The Big O

Do you ever get one of those songs in your head that you just can't shake?  I get them sometimes from the last song I heard on the radio before I turned it off.  

Or worse yet, when someone says to me, "I hate it.  I just can't get (insert song here) out of my mind," and instantly I can't either!

Well it happened today.  I was in Walmart looking everywhere for toothpicks - something my neighbor asked me to pick up for her.

I looked diligently, but to no avail.  Then I asked a store employee – three different employees at three different times.  But they were of no help.

Two out of three sent me to the 'kitchen gadget' aisle, and a third to another location.  I found kabob sticks, but no tooth picks.

And as I am going along, I notice the music wafting through the store.  It’s the last day of November, so it’s nice to hear Christmas music.  (I just have strong objections to stores that begin playing it before Thanksgiving!)

Up until now, it’s been just playing softly and unnoticed, subliminal backdrop to my own personal song: “Where are those toothpicks, dang it!”

And about the time the pleasant elevator music reached me on a conscious level, the orchestral rendering of ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’ was just winding up.  

No words, mind you.  Just the instrumental.

And as I turn down the next aisle, another song begins.  This time it is ‘Jingle Bells.’  The instrumental is joined by the jingling of bells.  

I get swept up in the holiday music, and begin to hum along without really thinking about it.

“Hmm hmm hm…  Hmm hum hm…  

Hm hm hm hm hmm…”  

Then the humming turns into quiet, subconscious singing along. 

Only instead of the words, “Jingle bells.  Jingle bells.  Jingle all the way,” as they should have been, I realize I am singing, 

“Oh oh oh!  The big fat O.  Overstock dot com!”

I don’t know if that Christmas commercial for Overstock.com plays nationwide, but it plays here on the west coast: 

“Oh oh oh!  The big fat O.  Overstock dot com!” to the tune of Jingle Bells.

Now, I imagine that if Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, or the company president  knew that their canned elevator rendition of Christmas songs was inadvertently making their customers turn directly to Overstock.com, they’d be mightily upset and most likely would quickly pull Jingle Bells from its place in the loop of their canned carols!

Just one of those silly little moments of life.  One of those I-can’t-get-that-song-out-of-my-head moments we all experience occasionally.  

But it made me think.

Stretched me a few different directions, this one.

First of all, how easily we get blown off course.  Yes, I was still looking for toothpicks (which I never found, by the way!), but I kept getting distracted from the search by the ‘vanilla’ flavored, canned elevator music playing in the background.  

It was slightly flavored but fairly plain. Not loud enough to distract you from your shopping – just loud enough to remind you of happy occasions and lots of gifts under the tree.

With society’s incessant bombardment of stimuli these days, it’s no wonder we can’t focus on anything.  I am irritated that now they even have obnoxious tv screens at checkout lines in the grocery store and at gas pumps!

But secondly, and maybe even more frightening, is the insidious marketing of those geniuses over there at Overstock.com.  It is no coincidence that they made their little jingle out of such a well known song.

But they went a step beyond.  They purposely chose (and no one can convince me otherwise) to put their jingle to a well known song that would be played by every commercial shopping chain in the entire country at the busiest shopping time of the year!

 
Free advertising!  

I’d venture to bet that I was not the only one in that store with “Oh, oh, oh.  The big fat O. Overstock.com” playing in the back of my head to that almost subliminal elevator music in Walmart.

And what a surprise to find, as I strolled through the bumper car chaos of Walmart, that Overstock.com offers free shipping on your entire purchase!  I didn’t even know that on a conscious level.  But the little recorder in the back of my brain did!

So not only do I have an alternative to this hectic, noisy Walmart.  I could be shopping from the comfort of my own home – in jammies!  

And it wouldn’t cost me a penny to have all my gifts delivered to my doorstep!

In this world of constant, sensory bombardment, we probably have an even greater need to screen what goes into our thoughts, either conscious or unconsciously.  

Things that we may make part of our being that we did not actually choose to put there.  Things that filter into our heads without our paying attention or being aware.

And conversely, we can learn the opposite lesson: How important is it that we live our lives in a conscious, intentional manner that we may always affect others only in a positive way?

So I guess the lesson for this blog is two-fold:  

Maybe we should be more aware of what we are putting (or allowing to be put) into our minds rather than going along blindly, mindless of how it may affect us.

 

And maybe just as importantly, in this world where no man is an island, to be aware of our actions and how they might affect those around us either negatively or positively.

With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk.  - Proverbs 7:21

Those who guide this people mislead them,

and those who are guided are led astray.  - Isaiah 9:16

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray.

The one who does what is right is righteous,

just as he is righteous.  – 1 John 3:7

His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords.  – Psalm 55:21

Through a Stranger's Door

Tonight’s story came to me this afternoon as I was driving home. I’d been over to my daughter’s apartment to feed (and love) her cats.

On the way home (and unfamiliar with the area), I had a question. I figured I’d ask someone at the next stop light.

But as much as I tried to get someone’s – anyone’s – attention, every last Infinity, Lexus, Mercedes and Honda had all the windows rolled up (and most of them darkly tinted.) 

And not one of them looked to the left or right.

A few were on cell phones, one or two fidgeted with radios, and the rest just stared straight ahead.

Many of them anxiously drumming on their steering wheels.

I made eye contact briefly with one woman who quickly looked away as I smiled at her and raised a finger to get her attention.

Now if you bear with me, I’d like to shift gears and tell you a short story from my childhood. (That’s where the moment of not being able to make eye contact with anyone through their rolled up windows took me.)

I was probably eleven or twelve at the time. It was dinner time and I was headed home from my friend’s house – about a mile and a half. The road meandered along the coastline eastward. For the first third of a mile, water-front homes dotted the coast between the road and the ocean.

I always felt fairly comfortable walking along this short stretch of road. If anything went wrong, I could shout out to the home owners or just run down to the beach.

It was the last part of the road that always made me very nervous. Over a mile of deserted road with no homes (or structures of any sort) within ear shot. And a good quarter mile of it ran along a steep cliff, with absolutely nowhere to go if you suddenly needed to leave the road.

Often I’d get lucky and catch a ride with someone heading home from work. I knew most of the people who lived out on our lightly populated end of the island. And if I didn’t know them, they knew my dad. 

So often I’d have someone pick me up and give me a lift.

But I didn’t accept a ride from everyone who stopped to offer one. I don’t know how, but somehow I had a “creep radar” that let me know when to accept a ride and when not to.

But I always feared being on that long stretch of abandoned road when a creepy driver came along. It terrified me.

And my fear got even worse when a pedestrian was killed on that cliffside stretch. They painted a bold, yellow outline around the dead body that stayed there for years.

Well, on this particular day, I was walking along the road, heading home. Usually, as I neared the last house, I would glance more and more often over my shoulder, hoping no cars were coming.

It was a long stretch of straight road and I could see any car coming a quarter mile away.

As I started up the rise to the last house, I glanced back and saw a car coming from way back behind me. I slowed my pace, so that it would pass me before I got to the top of the hill and that last house.

But the slower I got, the slower the car behind me seemed to go.

He pulled alongside me about the third to the last house and leaned out his window to offer me a ride.

Now mind you, they drive on the left side of the road there. And I was walking along the left side of the very narrow road. So he could literally reach out his hand and touch me.

I politely declined his ride and then nervously continued on, looking straight ahead.

Again, he asked me to get in.

I told him, “No, thank you. I live right up here,” pointing vaguely ahead.

“No you don’t,” he said, refuting my statement. By now he’d slowed to a mile or so an hour and was leaning out his window. My creep meter was on full blast!

“Yes, I do,” I lied, hoping that would scare him off.

“Where?” he asked, knowing full well that just over the rise was more than a mile of house-less-ness. And he could tell by the fear in my eyes that I knew too.

“No, really,” I insisted. “I live right up here,” I said pointing at the last house (at the top of the rise.)

I hoped that would send him on his way, but he knew I was lying, so he continued to drive along beside me at a snail’s pace.

“I do,” I insisted again. “That’s my house!”

But by now, we’d reached the last house and he called my bluff. He stopped his car as we reached the short driveway. And I panicked. What in the world would I do now?!

And at that moment I decided I had no other choice.  I would just have to walk up to the front door and let myself into the house. I prayed desperately as I crossed the stretch of drive between the road and house that the door would be unlocked.

If I got to the door and had to go in, I’d just die if it was locked. He’d know I was lying.

As I reached the front porch, I glanced back over my shoulder again. He sat there, leering at me. I felt very much like a mouse watching a snake about to strike. He would devour me just as completely as that snake.

So, with no other choice, I crossed that concrete porch and reached for the door knob of a stranger's house.  

I glanced over my shoulder one last time, but the man continued to sneer at me lecherously.

I had no choice. I turned the doorknob and walked in to that completely unfamiliar house, praying no one was home!

And I walked right in on the home owners sitting around the dinner table. They all looked up at me, startled, needless to say!

Horrified and terribly embarrassed, I immediately began to babble incoherently. I knew what I meant to say, but was sure the words were not coming out in anything remotely close to understandable English.

I pointed back over my shoulder toward the door (which I had closed behind me) and tried to tell them about the man in the car. But I burst into tears about then and all chances of them understanding anything I said went out the door (if you will excuse the pun.)

The father got up and went to look out the front door. He got there just as the creepy man sped away.

The wife, bless her heart, grabbed another plate and told me to come join them for dinner. I politely declined, eager to leave and hopefully pretend this never happened.

The father asked me, wasn’t I one of the Carson kids? I somehow indicated that that was correct. And he got his keys and took me out to his car and drove me home.

I have only a hazy memory of events after walking in, disrupting their dinner and bursting into tears. But, fortunately, they knew my dad, and were kind enough to take me home.

Now what, you might ask, does this have to do with commuters driving along with their windows up?

It’s the way I pretty much knew that the door to that house would be unlocked, whether anyone was home or not.

Our house, just west of the yacht club, was never ever locked. I don’t think it could even be locked.

I am trying to count in my head the number of outer doors we had. The lengths of the entire north and east sides of the courtyard were back to back double doors. Technically, there were no walls. It was just a bank of doors.

I think we must have had sixteen doors opening out of the house – many of them double doors. And not a single one of them was ever locked in all the time I lived there.

People just didn’t lock their doors. And like their doors, people were so much more open then too. Life was wide open and easily shared.

With all the open doors (both physical and figurative) life was so much simpler. People looked out for each other. They smiled and waved out their car’s (open) window at anyone that they passed on the road.

And people gave terrified strangers who walked into their house, interrupting their dinner, an offer of food and/or a safe ride home, thinking nothing of it.

I miss those days. Days when people left their keys in their cars, didn’t tint their windows, and drove with open windows. (I don’t even know if the windows on my dad’s Volvo even rolled up!)

Days when people looked out for their neighbor’s children as they would their own. 

I missed the openness and neighborliness of that simpler time.

Mistakes

Mistakes

When I first became a single mother, I promised myself that despite that and the hardships it brought, I would make sure that my children got a bigger picture of the world. We would travel places and see new things.

So that first summer (or maybe it was the second one – my memory gets foggy at times) we took a road trip through all of the western states.

For weeks, or likely months, before we left, my eight- or nine-year-old Nick and I (and the girls occasionally and for brief periods) poured over the large Rand McNally atlas book I’d purchased for this reason.

We looked at different routes and discussed the benefits of each and the sights we might see with each. Should we go the shortest route straight up Highway 5, or should we sidetrack and go through San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge?

Then should we go back to the 5, or should we take the much longer and slower route up the 101 and see the northern California coast and the redwoods?
.

And during the trip, I actually let Nick be our navigator as we drove – telling him what junctions were coming up and asking which route we needed. 

And I’d ask him which route to take, and did we need to go east or west or whatever.

And he got us where we needed to go: all the way from southern California to my sister’s in northern Idaho.

Well, on the return trip, as my brother was driving, we approached a junction and my young navigator in the back seat announced that we needed to take the road to the right.

My brother, being the adult, ignored him, saying he was wrong, and took us to the left. And half asleep in the front passenger seat, I ignored the short dispute and assumed that the grown-up knew best.

Before you know it, we’d driven 50 miles in the wrong direction and were not just lost, but in a completely other state than we should have been in!

Nick looked at the map and told us how to get back on track, and my brother angrily grabbed the map from him saying he didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he conceded that Nick was right, and we got back to the road we should have been on. Mistake corrected.

 

But in our adventure into the state we’d never intended to explore, we got to see sights and scenery that we’d never have seen, so all was not lost.

Then if you will stay with me while I shift gears, you will see that it is all connected in the end….

As always, I loved it as we sat around the table at lunch last Saturday - our family of friends. We are a hodge-podge group that most would probably think peculiar, were they to be a fly on the wall: 

Four of us (three women and a man) are in our 50s – a risk management guy, a teacher, an accountant and a retired teacher/wanna-be writer.

Then there are, oh, probably about ten of us at various times around the table in their 20’s (and I think a few just turned 30.) 

A med student, a social worker, an accountant, one in hotel/services business, one in investment banking, an architect, a few college students, a few currently unemployed and still living at home, and a few whom I sure I forget.

 

And then Abuelita – the 83-yr-old grandmother. (For those who are non-Spanish-speakers, “abuelita” is “grandma” in Spanish.) And though she’s only actually the grandmother of three in the group, all affectionately call her “Abuelita.”

That is the core group, and there are a few others that come and go at various times. And we get together every Saturday at John and Betsy’s house.

We are a pretty rowdy bunch as we squeeze around Betsy’s large table that seats twelve, and overflow, if necessary, onto the patio (or the card table if need be.)

And the topic of discussion ranges just about as far afield as our various ages and walks of life.

We talk about the Lakers, what was on the latest episode of “Lost” or “The Office,” or occasionally politics or party plans. Sometimes the P90X exercise program that many of them are doing.

Sometimes it wanders into bodily functions, or sex or any number of topics one would not expect to discuss around the dinner table, or with your elders – especially your grandmother!

 

But we are a very close-knit and comfortable group. So you never know what to expect, but we always have a great time and laugh a lot.

Well, we were chattering loudly last Saturday when one of our group quietly said (as he passed some food to his right), “Oh and [his wife] is twelve weeks pregnant…”

It was hilarious that none of us were sure we heard him right...or if he said anything at all...and if he had said anything, was joking (as we joke around a LOT.)
 

Several of us looked to him to see if he was joking. But he has the best poker face I’ve ever seen, so you couldn’t have told anyway by his expression.

I looked at him, as he quietly went about eating as though he’d said nothing. And I thought I must have heard it wrong or imagined it.

 

So I looked to the others for some indication that they’d heard it too. But they were looking around just like I was. It was an oddly silent moment in our usual noisiness.

 

After several moments we realized that he actually had said it, and he actually had meant it. And he grinned from ear to ear.

Then, of course, we were all filled with jubilation and everyone stopped their eating to go around and the long table to hug the parents to be.

And being the very open group that we are, someone said they were surprised as the couple was only newly married (eight or nine months ago), and then asked if it was planned.

The father-to-be blushed a little and thus let us know it wasn’t planned. And this turned into some teasing, very funny (okay, even silly) discussions of birth control and sex.

But my focus today is not on our Saturday lunches, but on the “mistake” factor of the unplanned.

As many of you know, my older daughter (also very newly married), is also expecting her first child – my first grandchild. And by the sounds of it, this also was unplanned and unexpected.

And it makes me think of my youngest child – my younger daughter, Erin – who was also unplanned. (I could never really think of her as a mistake though!)

When I found out I was pregnant with her, it’s silly, but I was actually afraid to tell my husband. Because ‘screwing up’ (pun intended) was a capital offense in our household, and of course, the unplanned pregnancy was something I had done all of my own!

But when she came into our lives, we were changed forever and I cannot imagine our lives without the joy she brought. 

Each of my children brought such a beautiful dimension to the landscape or our family that I could never imagine life without any of them.

So I’ve affectionately told many people that Erin was the best “mistake” I ever made.

And as my friends around the lunch table, and my older daughter will undoubtedly find, sometimes “mistakes” bring a joy you’ve never yet known.

So my thought for this week is that sometimes the ‘mistakes’ in our lives can become the most beautiful part of our journey. 

And instead of beating ourselves up, or being fearful to ‘fess up’ to our mistakes (as I was with the third pregnancy), we should embrace the unexpected side-journeys that come our way and see if they don’t bring a new dimension to our lives that we never expected.

For sometimes the ‘mistakes’ in our lives, where we think we got off the path, or into the land of unplanned, can actually be right on the path that God intended in the first place and we just didn’t realize it.

And if not, and it was just a big mistake, He can get you back on the right path

.

Liz Rosas

19 March 2010

LORD, you have assigned me my portion 

and my cup; you have made my lot secure.

You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

                                         Psalms 16:5, 11

Show me your ways, O LORD,
teach me your paths;

                                         Psalms 25:4

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

                                          Proverbs 3:5,6