GOSSIP FROM THE GIRLFRIEND GATHERINGS

Learning from YOU to empower ME !

‘Tis the Season to be Jolly! Really?

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008Whatever happened to peaceful, joyful, and merry-making holidays?    As my sister and I drove on the highway passing in front of our local mall on Thanksgiving evening, we were stunned to see the throng of cars in the parking lots.   People had cut short their Thanksgiving meal with family/friends to start Christmas shopping by 5pm.   It seems everyone is on a quest to find the perfect gift.  Children are mesmerized by all of the advertisements and parents have their children wish lists in hand while they go into debt trying to buy everything on it.

Whatever happened to being content with a slice of Big Mama’s coconut cake or MaDear’s sweet potato pie?   Remember the joy of feeling like a big girl when you helped your mother “set” the table?  Remember the fun in playing with those cousins from out-of-town that you only saw once or twice a year?   Remember the joy of licking the cake dough from the spatula and scooping it from the mixing bowl after your mother put the cake in the oven?   Yes, receiving toys was great but it was only a part of the enjoyment.

Now, success is judged by how soon you started Christmas shopping during the year, how many gifts you bought, and how much money you spent for them.  The retailers start planting holiday shopping in our minds before the kids have gone trick-or-treating and no one has consideration for the poor retail workers who gulped down their Thanksgiving dinner so the rest of you can shop early.

In yesteryear, Thanksgiving had the appropriate reverence and no one thought of Christmas until the turkey leftovers were gone.  Parents watched their kid’s interests throughout the year to determine an appropriate gift or gifts for Christmas.   The child may not have received everything they wanted but they were content with whatever gift they received because it was truly a gift and not a fulfillment of a sense of entitlement.

The slow commercialization of the period between Halloween and New Years’ Day is a phenomenon that steadily grows each year.   Personally, I find myself rebelling against it.   As I watch people fervently shopping and traffic around the malls, all I want to do is arrive to a relaxing evening in my home or spend time with my family /friends.    I will purchase gifts for the children in my immediate family but I will not succumb to the “call” of the retailers and shop in wild abandonment.  I will pass some blessings on by donating some money to help others.   I will make some joyful noise/memories with my loved ones this season and that will be a wonderfully sufficient gift for me.

Let us put THANKS back in the last Thursday in November, GIVING back in the season,  and CHRIST back in Christmas.

QUESTION(s)

Do you feel there is too much commercialization of the holiday season?

Do you miss the old-fashioned family-value methods of celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Just When I Thought Chivalry Had Died and Gone to Hell

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I’m a native Texan – several generations deep.   This means I am a Southern Belle with Cowgirl spunk.  There are certain things that are innate in the native Texan and one of them is chivalry.    The women expect it and the men know they better deliver it.   After all, chivalry is a part of home training.

Now, I know this is the 21st century and women can do a lot of things for themselves.  However, in Texas, just because we can doesn’t mean we have to – especially when a man is near.   We still expect for our doors to be opened for us, to be helped with heavy packages, to not have our ears burned with profane language in our earshot, and to be asked if our needs are being met when we are in the company of a man.

So, imagine my dismay on the day that I thought chivalry had died and gone to hell!

It happened like this…………….

It was a beautiful Saturday morning and I was out early with my biking buddies riding the trails at Deussen Park.   My girlfriends decided to ride over to the adjacent park -Eisenhower – to ride on hills and I remained at Deussen to ride the trails near Lake Houston.   As I completed the first rotation on the route and started heading east, the sun had risen and was shining directly in my eyes.   I stopped abruptly to put my sunglasses on and when I started up again my bike chain slipped off.

At that moment, I thought about that bike maintenance class I had put off for several weeks.  I quickly resigned myself to the fact my ride was over since I did not know how to repair the bike.   I decided to push my bike the 1 1/4 miles back to our starting point at the home of my girlfriend.   I texted my girlfriends to let them know of my predicament and started my trek.

As I pushed my bike out of the park entrance onto the pedestrian lane of the main road, I noticed a man riding towards me and the park entrance on his bike.   I slowed down as he got closer and to my surprise he rode right by me nodding his head at me as he passed.    I turned around and watched his back as he rode off.   All sorts of names entered my thoughts and none of them were very nice.   I surmised he was definitely not a Texan and probably had thrown out his home training because there was not one iota of chivalry in his demeanor.

So, I hung my head and trudged on as the sun beamed down on me.    Soon, I heard a couple of drawling voices calling, “M’am, M’am!”  I turned around and two young men were riding toward me.   They rode up behind me and asked, “Are you having a problem, M’am?” with that dear familiar Texas twang.   I told them what happened to my bike.  As one gently admonished me about riding alone and not being able to maintain my bike, the other one quickly repaired it.   They stayed with me as I test rode it to be sure I was completely operational and satisfied.   I thanked my “cowboys” and rode back to the park to rejoin my girlfriends.

I told my girlfriends what happened and they were appalled.  Since none of us know how to maintain our bikes we have marked the date of the next maintenance class on our calendars so we can attend together.   However, this incident has created some sadness within me.  Now, I will no longer assume that every man I encounter in my home state is chivalrous.    I wonder if I am watching the slow dissolution of something special in Southern and Texas culture.    I hope not.

QUESTION(s)

What do you think about chivalry?

Do you think it is a dying virtue?

Do you appreciate it when a man exhibits chivalrous behaviors towards you?

Girlfriend Gathering Review – “A Soulful Christmas” at the Ensemble Theatre

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Girls Night Out

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past weekend my girlfriends and I kicked off the 2014 holiday season by attending our first event of the season at the Ensemble Theatre in Houston, Texas (http://www.ensemblehouston.com).   As a long-time subscriber, I can always count on the Ensemble Theatre to add a different spice, a different flavor, and a different flair to the traditional offerings on the Houston theatre scene during the holiday season.    Their production of “A Soulful Christmas” is a refreshing new addition for this season.

A Soulful Christmas

When I heard the title I knew we would enjoy some great music and we were not disappointed.   The musical ensembles mesmerized us with their rendition of familiar Christmas songs from the 1940’s to the present and the story that was wrapped around the music was very original.   The talent of the singers, actors, and dancers was of stellar quality and it was difficult to keep still in our seats.

Since it is still early in the holiday season, I don’t want to be a “spoiler” about the production so this post about it will be short.   For those of you in or near Houston, I highly recommend that you get a ticket as soon as you can because I know all of the shows will sell out.

QUESTION(s):

How do you “kick-off” the holiday season in your town?

In the Silence of a Woman – Rape Allegations and Bill Cosby

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In the silence of a woman you will find the pain of abuse.

In the silence of a woman you will find the pain of betrayal.

In the silence of a woman you will find the pain of self-doubt.

In the silence of a woman you will find the loneliness of bearing it alone.

In the silence of a woman you will find the disbelief of being discounted.

But when that woman finally stands and reveals her abuse, her betrayal, her self-doubt, her loneliness, and her disbelief

There will be those who will hear and applaud her shout

Then she will know she is not alone

And her sisters will stand with her.

When we have a predator in our midst, we need to know it.   It does not matter if he is an icon, it does not matter if he is a great artist, and it does not matter if he has influential friends.  What does matter is the content of his character and how he treats those that could be his mother, his sister, his wife or his daughter.

It is with dismay that I watch the descent of the reputation of Bill Cosby.   I know there are those that have doubts but this is always the case when a woman stands up for herself against abuse.  With so many women coming forward so many years later with nothing to gain, a thinking person should find it difficult to discount them.  I guess we all believed that Bill’s personality was synonymous with the characters he portrayed.  Perhaps that is why it has taken so long for the women to come forward with their stories.

This is another case of what is done in the dark will eventually come to the light.

I feel like I am watching the death of Fat Albert and Dr. Huxtable.

Question(s):

How do you feel about the rape allegations against Bill Cosby?

Are You Pissing Champagne?

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ToiletThere comes a time when a person has to stand up and speak up about a topic that may seem a little intrusive into the personal choices of others.   Consider this one of those times.  Consider this my public safety message about cleanliness.

Recently, I was in a ladies restroom standing at the sink thoroughly washing my hands.   I think I was on the second wash because I normally wash them three times when I use a public restroom.   I am a fanatic about washing my hands because that is what we did in my mother’s house.

So, I am standing there washing my hands looking in the mirror to check my lipstick when the door opened on another stall.    A woman walked out and walked right out of the restroom door.    She walked right by the wall of sinks and never looked at them.   She put her nasty hand on the door handle and walked right out into the hallway to continue her day.   I looked at the door handle and visions of creepy, crawly germs danced through my head.

A memory popped into my head of a time in the far past when I was out with my mother and we were in public ladies room.    Another woman there did the same thing.    My mother, who is known for her “flair” with comments, looked at me and said, “She must think she piss champagne!”   Being younger, I was a little embarrassed at what my mother said especially because there were other women in the restroom who heard it.   Now, I have grown up enough to echo her comment here because there is a need to talk about this nasty and hidden phenomenon that happens in restrooms across the globe.

To state it simply, there are persons who perform the most unclean function of the human body and do not wash their hands.   They are touching everything that you touch – the doorknob in a building, the stylus you use in the grocery/department store when paying by credit card, the pen you use to sign in at the bank, doctor’s office, etc….  Even worse, they are probably the ones that always prepare that dish you like at the office party or the church pot-luck.  When I think about it my stomach gets queasy.

In my opinion, this behavior is unacceptable.   Therefore, I am taking a moment here to point out a few bacteria that can be passed by this type of behavior.

  • Hepatitis B
  • Hepatitis A
  • MRSA – Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
  • VRE – Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus

These bacteria are rampant in our communities and should be a concern for all.

In my circle of girlfriends, I know of a “friend of a friend” that had a common surgery, carpal tunnel, on her hand.   The surgery was successful and she was released to go home.    Some days later, she became seriously ill, succumbed to a coma, and within a couple of weeks she died.   The cause was MRSA.    No one knows how she contacted it.  Perhaps she touched a nasty door handle and then redressed her bandage on her hand or she did some grocery shopping and used a nasty stylus.    We will never know.  She left behind 3 sons.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to put my hands on someone else’s excrements.   I don’t even want mine on my hands and that is why I wash them many times a day.   The reality is I don’t know how we can combat this issue because it is a person’s personal choice to wash or not wash their hands.   Perhaps a little “poke” will help and this is the intent of this post.   Pass it along in your circles.

Maybe the restroom sign that says PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS should be changed to:

ARE YOU PISSING CHAMPAGNE?

IF NOT, THEN WASH YOUR !@#$ HANDS!

Perhaps that would get the attention of the non-washers and get better results.

Question(s):

What do you think about my restroom sign suggestion?

Do you think it would be effective?