Memories

     Yes I ate it.  I was at Walmart.  I was hungry.  I had $1.75 in cash.  I have not had a McDonald's cheeseburger probably since 1980 when I worked at McDonalds.  It tasted the exact same as back then.  As I bit into the cheeseburger it took me back to my McDonalds days.  It was my first real job.  I quickly climbed up to the coveted "drive thru" position.  Back then, we had to add up the totals (no computers), so one of the jobs in drive thru when we were not busy was to check the cashier's math on the tickets.  Such power we wielded.  My manager liked me and suggested several times that I should go the McDonald's management school.  I laughed at him and always replied, "I am not working at McDonalds the rest of my life!"  Back then, we were the only restaurant that had a playground so we did a lot of birthday parties.  One day the "birthday party" girl called in sick so I was asked to take her place.  The kids loved me and so did the parents.  They started requesting me specifically.  After about the tenth one, I went to my supervisor and said, "Listen, I don't want to do birthday parties.  The reason I got this job was so I didn't have to babysit brats anymore, and having to babysit 10-15 brats at a time for 2 hours is not my idea of fun."  He took me off the birthday party schedule.  When I look back, he was a good manager, I learned a lot from him, and he must have seen something in me, because I have been in manager's positions for the last ten years.  

     It is amazing how just a smell can take you back in time.  I opened up a bottle of wine the other day, and it smelled like a cabin I used to visit.  It was a very pleasant memory.  I tried to discern the smell, old wood, wood polish, varnish, musty.  The wine was bad, I could not drink it, but I was happy for the memory.  Memories are what hold us together.  We keep them safe within ourselves, until we dare to share them with someone who will accept them, laugh with us or cry along with us. Writing this takes me back to a Paul Anka song, "Times of Your Life".  I pulled it up on You Tube,and cried while listening to it.  I haven't heard that song in probably 20 years, but yet, knew all the words and felt the same emotions.  Funny thing is, each moment is a memory in the making.  And these days we are able to keep those memories clearer with cameras on our phones and sharing applications such as Facebook, Instagram and others.  And why do we share our memories?  Is it because we wish our families and friends were there to enjoy the moment or is it a shout out to the World, "I am here, I exist, I am real".?

I manifested a Pool Boy.

 

 
     I manifested a pool boy.  It took me 10 years to do it, but it still happened.  When we lived in Stonewall, my husband always talked about wanting a pool, but as we lived on 12 acres and the rest of the area around us was farmland, all I could think about was all the wild animals, raccoons, armadillos, coyotes and such visiting our pool and what a mess it would be.  I was emphatic about stating that if we ever had a pool, we would also have a pool boy. When we moved from Stonewall to Bulverde we bought a house with a pool, with the understanding that I would never have to clean it.  The yard work and vehicles were my husbands's responsibility while I took care of the house and laundry.  In the 6 years we lived there I think I only skimmed it about 10 times.  I was the only one who ever swam in the pool.  My husband and son would use it as a cooling off after a hot day outside with their favorite alcoholic beverages.  I usually stayed away because it was always fun for them to take turns splashing me or trying to dunk me.  Not fun, at least for me.  I did get in once in awhile with just my husband, he wasn't so inclined to pick on me without backup support.  I usually swam in the morning on my days off when no one was home.  I had to skim a little, depending on what the weather was like the night before.  I enjoyed my swims by myself, well, not really by myself, the cats and the dog would come watch, and the dog would constantly follow me while I swam, we had a game, I would swim to one end of the pool, she would meet me there, I would pet her or kiss her on the nose and then she would run to the other end of the pool and wait for me.  It was good exercise for me and her.  Then I would just float in the middle, it was the one place in the backyard that the animals couldn't get to me.  I enjoyed the birds flying around and just nature being nature.
    We live in the apartment now and have a beautiful pool.  Every morning between 8:30 and 9:30, the pool boy cleans the pool, on Fridays he puts shock on the pool so it is not swimable until around 10:00, which is usually about the time I get to the pool anyway.  For the last 3 weeks I have swam/walked laps in the pool and then enjoyed the hot tub.  This week has been fabulous, as the weather has been cool (for Grapevine, 84 in the morning) and I have had the pool area all to myself.  It has been glorious.  Last night I was told it was going to be a stormy day.  I woke up at 7 am and thought to myself, I should go to the pool before it starts raining and before the pool boy puts the shock treatment in.  As I was walking to the pool, it started sprinkling and I started laughing thinking to myself, "I am going to get wet anyway."  It stopped when I got to the pool.  The lower pool where I do my laps was full of flower petals-very romantic, and June bugs, not so romantic.  I pushed on.  I have been trying to do 15 laps, but I only did 10 laps as I was getting tired of trying to swim around dead bugs.  I walked to the upper pool, and it was clean, so did 10 smaller laps in there.  I had noticed when I first got to the pool, that the deck was in a disarray, as it usually is before the pool boy cleans it up.  Chairs were moved, garbage everywhere, glass bottles (a big no no at a pool) strewn about.  It made me angry.  I was thinking to myself, "Every morning he has to come and clean this mess up because people can't put their garbage away."  This train of thought was definitely ruining my morning swim, which had already been irritated by all the dead bugs.  Then I started to think about why I was so angry.  This did not concern me, I didn't know how the pool boy felt about picking up garbage and straightening up the deck, I can't imagine why anyone would like to clean up other people's messes, I don't, but then I started laughing, "Shannon, you manifested this pool boy.  You do not know his story.  You do not know anyone else's story, you just know yours."  I started tapping, (EFT-Emotional Freedom Technique-look it up-it is a great tool for self discovery), "These people, These people who don't put stuff away, These strangers who don't put stuff away, Didn't their mother teach them?, Co-workers who don't put stuff away, Family members who don't put stuff away....tap, tap, tap.....It is not my business, I can enjoy life without them having to put stuff away, I can enjoy life, I can enjoy my life, I enjoy life."  By the end of the tapping session, I felt much better.
     As I write this blog, a huge thunderstorm has come.  I am grateful that I got up this morning and went swimming, I am grateful that there were bugs and a disarray on the deck, I am grateful because it all led to a little more release of things that are not mine to carry, and I am truly, truly grateful for a pool boy!

A $5.00 bill

 

 Saturday before I left work I let my co-workers know that a group at a table had paid for all their drinks, and I had noticed that one of them was leaving a $5.00 tip on the table.  One of the group had already left a tip, so I put the tip I received in an envelope and asked my co-workers that whomever cleaned the table to please put the $5.00 in the envelope so I could split it with everyone on my next day when I was working.  When I came in on Monday, I saw the envelope in my locker, but the $5.00 bill was not in it.  I was immediately miffed.  I don't know who cleaned the table, and who knows, maybe the customer decided not to leave it after all.  I do not know the circumstances.  All I know is that I was upset.  So I went to how I was feeling; upset, churning, how dare they take the $5.00 tip that I had worked so hard for and was going to split with everyone anyway.  Then softness came, and a voice came, "It was only $5.00, and if a co-worker took it, they needed it more than you, let it go." Not long after having this conversation with myself, a young man walked in with a tray of homemade banana bread that his church group had made to help families in need.  Guess how much it was?  $5.00.  Of course I bought one.  The irony did not escape me.  I was able to easily give him the $5.00 for a "good" cause, but had a problem with the thought that someone had taken "MY" $5.00 bill.  Each and every situation that happens to me, be it good or bad (my perspective), is there to allow me to experience, to feel, to expand, to understand.  Sometimes all it takes is $5.00 bill.