Oh joy. Frost on the morning windshield. God, please, it’s all bassackwards here. We come from the warm house, open the front door, walk to the car. Acclimate. We ain’t had time to acclimate, the we gotta scrape the windshield. (Victor you’re a rotten liar, you got in the van, didn’t scrape, used windshield wipers/solution, backed outta the driveway, it froze up, and you were too GD lazy to stop, pullover and scrape it properly. You almost hit Gladys Cravats Buick…. Remember?)… Oh yeah, sorry God, I was wrong. I’m lazy!
I gotta saying printed and placed on the walla my cubicle. It’d take a little searching to find it (my area is a mess.. I’m the baby gotta love me… it’s my mess, I like it, and I know where EVERYTHING is…).. I don’t remember it verbatim, but it’s something about granting me the power to leave some things you wanna say unsaid.
I slip. I be human. We had a shipment recently that was late (we move military member’s junk, have required delivery dates placed upon us by Uncle Sam) and there was an error made by someone… again it was late, all eyeballs were pointed at me, and insteada keeping my yap shut, I said something (loud enough six adjoining cubicles could hear) about “gonna take a picture of (the error)”… Damn I’m an idiot. The person who made the error is a HUGE plus for our company, a joy to work with, onea my favorite people in the world.. But I wanted people to know “wasn’t me” and that was more important than keeping my trap shut… said person heard what I said… I’m sure it hurt her… and my error was WAY worse than her error.
On Golden Pond. Sorry to keep returning to this movie, I’m old. Ain’t been out and about in awhile (ie, I’ve missed some 10,000 movies since..) but I loved this one.. It’s lessons.. From a recap:
Norman's harsh, cutting response to estranged daughter Chelsea's (real life daughter Jane Fonda) 45-year-old lover Bill Ray's (Dabney Coleman) request if he could sleep with his daughter: "...I'd guess I'd be DELIGHTED to have you abuse my daughter under my own roof. Would you like the room where I first violated her mother? Or would you be interested in the master bedroom?..." and Bill's indignant verbal parry: "You're having a good time, aren't you?...Chelsea told me all about how you like to have a good time messing with people's heads...But I think there's one thing you should know while you're jerking me around and making me feel like an asshole. I know PRECISELY what you're up to. And I'll take just so much of it..."
The stuff the should remain unsaid, but we don’t.
Article in the paper this morning (yes, Mickey D’s.. $1.61.. Free Sunday paper, sausage biscuit, fitty-four cent Senior coffee..)… It was a study by someone (obviously very bored) about the differences in day care…. The ones that strictly teach academics versus the ones that build social skills into the curriculum. Final answer. Of course, children who learned “huh uh, don’t do that” ultimately scored higher than those who strictly worked on the ABC’s..
Example used when Johnny knocked down Sally’s block tower she’d been building… “Sally, be like Twiggle the Turtle”… When the urge hits to swat Johnny, call him names, knock over his block building… instead.. Crawl up in your turtle shell.. Take a calm relaxing breath.. And say how that behavior made you feel.” Hence, the four year old version of leaving things unsaid. That day, I knocked over that lady’s blocks that made the error. I’m an idiot. I too am human. I be very sorry!
The scene of Ethel's slapping Chelsea hard when she calls Norman a "selfish son-of-a-bitch" and her angry retort: "That son-of-a-bitch happens to be my husband";
What’s said is said. Of course there’s the story of the child who said horrible things.. And each time he said something hurtful, his parents made him take a knife and push it hardly into their wooden fence in the backyard. Weeks later, fifty some knives were notched in the wood. One day, the child was told “if you can go an entire day without saying something hurtful, you can pull one knife out of the fence.”
In the ensuing weeks, the child pulled knives out, slipped occasionally.. But finally the day arrived when the very last knife was pulled out… Ecstatic he was… but he ran into the kitchen, announced to his parents the very last knife had been pulled.. And added.. “but there are still marks in the fence.”.. “Yes son.. When we say hurtful things, we can say I’m sorry, apologize - even when done sincerely, the hurtful remarks will remain.”
The heart-tugging reconciliation scene between a teary-eyed Chelsea and her father Norman: (Chelsea: "It just seems that you and me have been mad at each other for so long..." Norman: "I didn't think we were mad; I thought we just didn't like each other" - ending with "I want to be your friend") - in which she touches his knee, culminating with Chelsea eagerly doing "a real goddamned back-flip" off the diving board for an appreciative Norman.
Proud to announce, my own son is doing better in this arena. While the sheetrock and doors of this abode still show the scars of anger.. The verbal outbursts have tremendously decreased with aging. We all, thankfully, seem to get better with this as we age. We slip occasionally, show our ass, leave ‘scars’, but too as we age, those scars stay with us.. As in “I hurt someone and I’m truly sorry.. A real idiot.. I wish I wouldn’ta done that.” A good thing me thinks for us to recognize.
This doesn’t havea hilla beans to do with today’s theme.. But it was in the same ‘wrap’ on On Golden Pond.. And I loved it…
And the final scene in which Ethel prays when Norman collapses due to angina ("Dear God, don't take him now. You don't want him. He's just an old poop") and Norman's famous proposal in his final line to Ethel, using slang he has learned from Billy: "Wanna dance or would you rather just suck face?"
Better now. I’m better now. We all get ‘better’. Never perfect, but better. Lord if I screw up again, forget, blurt, don’t Twiggle the Turtle…please remember I’m the baby, gotta love me!
Happy trails! Love, Victurd.
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