Is this what Oprah’s trying to say?

I’ve been watching a lot of Oprah (now that it’s over) lately and today, I watched the episode that she had Roseanne Barr on. In the segment that Roseanne talks about how it wasn’t incest, Oprah says,

If you say, I mean, I think that there’s nothing worse than being, well certainly levels of abuse, but to be abused, but to say that you were abused, when in fact you really weren’t abused, and that person has to live with that, that is also a horror; that is as horrible as the abuser.

She stumbled through that (as you can see – I paused and played quite a few times to get it all right) statement but I completely agree with what I think she’s trying to say – if you accuse someone of something bad and try to take it back later, both still have to live with the initial statement and the consequences of it being made.

I tried to find a video of the segment but YouTube didn’t seem to have anything except the promo for this episode. Let me know your thoughts.

Love you, mean it.
~C

Getting to know more about you.

Here’s a new edition of MannLand5’s Getting To Know You –

1. what’s something you’ve eaten and liked, but didn’t think you would?
~ I’m not sure that there’s anything on this list. I consider myself to be an adventurous eater so nothing is “off the list” of items to try.

2. plastic surgery..yay or nay?
~ No thanks. Unless I had a (God forbid) disfiguring accident or something that needed a plastic surgeon’s expertise.

3. 2 things you love about spring are…..?
~ Certainly not the allergies! But the weather – absolutely! And getting to swim outdoors again (although I haven’t been yet) is a great thing about spring.

4. when’s the last time you went on a picnic?
~ A few weekends ago, Brad & I packed a picnic lunch and the dog and went to Zilker Park. It was a very nice day. Other than going camping with him last fall, I can’t remember the last time I had a picnic like that.

5. what’s your favorite app?
~ Just one? Maybe Facebook and/or Twitter are ones I use the most. Other than that, I enjoy game apps like Words With Friends and Angry Birds. Can you believe that only 4 years ago, we wouldn’t know what this conversation meant???

6. who does the grocery shopping in your house?
~ Brad and I go together when we can.

7. would you rather take a spin class or zumba?
~ Seeing as though I don’t belong to a gym nor do I plan on it, neither.

8. how often do you go out to dinner?
~ With the state of our household economy, we rarely go out to eat. It’s a good thing I love to cook!

Getting to know all about you…

I follow my former student Ann’s blog and her latest post was inspired by an Austin blogger’s post about getting to know other bloggers. So, why not?

1. do you watch/read the news?
~After 911, everything was so dismal, I stopped watching to keep from becoming depressed. Slowly, I started watching the weather then local fun stuff then morning news. That was about it. Then I learned that most (if not all) news is glorified gossiping. Especially local news. So I stopped again, except the occasional bit trying to catch morning weather forecast.

2. how would you describe your “look”?
~Convenient. I’ll wear a dress to work and people ask me what’s the occasion. My answer? “I didn’t feel like matching a top to a bottom.” I teach high school band so there are unexpected time of hauling stuff and I need to be able to help out and not risk my “nice” clothes. I’m also on quite a budget being that I’m a high school teacher and trying to get out of debt.

3. did you play sports in high school or college?
~I was in the marching band. It is a sport, I promise.

4. would you rather give up lipstick/gloss or high heels?
~I think as long as I have lip balm, I’m good. I hate flats so I can’t give up high heels. No way.

5. what’s your favorite show to watch on tv?
~At what time slot? I’m addicted to TV and I’m not ashamed.

6. would you rather bake or cook?
~I leave the baking to my sister and I love to cook. Keep reading more of the blog and you’ll find some of the things I’ve cooked on here.

7. shorts or skirts?
~I prefer dresses to skirts, first of all. But shorts v. skirts? Gosh, I think that depends on the occasion.

8. what’s your favorite scary movie?
~NONE, thanks.

A little poetry

I’m not much of a poet. In fact, I don’t GET most poetry. My boyfriend doesn’t understand how I can’t like or even get most poems but he doesn’t like jazz so I guess that balances us to some degree.

Several years ago, we were either at a dress rehearsal or performance of our school’s production of South Pacific and the phrase “open the Blue Shades” wouldn’t leave my brain. After pondering it a bit, I realized that Blue Shades is a title of a wind band piece composed by Frank Ticheli. The next day, I went online and looked up his other titles and realized a nice poem could come by combining the titles of the works he’d written up to that point. It doesn’t contain all his titles up to that point but most of them and I’m not sure that I actually ever finished it. I hope you enjoy my little poem. There’s no title to the poem itself since it contains so many in it. 😉

I have Gaian Visions
of the Proud Vesuvius
as it takes is Wild Nights
lit by Nitro.

Don’t live locked in your Fortress
like your Portrait of a Clown.
Open the Blue Shades
and let the Sundance.

When you are off
in your Sanctuary,
send me a Simple Gift.
Even if it’s just a Postcard.

From the Shenandoah
to the Pacific,
I sing a Fanfare,
my Second Symphony
as the Amazing Grace
of The American Elegy.

So, that’s it – my first “published” poem. Yes, some of it is a little forced but again, I’m not a student of poetry by any means. I hope you enjoyed it!

Later?

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven’t thought about it, don’t have it on their schedule, didn’t know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I’ve tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn’t suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word ‘refrigeration’ mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched ‘Jeopardy’ on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said , ‘How about going to lunch in a half hour?’ She would gas up and stammer, ‘I can’t. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain’ And my personal favorite: ‘It’s Monday.’ She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because People cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We’ll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Tommy toilet-trained. We’ll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We’ll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of ‘I’m going to,’ ‘I plan on,’ and ‘Someday, when things are settled down a bit.’

When anyone calls my ‘seize the moment’ friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you’re ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It’s just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-Decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now…go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to…not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? ;And why are you waiting?

Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent this to you.

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask ‘How are you?’ Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’ And in your haste, not see her sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say ‘Hi’?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift….Thrown away…. Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND including me if you consider me a friend. If it comes back to you, then you’ll know you have a circle of friends.

To those I have sent this to… I cherish our friendship and appreciate all you do.

‘Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance!’