected it. I really wanted to get out of fast-food and away from the seasonal nature of the plaza, but I will probably only be there a few more years, then with a Bachelor's degree, I can (hopefully) quickly "get on with my life's work", as Chuck Noll used to say. I have to go to a meeting Wednesday, then train the next 9 days after that (!!!) There's no telling what state my mind, feet, or the rest of my body will be in after that. I don't know how much working out I'll do, or anything else the next couple of weeks, nor how much blogging, nor what my schedule will be from the 19th to the 24th. Stay tuned.

Good vibes to all of you until then!

Claudia

Most Livable Pittsburgh

Well, hi!

Can't believe it's been just shy of a week and I haven't posted!

Pittsburgh was, for the second time in 22 years, voted Most Livable City by Rand-McNally. Yeah, Pittsburgh!! I know some people still have "hell-with-the-lid-off" type visions of my city, but that is way outdated. This city has had two renaissances since the 60's, and it's a city with sparkling scenery, great hometown folks, and arguably, the most beautiful baseball park in the US, if not the world. We have great colleges, world-class hospitals with state-of-the-art transplant centers and burn units, and are home to incomparable pharmaceutical, research, surgical, and communications pioneering.

When I say "great hometown folks", let me tell you, the people around here are world-class, too. I don't know about you, but I've been to other towns/cities, where you get lost, ask for directions, and people deliberately get you lost, just to laugh at the "greenhorn". Here, we not only give you accurate directions, we'll take you there, even maybe out of our way, just to see that you get there OK. I know this because a very nice letter was printed in our own Post-Gazette in '05, from a Toronto couple who, confused by the way the streets run parallel to the rivers here, asked for directions, and were not only escorted to their hotel by their new Pittsburgh friends, but were taken under their wings, invited out to some local hot spots, given their cell phone numbers just in case they got lost again, and accompanied to the Steeler/Penguin (I forget which) game they were attending. And that's just the way we are here. Friendly. Yinz come and visit now!

(Now if we could only do something about the Pirates, the property taxes, and the transit system!) Oh, God, did I really write that?

Good vibes to all of you!

Claudia

Baklava and Stuff

Since in my last post I made what I'm sure will be seen by some as a flippant remark about discrimination against women, that, as a woman, I had faced discrimination in the form of being thought of by some well-meaning folks in my life (!) as being basically put on earth only for the purpose of being a help-meet and a brood mare, etc., I thought I'd cite two significant examples of discrimination against women that I had come across over the weekend.

The first, widely broadcast over CNN, etc. cited a study, done by Catherine Hill that shows that despite the passage of the Equal Pay Law in the 1960's, women one year out of college are earning, for the same jobs, 80% of what males are, and ten years after college, they earn just 69% of males' salaries for comparable jobs. This is compared to 59% for male equivalent jobs in the 60's and 78% in the 80's. When Hill probed the reasoning she was told, and I'm paraphrasing here, as CNN flashed the quote for about 5 seconds, "Employers assume women are going to take time out for young children and not be available to work the hours required." And although in my last post I said the same thing in a roundabout, sardonic way, that kind of thinking is prevalent even now, and exactly why there's a wage gap and a glass ceiling.

Is there any way for women to win? In today's economy, it still is at best a real challenge to a family's finances, and at worst impossible for a woman not to work outside the home. If she does work, she won't make as much as her male counterparts for the same job, she'll probably encounter some kind of sexual harassment or glass ceiling; if she takes off time to have children, she will not only make less than her male counterparts, she won't even make as much as the women like me, who decided to ignore the words of the well-meaners and not have children. (And let me tell you, I'm rolling in dough). If she decides not to work, well, the average age of widowhood in this country is 50, and that doesn't even take into account the marriages that break up over domestic violence, substance abuse, and the ubiquitous skirt-chasing and irreconcilable differences. I don't know for sure what it's like to go back to an office/restaurant and work after 30 years of homemaking and child-rearing, but I'm guessing it ain't pretty.

And as bad as things are in the real world, the glamour-pusses in the reel world aren't having a picnic either. In the 4/22 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mimi Yahn writes in her story, "Hating Women" that in 2000 she conducted a six-week study to track hate speech and bias language on prime-time TV. To make a long story short, 416 times out of 590, when there was any language at all that was demeaning, objectifying, derogatory, or pejorative, it was directed at women, with the rest of it spread between straight men, gay men, ethnic groups (mostly Asians, Jews, Native Americans and Arabs), and those seen as having problems with weight and appearance. Violence against women was ramped up as well. Whereas rapes and murders were once sufficient to fill the time between commercials, now women were "tortured, dismembered, beaten to death, burned, hung from ceilings and subjected to a range of horrific and sadistic
hate crimes never before seen outside of snuff pornography." Lovely.

Interesting to me was Ms. Yahn's observation that when referring to a white woman, TV writers simply call her a whore, but when referring to a black or Hispanic woman, they'll call her a "crack whore". Reflecting on the coarsening of our culture, Ms. Yahn summarizes, "Dehumanization is at the heart of it all." I couldn't agree more.

On the lighter side, I do remember a rash promise that I made in my first post that I would at times include recipes. I know quite a few of you really enjoy baklava. It's not that hard to make, if you're patient and just do it a step at a time. So here's my recipe. It's especially good at Christmas, Easter, or any time you want to apologize, cheer someone up, or impress someone.

Baklava

The Pastry:

1/2 lb. phyllo pastry sheets

2 sticks butter, melted (1/2 pound)

Nut Mixture:

5 C. Walnuts, coarsely chopped (I use a Mouli)

1 C. sugar

1 t. cinnamon

1/3 t. cloves

Syrup:

2 C. sugar

2 C. water

1/3 lemon (I use 2 t. Minute Maid Frozen Lemon Juice, it = 1/3 lemon)

1/3 C. honey

1 t. vanilla

Make the syrup first. Combine the sugar, water and lemon in an 8" pot. Bring to a boil; boil 10 minutes. I put it in the fridge until I pull the baklava out of the oven. It should thicken up during its time in the fridge to the consistency of good honey or maple syrup. If it doesn't thicken noticeably by the time the baklava's been baking for a half-hour, put it in the freezer. When you take it out, stir in the vanilla and honey.

While your syrup's boiling chop the walnuts, mix the other ingredients for the nut mixture in a large bowl. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Next, spray a 13" x 9" pan with butter cooking spray. Melt the butter in the microwave in a small microwave-safe bowl. The phyllo sheets usually come frozen, in two half pound rolls of sheets. You just will need the one roll - 1/2 pound. Thaw it according to package instructions. Now I've heard some brave souls use paper towels, some waxed paper, etc. to keep the phyllo from drying out. I get two clean, clean dishtowels, wet them, wring them out thoroughly, put one down on the counter, the phyllo sheets on top of that, and the other clean towel on top to cover. Put a sheet of phyllo in pan, brush it evenly with butter (using pastry brush), repeat until there are 7 sheets of phyllo on bottom of pan. (Always cover unused phyllo while buttering). Put half of nut mixture on top of buttered phyllo, add 3 more sheets of buttered phyllo, then the rest of nut mixture. Butter and place the rest of the phyllo on top.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 1 hour or until golden. Check it after 45-50 minutes to make sure it's not getting too brown. Pour cold syrup over hot baklava. Cool. Cut into sqares, diamonds or rectangles, whatever suits your fancy. Enjoy! To serve these, I like to put them into cupcake foils because they look festive, they eat less messy, and most importantly, if they start to dry out a little, you can spoon a little honey on the top when you serve them and voila! Delicious!

Until next time, good vibes to all of you!

Claudia