Bye Bye Birdie

My last pic; they're gone. I had no idea they grew up so quickly. The next fat robin you see, say "Hey" from 2dogs.

Just chillin'

Brave new bird

Already out of her nest! (I think it's a girl it's so brave)

Ro-icky

Romy is styling in her new ears.

I now look like a bird

Phoenix airport

I'm sitting in the Phoenix airport listening to some guy with a small guitar belt out a version of Brown-Eyed Girl complete with people singing the chorus. I guess it's the chorus, anyway. Americans may sing a lot in the shower, but rarely do we sing in public venues like airports or on trains or while waiting for a bus. What's up with that?

America is a funny place. Going from Missouri to California, you might as well go to a parallel universe, whatever that is. I drove today in my rented HHR (they upgraded me because I asked) from La Habra to the Burbank airport and it was the most tense I've been in months. I noticed I was gripping the wheel like I was somebody's grandmother. [My God, it's a Southwest employee singing. What marketing ploy will they think of next?]

I am totally exhausted and fighting a dangerous depression today. I think I'm just overly tired, and although I had a wonderful time with my wonderful goofy friends, I have never realized how alienating it can be to be in a city of that size again that moves so fast, fast, fast.

My big project we've been working on has a pretty serious error in it and I'm having to explain why, which is embarrassing. We caught it in time, but it's my fault since I was editing it. But I learned something valuable and next time, we'll make a different mistake, not that one. One nice thing about being in recovery, I don't always have to keep hitting the same speed bumps in the road of life again and again. I can choose to learn from my errors and take a different route.

I just received a nice piece of business, for which I'm very grateful. This should keep me busy for the next few weeks. So all in all, things are great. I'm just too long since my last meeting and tired. It's time to HALT and go eat, so until later, mis amigos, have a great day and thanks for your check-ins the past few days.

Walk in downtown Disney

The past two days have been exciting for me listening to journalists and some of the nation's top experts in business talk about the economy, including the CEO of Disney. We covered topics from how to write a column; the housing bubble (hang on to your hats!); the prospect for universal health care; journalism ethics; venture capitol and more.

It's been really exciting and I know that I can hang in there with the best of them. But when I remember this trip in a year or two years, what I'll remember is the dinner I had with Meg. (Check out her blogs for incriminating photos.)

Isn't it funny that you can sit down with another person in recovery that you barely know and talk like you've known each other for years?

Tomorrow I go to a former coworker's house and three other former coworkers are joining us for dinner. They are some of the funniest women I've ever known.

When I was in school administration in the 90s I worked with them here in LA. One of them, Barb, is a distinguished looking, grey haired women (a former professor, in fact) with a raucous sense of humor. She drove a bright maroon four-door Buick with plush velour interior she called "The Pimpmobile." Now in LA, lunch is an event and you'd have to imagine four or five of us, dressed to the L.A. nines, piling into the Pimpmobile to cruise to whatever restaurant we fancied that day.

We worked for this guy who was really a jerk. A nice guy, actually, but always put his foot in his mouth. One day he was going on and on about his golf game. She remarked to him, in front of all of us, "You know I've always told my husband that golf is just an excuse for old white men to dress up like pimps."

You could have heard a pin drop until all the women fell out laughing. Barb is a hoot. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Until then, have a great day.

Nothing but the dog in her!

Just can't keep Meg off a fire hydrant!

I'm in Anaheim for a convention, and fellow blogger Meg picked me up and took me to dinner at the Lazy Dog Cafe in Orange. We had a great time; however, when we left the restaurant, I was quite chagrined to have to pull Meg off the fire hydrant.
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I'm telling you, you can't take us addicts anywhere in public.
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Meg, you are a doll. Thanks for checking in with me this year. Your steady insight helps keep me on track.

More little beaks

One egg unhatched

I head out tomorrow for a few days in California for a journalism conference. Things here have been busy with a few projects. I keep putting one foot in front of the other and someday, things will make more sense than they do now.
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The parents are out gathering worms for the babies, so I may have another post of little heads later today. It's a constant delight.
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I am grateful to be above ground and sucking air, to steal a phrase from my sponsor. Until I blog again, have a blessed day.

I'm not the only one who hates Dell

New York's attorney general has filed a deceptive business practices lawsuit against Dell, for, among other things, "failing to provide their customers with adequate customer service." See what an influencer my blog is?

To read the press release, click here.

My gardenia

Really, it's God's gardenia; just lent to me for the occasion.

Still busy

My newest friend

I put a window birdfeeder up near the mother bird. Bad idea. Mr. Squirrel moved right in. He was fearless when I stood up to the window to get his snap.

Happy Mother's Day!

It's a little blurry, but it's definitely hatched

Dad, there's a crazy woman bothering us!

Every time I stand in the window to take a snap, this mad mother calls for reinforcement. In the upper picture, note the little blue egg peaking out. I'm still not sure how many are in there.

Out of the mouth of babes

As those who read my blog know, from time to time I get my undies in a big angry bunch and a few days ago was no exception. I truly believed after the liver transplant I wouldn't have problems with anger, but as my dear friend Louisa J. in Oakland (Happy 60th, girlfriend, I love you!) says, "It's like peeling the layers off an onion." Complete, I might add, with tears.

Anyhoo, I went to the Thursday night NA meeting where each week about a dozen new addicts arrive from drug court. Most of them are none too happy to be there, but each week as we learn their names and give them a "hey, welcome back" when they arrive, some of them start to warm to us, laugh at our lame humor, and even share in the meetings.

Most of us who shared Thursday had been around the camps awhile. The daily reading was about self-acceptance which led me to talk about my issues with anger and how it's "come around again," as I think I phrased it.

I shared a few of the things I felt had been a trigger, one of them the customer support from ACT Database (Boo) and the other thing the old guy who got in my face a few weeks ago and then Monday got really nasty with another of my friends complete with invading her body space, which sent me in another rip.

Like I said, just when you think you've dealt with the issue, ha! It isn't the "issue" it's the causes and conditions, isn't it?

Well, after the meeting this old guy there with a nudge from the judge pattered up to me and said, "When I was in before, my sponsor used to say to me when I got angry, "Who put you in charge of that?"

My eyes must have shot open, because boy, there was a moment of clarity! No one put me in charge of anything. All I need to do is watch my own emotions and keep them in check. God takes care of everything else.

Out of the mouth of babes sometimes comes the strongest reminder--God, not me, is in charge and I have to get out of my own way.

I missed the women's meeting this morning because Ms. Romy didn't wake me up. She needed her beauty rest, apparently. Have a wonderful weekend.

Here's an egg!

Robins lay blue eggs. This pair of robins are fiercely protective of their little treasures.

Another day clean

but angry. I'm not sure, maybe it's because I spent about four hours in the past two days on software support with techs in India who wouldn't know their butt from their madras shirt. I found myself, late today, in a rage, terribly upset because I couldn't find the place I was supposed to get my hair done, then upset because she did a poor job.

Tonight was the last night of class and one of our classmates presented a PowerPoint presentation on aborted fetuses. Jeez, give me a break. If this is graduate level work, I must be dreaming. Even in college our instructors didn't let us present on abortion. It's too controversial and what can you say? You're either pro-choice or not and feathers always fly.

I went to my home group, but after I found myself right back in a snit. I'm feeling a lot of pressure. I'm sure it's about being back in the workforce and the magic word, fear. Will I be able to support myself? Will more jobs come in? It's probably all 3rd step stuff, but then, maybe it's time that I dive into that 4th my sponsor suggested.

I'm feeling like everything and everyone lets me down. I don't know what all this is about, just frustration and expectations, I guess. I read page (now) 419 on acceptance. I know that I can't change anything; that all is how it's supposed to be. But as I told a friend of mine who's going through similar feelings and getting advice from others that her faith is lacking, it's one thing to talk theoretically about fear when you're not the one in the barrel; it's another to walk through the fear to the other side.

I guess God hasn't brought me this far to abort me. I think, reflecting on this, that most of all, I have let myself down. Maybe that's the real one to forgive.

Another day unpacking

I spent a few hours today unpacking. I've collected pottery for years, Frankoma, Hull, and a few other styles, and each piece I took out of the box had a bit of memory attached to it.

I unpacked my mother's dishes yesterday, washed them and put them in her old maple hutch. I couldn't help but recall how many family dinners we ate on those plates; how many Thanksgivings we ate as Bolero blared in the background; how many times she and I stood in the kitchen drying that china after all the hustle of the meal was over and my brothers and Dad sat in the family room watching football or baseball or arguing about something.

Sometimes, not often because I try not to allow myself regrets, I wonder how, despite how hard my parents tried to raise me well, I got so screwed up. I am so grateful that I got clean while they were alive so that they could see how much I'd changed. I'd finally, my mother said to me, become the daughter she'd wanted all along. I wonder why I couldn't see her love for me when I was young?

I guess I'm in the mood to reminisce because tonight at my home group I talked a lot about how I got clean in Phoenix. I don't know that I would have gotten clean anywhere else. People took me under their wing and loved me when I felt completely unlovable. They saw something in me that I couldn't even fathom in myself: That I was a worthwhile human being who had so terribly lost her way. Thank God for the Fellowship we had at the time.

We were at church today and sang Amazing Grace. Every time I hear that song I cry, I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because that's exactly what I was, a wretch, a pitiful, self-hating wretch. Yet God chose me to get clean.

Tonight at my home group there were three of us there with over twenty years. When I spoke about watching, as Red in Phoenix used to call it, the "passing parade," I saw them nodding, because we can't figure out why some people make it and some people don't. I often wonder why I am so lucky to have found the rooms and stuck.

Yes, I did the footwork, but it's grace, pure and simple, that brought me to the Fellowship and it is grace that has kept me there. And grace will lead me home.