The land of McMusic

We are "lucky" enough to live in a country where consumer choice reigns, the customer is always right and if you can't buy it at the big box store, you probably didn't need it anyways. Our foods are grown ultra fast, ultra big, ground up, then pressed into uniform shapes in a grotesque caricature of the form it used to take. What we eat, breathe and learn for the most part is churned out factory line style and we happily devour every delicious morsel of it. I'm not preaching doom and gloom for us, nor am I pleading for the Amish life. I'm just saying *it is*, and some of it is rather addicting.

 The same fast food mentality goes for our airwaves. Music is vastly different than the way it used to be proposed to the masses. Real instruments have been traded in for synth, real vocals are tweaked with autotune, and the words are sometimes best left unexamined for fear that they may be the lyrical equivalent of Styrofoam. In the past a song would be played on the radio, people would not know the artist and have to wait for the DJ to play it again or wait until they caught the name of the artist and then request it, or buy the single. On *tape*. Now, only a few bars into the tune, one can whip out their smartphone, pull up an app and have the title, artist, song, and newest album, video and 100 parodies downloaded all before the chorus even plays.

 I am a fan of the digital age. I have been known to prefer the beat of popular dance songs to the serene plucking of harps, but you know sometimes the playlist at our radio stations needs to be shaken up a bit.

 I had the opportunity to watch my daughter in a dance recital and one of her friends choreographed a dance to a (at that time) new song. It was a *beautiful* song. The song was so poignant, harmonized by a well known artist and a new up and comer. I couldn't get enough of it and it was promptly lodged directly into my mental loop, to be played and replayed to the point of distraction.

Loud and proud.

Oh again? Don't mind if I do.

 When it came on the radio (as it was bound to) the conversation in the car would stop and Sy and I would bellow it out at the top of our lungs. This went on for WEEKS! Those weeks stretched into months. Each consecutive exposure to the song was wonderful! Until the inevitable happened.

One day, all four local pop stations were playing it at the same time. I had officially had too much of a good thing. After that, each time I heard that song, it corroded my brain just a little bit. Synapse by synapse it was napalming its way through me until when I heard it, I shuddered an involuntary quake and wished for it to be over. But on and on it plays.

Its..... everywhere.

 True to how consumerism has shaped me, I was done with it. Like a junkie looking for something to satisfy the itch, I  flicked of the radio station and it was passed over. Onto the next!

Its a catchy tune. Catchy like the plague.

Curse of the cobras

In everyone's lives, there are pivotal memories. Events that shape lives and perceptions of the outside world and just how you fit in it. This particular memory centers around my older brother and the relationship that we had growing up. Of course, I am sure his memory of this particular incident differs from mine, as is the way of a 31 year old memory. I was about  4-5 at the time, so I am going to give a little allowance for any variances.

 I worshiped my older brother since the day I was born. He was older, bigger, stronger, smarter, and had such *cool* friends. As a younger sister, I tagged along many times just to be in the company of his total awesome self. Little boys and little girls are sadly very different creatures and my open worship was just a major irritation to him and his gang of friends. Who wants a little pig tailed *sister* fawning over G.I Joe ACTION figures, and mooning about whenever her stuffed puppy dog was "lost" (or roughly stuffed into a drawer without her knowing about it) or wrecking any other type of fun by telling Mum or Dad what he and his little friends were up to. Not that guy. He had skeletor to hunt down. Darth Vader to impersonate. Tauntauns to slice open and hide in. By the power of Greyskull, he had no time for a kid sister.

 Unless of course there was some kind of older brother villainy to be had, then he and his friends had all the time in the world to plot nasty surprises for unsuspecting me. Like a new toy that he got one year. They took a while setting it up I assume because the particular trigger of this toy reset to a different location each time. More on that later.

I know! Let's scare the CRAP out of Dani!

 I was playing innocently in my room, surrounded by pretty ponies, my faithful stuffed dog and was probably day dreaming about how many real live ponies would fit in the backyard and how I could cuddle with each and every one of them. And feed them rainbows. My musings were cut short by an invitation to join my brother and one of his friends in a new game! My heart almost exploded inside its ribby little cage and I grabbed up my most trusted pooch and scampered to them as quick as my scrawny little legs would carry me. This is something I had always wanted! To be asked willingly into a game, to be loved and to be allowed to just play games with them! Yay! I was sure this invitation would escalate into perhaps a tea party, or even better we would all draw our ideal ponies and name them! Yay upon yay!

I love my bother! And ponies!

 The premise of the game was spelled out for my eager ears and the promise that *I* would WIN the game sealed the deal for me. It was fairly simple. I had to take this funny looking cross thing, ("an ANKH" as he rolled his be eyes, like he was embarrassed at how uneducated and provincial I was at 4 or 5 years of age) put my arm between these two harmless snakes ("cobras") and stick it in the only hole that was available on this box thing ("Coffin! Geeze!") and then I would win! Its that simple! Even I could do it. I was dizzy with love that my brother would get so far in the game and save the winning just for me, I was more than honored to accept.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

 I grasped the tiny ankh and even though the sight of two cobras was a bit unnerving, I was assured they were there for show. The game was "Curse of the Cobras" so if they had put red vines, candy canes or chopsticks there, the game wouldn't make much sense now would it? I placed the ankh into the last open hole ....

That is a 4 year old having a heart attack.

 Much to my horror those cobras were not for show. As soon as my ankh was seated in the hole, the snakes snapped shut on my writs as a bracelet of doom, and at the top end of the coffin a plastic mummified head sprang out and if memory serves me correctly (and the memory is dusty and old so I may be wrong) there was a "ggrrrraaaahhh"! that completed the simultaneous trifecta of terror. My hummingbird heart seized into a cube of ice and the blood froze in my veins! I was CAUGHT! BY SNAKES AND A MUMMY! A mere millisecond after the snakes trapped my wrist and the mummy erupted from the tomb, my panic launched me into a race for my life, the goal? Mommy. I tore out of that room like the hounds of hell were yipping and frothing at my heels and took a direct screaming flight to my mommy. The sounds of my brother and his friend laughing rolled in behind me and my shocked heart broke. They knew that was going to happen! *gasp* they actually meant it to happen! I was crushed.

 Subsequently, my mom sided with me in this travesty and threw away the game that he'd used as an instrument of torture. Only about 4 years ago, I had found that game online and mailed it to him for Christmas. All is forgiven and he has his game back.

I love all animals! Except this one.

When I was a young miss, my parents presented me with the opportunity of my young lifetime. Horseback riding lessons. This in itself was a great sacrifice of time, money, patience and more so for my mother because of her absolute fear of horses. She couldn't bear to see her less than 90 pound little girl on a great big 1200 pound "blood thirsty beast". Horses do not eat meat, nor will they ever eat meat. They *will* however, occasionally hold a pathological grudge against the two legged. Specifically, two legged teen girls with long brown braided hair. Those ones drive unbalanced quadrupeds right over the edge firmly into the realm of insanity. There were plenty of horses in the barn to choose from, don't get me wrong. I rode all of them. Calm, sedate steeds who would never ever think about deviating from the steady clip, clop, clip, clop that droned through the barn each hour of each and every day that passed. Wonderful schooling masters who would correct themselves in spite of the gangly uncoordinated rider giving every mixed signal in the book. They were so good, you could stand in the center of the ring with the trainer and speak commands that the horse would follow with a zealots loyalty. *yawn* Good for practicing your show ring smile. Perfect. Tepid.

 The antithesis of a schooling master was a beautiful chestnut morgan named Shasta. She was the pride and joy of a trainer I had as a young teenager, and the trainer had owned her since she and the horse were young. She could do no wrong! She was the embodiment *PHYSICALLY* of the perfect horse, and I admit she was quite a looker. She unfortunately was unhinged from any sort of reality and was bent on breaking at least one of my bones each week. It was like a personal goal of hers. This sort of psychopathy was truly legendary. To this very day, I am so sure that had the horse whisperer come to meet our dear Shasta, he would now be known as the kitty cat whisperer. Or the wombat whisperer. ANYTHING but the horse whisperer. She had that effect on people. What a gem.

Separately, those words are innocent. Put together like that... I wanna cry.

Bring it, horse. 

 But she was so pretty! And she moved like a four legged ballet dancer! When I got on her, it was like trying to control the pure fury of a tornado. A really, really graceful tornado.

 Typically the lesson would begin by be going out to the paddock to try to catch her. She would squeal and snort all in an attempt  to return me from whence I came, all to no avail. This was not exclusive to me, she greeted everyone except the trainer in this warm and cuddly fashion. When she saw or heard the jangling of the halter, she would pin her ears and they would remain in the pinned position unless she had A) thought of a particularly brutal tactic to unseat me or B) she was back in the paddock munching on her hard earned hay.

Why do I bargin with a terrorist?

After spending twenty or so minutes dodging her hind hooves, getting head butted, stepped on, farted at, bit, and trying to remove the mud and grit she loved to roll in as I was approaching her paddock, I would finally have a presentable horse to tack up. Shasta would take in a deep breath as soon as the saddle came into view and make it nearly impossible to cinch up the girth around her bloated chest. Luckily for me, I had a trick for that. (*No* I didn't ram my knuckles into her ribs) I would put the saddle and bridle on and walk her until the poor thing had to breathe. Then when she would exhale, I'd tighten it up bit by bit. She hated me because she HAD to breathe. Ha. Thank you biology!

 Upon entering the ring, my trainer waiting patiently in the center ready to purr out soothing words of instruction to my young horse crazy mind, I would mount the beast. Each and every time, I hoped that she would just do what I was asking her to do without the battle of might, which she would win every time, or the locking of wills, which at best was a 50 / 50 draw. Even getting her to take a step was sometimes a ten minute bargaining session. The frustration was made more poignant by the soft spoken coo of my trainer, looking on at her most favorite steed, and puffing out obvious instructions to the dolt atop of her.

  Nothing struck fear in my tender heart like the triumphant words of my trainer "AH! There you go!" Those words, meant to inspire feelings of success only meant one thing to me. Shasta was about to become a very spirited ride. Every time those words were uttered in a lesson, something terrible was about to happen. She would climb the walls, spin around, bite or kick another horse, her head would spin and she would projectile vomit green pea soup. Oh no... wait.. I'm getting her mixed up with another demon.

On your mark! Get set! Break your bones!

Normally, the sensation of being aboard a beautiful mount, hair blowing in the wind, the horse and rider moving as one is truly a beautiful thing. Sadly when that feeling is injected by a premonition of doom, your young life flashing before your eyes and the acrid scent of abject terror, the moment is sort of ruined. No longer was I a teenager in the middle of a sedate dressage lesson, but the unwilling passenger on a tilt-a-whirl powered by pure nitrous oxide. A crazed carnival ride that holds some strange grudge and who, against nature itself, craves the taste of *my* blood. She meant business, and she was the CEO of pain. At some point in the melee she ceased to be a horse, but became the full on four legged embodiment of a norse (sounds like HORSE. No coincidence there) berserker.

 As horror typically goes, these scenes seemed to drag on forever and I am lucky enough to have a prefrontal cortex FULL of these babies! I mean they go on and on. In the barn, on the trails, on the cross country course, after giving her a bath. Shasta was terrible. I would undoubtedly gain some semblance of control long enough to grind out that this horse was being "mare-ish" (which is the equivalent of saying she is PMSing.) and my trainer would look at my white knuckles, the sweat rolling down my face and Shasta's body, see the tell tale tick in my left eye and conceded that I had enough. With a sigh and a nod, she would release me from this torture and permit me another horse for the remainder of my lesson.

Poor Shasta dripping with malevolence would not realize that she in fact won. One or two laps around the arena at a very secured, very collected trot would be enough to satisfy my soft spoken task master and I was finally allowed to dismount. Immediately, Shasta would drop to the ground and try to roll the saddle off of her.

Git this saddle offa... wait! Did you say BARN?

<3

 Right then and there as we began our walk of shame through the arena and back to the barn her whole outlook on life would change. Her ears would perk up, she would have acquired a bounce to her step (if only she would do that in the ring for me) and every great once in a while, she would nuzzle my shoulder and puff the back of my head with her breath. *sigh* She really was pretty.

All the riders in the barn were subject to this brand of inhumane treatment weekly by trainer and horse. On occasion, I would be grooming a schooling master, dull and doe eyed and hear a tell tale shriek rip through the barn. All of us who were getting ready for our lesson would raise our eye brows ever so slightly as we looked over the stall walls at each other. Someone in the area is taking one for the team. When that rider burst out of the ring battered and bruised with a jolly Shasta tip toeing her happy carousel horse trot behind them, we would nod in acknowledgment of the sacrifice made that day.

 I still love horses and always will. I have learned to stay away from the ones with a vendetta.

Out with the old...

A lot has happened since we moved to the new place. For starters, J and I are no longer. Those of you who know us are not shocked at all by that news, we were rolling downhill faster than the gyrowheel (See "physics for the real world" post) and it was basically done shortly before we even moved. Without getting into the details, we are both happier for it. Yay!!

 There is a new development in the world of Sy and I. We have a little family going on! I met a man named David and he has brought a daughter and lovely extended family into the mix. We couldn't be any happier! You will meet David and his daughter during the course of this blog I am sure. In fact, they were mentioned in the previous posting "He sees you when you're sleeping".

 Happy 2013 in a few days!

He sees you when you're sleeping...

Merry Christmas all!

 This past year has been quite a lovely one indeed. I got married to the man of my dreams earlier in the month and was blessed to have my first Christmas with the in laws! Woo! Historically, I have dreaded Christmas at the "in laws". My ex's family is so VASTLY different than my own family that it was akin to pulling teeth to get me to go there. It was a very stressful event and often I had to be dragged kicking and screaming up the mountain, and would fine a quiet corner to hide in until I was permitted to go home.

 This year, my husband wanted me to spend time with his family so the boy and I wouldn't be alone during the holidays. I love my sister in law, her wife, and my niece (and her boyfriend) and have spent time with them in the past. The little man also enjoys time spent in the company of his aunties, cousin and her boyfriend! This particular trip we opted to spend the night there and boy oh boy are we happy that we did!

 Christmas eve was filled with warm laughter, chocolate fountains (just for the adults! Teehee), COZYNESS, cookies and milk, magic reindeer food and the boy was introduced to video games (hilarity ensued). It was absolutely wonderful! We tucked the little man in after a symphony of "I'm not tired" and "I can stay up!" The adults then ate more chocolate and proceeded to put the gifts out under the tree. Lovely. Just my style of night! After talking to my daughter on the phone until late in the night, I dragged my candy cane dust coated carcass off to the spare room to join my little muffin with dreams of sugar plum faeries dancing in my head. The sand man was particularly heavy handed with the sleeping powder because as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out. As in TKO.

Wake up, buttercup. Time to open gifts.

 The next thing I know, I hear a little voice chirping. Did that little voice just say my name? "Mom?" (Yep, that page was for me.) As I rouse myself into a semi lucid state my son's voice filters through my brain straight to my heart. If there is any way for a voice to actually SOUND like Christmas, his did. Right there in that one syllable was all the excitement and wonder of childhood. As I peeled my eyelids apart, my son's rosy cheeked, hinkey toothed grin welcomed me into Christmas morning, 2012. Knowing that the boy A) needed to go to the bathroom and B) I couldn't physically make him wait any longer without breaking some kind of United Nations law against torture, I released the lad from the bedroom. As he sped past the tree his awe struck voice floated back to me... "He CAME!" Yes he sure did! Sy came back to the bedroom (as everyone over the age 18 was sound asleep still) and recounted the tale of exactly how Santa knew where he was and how to drop off his loot at a place other than home. I lay there and listened to him detail how *he* has a special connection to Rudolph, because he left the reindeer food last year and this year, and how Santa himself said that he was "looking forward to seeing him" Christmas eve. After all, he sees you when you're sleeping.

"And he took a right at Albuquerque..."

 He didn't have to wait long after that  before we made a skype connection with my mother in law, daughter and other family from out of town, and unleashed him on a pile of gifts. He tore into those poor, unsuspecting things with sniper like precision and ferocity of a rabid ferret. Wrapping paper shrapnel was strewn everywhere. I think he may be ambidextrous because at one point it seemed as though he was destroying wrapping with one hand and playing with a toy in the other. It was a beautiful thing to see, family sharing his excitement, everyone doing basically the same as he was, laughter, love and joy permeating the whole day. It was an unforgettable Christmas.

Imma let you finish, but first, lemme tear into these bad boys.

Thanks to my Husband, I will now be able to share moments like this and many more in the future with a group of people I feel 100% comfortable with. The only kicking and screaming I did this year was out of laughter. Thank you, David, for this precious gift of family. \m/_

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Zom-Be-gone

If you know me, or are getting to know me from this blog, you will know that I have a pretty poor filter and I tend to blurt out very random or very silly things depending on the situation at hand. I have also found that fear or surprise (often one and the same for me) will disengage the coherent language function of my brain and activate the Koko the signing gorilla gibberish blurt mode. I am also a stress laugher. More times than I would like to admit, I laugh at the most inopportune time possible. My laugh during these times tends to be a shrill, piercing laugh that is somewhere between sheer hysterics and mad as a hatter. I'm a keeper.

 A few months after moving, I took a new job that is located in a pretty non-descript office building. You know the kind, every movie has them. Lots of very new age looking glass, beautiful shiny tile floors, high traffic well thought out carpeting, chrome everywhere, sterile and conducive to good business. There is a beautiful lobby with touch screens to look up what companies call this building home, complete with a small sitting area adjacent to the elevators. There is no true smell in the building, all traces of individuality have been meticulously scrubbed by a dedicated group of cleaning people. That is, until a lady comes in with a love of her perfume. A floral trail will follow her through the maze of hallways and offices until both trail and trailblazer find their way back to the outdoors where chemical flowers are diffused by proper ones. Men and women scuttle around with files and very important documents that need to be scanned, printed, stapled, faxed and stamped "received" from 8:00 am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday. Employees use electronic key cards to beep their way into the sections of the hive that we are assigned to work in, keeping everyone separate and safe from the general public who may wander in for a meeting or consultation with any of the uniformed staff. The uniform of this particular building is the suit. Men in suits, women in suits, dressy suits, business casual suits. Except our little nook of course! We are the people who are lucky enough to come in wearing jeans, sweatshirts and Birkenstocks looking quite out of place in the world of corporate America. Our industry allows us the comfort of dressing slightly more comfortable than our starched counterparts in the office building. Yes, I work at another large company. This one however, is not the same type of worker sweatshop as the previous one, but I digress.

 Business for me is a familiar cube surrounded by technology, getting things processed and churning billable numbers for the new set of "mgt". Part of my job means that at times, I must work late at the office. The receptionists leave, the lights are dimmed to an acceptable level of dim throughout the building with the exception of the cool and nonchalant lobby on the first floor. All the doors that are normally kept open during business hours are locked up tight and business is put on hold in all the little honey hive offices until the next day when the nasdaq and dow are pumping their piston fury rise and fall once again. But I am there late. And quite alone. The warm glow of my computer screen keeps me company as workers leave, tired and ready for the weekend where they will trade the suits for plaid shorts and bbq tongs. And then I am alone. Normally, its not too much of a problem, being alone. However, on these nights I listen to the quiet creaking of the building as it settles in for its own weekend, free of the tiny human cells that course through its hallway veins. I am alone and I get the distinct feeling the building would like to be alone as well.

 I have quite an imagination. When I am alone and my own work day is coming to a slow post-sunset end, the inevitable downward spiral begins. I am alone. And alone after dark means boogie men of all shapes and sizes are waiting to chew on my flesh in all the shadowed corners from my desk to my car. That walk, down dimmed hallways, echo filled stairwells or the brash loud elevator (that during sunlit days is much more demure), is riddled with figments of my imagination waiting to pounce on me from behind and drag me off under the stairs to delight in every conceivable torture. Not one human ear in the building, who wants to be ALONE, can hear my mews pleading for help. The cold sweat begins. I am going to have to transport my very soft self, full of deliciousness that bad things would love to feast on, out to my car. No silver bullets, no golden shields, no intrinsic sense of post-apocopliptic survival,  and a very ominous sense of plausibility for every monster movie that I have watched from behind my trembling hands.

Sleep? Who needs it.

 So begins my quest to my car Friday night. This month, the media and pop culture has latched onto my least favorite undead character and of course, I was obsessing about how I would make it to the safety of my car through throngs of zombies. I so hate zombies. They are the creepiest movie monster that I could even begin to think of! They like scary dark places, they are already dead so only a well stocked militia could hope to rescue themselves, people such as myself often trip and are engulfed by the pulsing hoard as the fitter, armed movie characters bound to safety and ultimately "get the girl". Great. Not to mention the more recent zombie movie that I watched with Will Smith, had the cancer virus zombies hiding out in a .... large... dark... office building. Not too unlike the one I was exiting.

'Scuse me, you dropped someone.

 As I made my way past the break room, I was faced with the bane of my night time existance. The dark, 30 foot hallway, at the end of which is a door with no windows that will lead me to the elevator or the stairs. I steel myself to make it down that hall, because the other route out of the building is past too many empty and dark offices where the beasts of my imagination are rousing from their slumber, so the safest is the dark hall. I tread lightly, my chuck taylors helping me pad softly to the heavy door, so nothing from the underworld can hear me sneaking home, very eager to give them their peace and quiet. The pounding of my heart and the clammy jitters surge me forward as I stealthily grasp the handle of the door before I bolt my escape to the relative safety of the stairwell. As my blood rushed its white water siren through my eardrums, washing away all sound, more specifically the sound of another person beeping their entry by way of electronic key card, I throw the door open directly into the very sturdy body of a non-imagination. My senses come to a crescendo as I realize that I have encountered SOMETHING! Probably the worst *thing* that hell can drag up! I stagger backwards, a scream racing from my toes straight out of my mouth as a very tall, very solid, very bearded man stumbled around the door that was close to concussing him and offers his own baritone warble to my glass cracking screech. It is then, that we both come to the split second realization, that we are in the company of another living breathing human being and the ridiculousness of our panic is exposed by the office world crashing back down around us, replacing the cobwebs and tombs of our imagination with glass and chrome sterility.

Sorry about your heart attack, sir.

 He fumbles out an apology. I, having logic evicted from my brain, rush out the words "Oh my God! Sorry! I so hate zombies! I'm... well, I hate them! *insert mad hatter laughter here* Woah! I thought you were ... you know! *Mad hatter hysterics*" All the while, I am clutching my chest and have fallen back, my chest heaving with my lungs clawing and gasping air into them.

His pale reply, peppered with halting laughter of his own, as his hand flutters around his heart, "A zombie!! *ha ha* I know! I hate them! If it makes you feel better *ha ha*, my office is right down there... you know... I'd protect you there in case of zombies!*Ha ha*!"

 I'm sure the building was amused as we excused and 'sorry'd ourselves out of each others company, to rush red faced to our respective destinations. The stairwell and lobby smirking as I rushed out to my car. So silly. Zombies.

 Office Zombie protector and I saw each other in the lunch room Monday afternoon and as he walked by he softly said "So they didn't get us, huh." Don't worry, I know where your office is in case of attack.

Walking on Sunshine. Wait, thats *NOT* Sunshine!!!

 There are times in peoples lives where you need the solidarity of a group of people that have shared a common experience and I am no different. Some people enjoy Harley Davidsons and join a bike group, others like stupid blogs and find the most ridiculous ones that they can, other people have a hankering for Hello Kitty band-aids and are able to find a flock of people that have that same bend. (Just to make it clear, I do not have a joke writing, Harley Davidson riding, Hello Kitty fetish. Just sayin')

 A few weeks ago I signed up for a group that I thought I could get a lot out of and the first meeting was last Tuesday. Before I packed myself off to the group, I made a wonderful dinner, gave a ton of silly kisses to Sy, had a LOVELY phone conversation that just set up one of the best moods I have had in a great long time! What a PERFECT day! The sun was just setting as I collected myself into the car for my very first meeting! I hoped I wouldn't say anything silly, or be too obviously "new"(crowds of new people are very intimidating to me), so to ease my mind I turned on my playlist. I have lots and LOTS of songs (as most people do) and for some reason, it was ON that night! Songs I had not heard in a long time were played and for the drive over there, it was AMAZING!

Love Katrina and the Waves!

Very rarely does the playlist pick such gems for me to listen to!

See the crease? I draw on real paper, people.

 WOW! This whole playlist with all sorts of genres was just rocking all the good stuff! I was swept away by nostalgia and fuzzy feelings.

Dropkick Murphys?! WHAAAAT?!

From the beautiful weather, the amazing phone call, Sy being just chewably adorable, to the playlist, my life was perfect! I hit every green light on the way there. Oh yeah, perfect day!

The 90's RULED!

There is only one problem with this whole story. (No, not that I am not making it all up.) Unfortunately, I forgot  precisely what group it was I was headed to. Not to say I had forgotten the NAME of the group, just the point of the group that I was about to attend. Had I remembered, I don't think I would have sailed into that room with such swagger.

Ah crap. Sinking feeling in 3... 2... 1...

The feeling of total inappropriateness enveloped me like an ill fitting, hand made, itchy Christmas sweater. Once I owned that room, there was no giving it up. I held the floor. With sunshine and rainbows pouring in behind me like Rainbow Brite's drunken sorority sisters, I felt like I had just "pre-gamed" an AA group. Terrible.

Way to go.

 I just walked into a Grief share group with the blinding smile of Ghandi. The whole point of going there was to bond with other people who have had significant losses in their lives, but let me tell you, I sure didn't LOOK the part. There were gray haired older people, looking morosely into their tepid coffee then scanning the room half heartedly with rheumy eyes. There were middle aged people with their eyebrows knitted into a permanent scowl. And there was me. They all looked over as I swept into the room, the smell of unicorns and meadows boiling in behind me. The only thing that I could do in that moment was defend myself. They didn't know my story, I had a right to be there! So with an overly loud voice I announce, "Sorry! I really AM sad! Sometimes.... just not right now!"

 Typical "Dani" fashion. What a dork.

 Thankfully, they didn't turn on me with pitchforks and torches. Instead, a very pleasant grey haired woman led me to the table where the tepid coffee was fermenting and the snacks were resting comfortably. She welcomed me with a tear soaked smile and in her own quiet way reminded me that even though we all grieve, happiness is always allowed. =)