Pam Logan's Blog, page 4

Conundrum!

It's funny how one simple word can turn your world upside down or make everything alright. It doesn't even have to be said to you; it can be overheard in someone else's conversation, in a commercial or news story on tv or the radio, or even in a song. It can also show up on facebook from a complete stranger or a friend you have never met.

Today, I spent my day doing everyday things, making important phone calls - being kept on hold and getting disconnected, cleaning, doing laundry, making beet horseradish (I'll blog about that one tomorrow) and somewhere in there, my thoughts kept going back to my mother who passed away almost seven years ago. I really don't know why I kept thinking of her, but no matter what I did, my thoughts drifted back to her, but it wasn't like I felt her presence, it was more of an empty, lonely feeling.

Now, back to the word thing. At different times in my younger life, when things just didn't make sense or didn't seem to have an answer, my Mom would say, "That's quite a conundrum." Apparently, she didn't say it to anyone else in my family, just to me and my husband. The word has no meaning to them, but it has become special to me, so whenever I hear it, I think of my Mom and know she is there with me. My husband will hear it and say, "Your Mom says Hi."

When my work was done and I sat down at the computer, I felt very sad. I checked out my usual stops on Drudge, email, facebook, and last but not least, I checked on my book friends in a group called Book Junkies. In this quickly growing family, they talk about books, of course, but also other important things, hopes, fears, laughs, and once in a while a fight breaks out. This evening, while I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, I came across a post by a new friend, Toney La Tripp, explaining the meaning of conundrum.

Thanks, Toney. You made my day!

Halloween is my favorite holiday!

Kids dressed in costumes and witches in black hats
Carved out orange pumpkins and sharp fanged vampire bats
Scary decorations all tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cute trick-or-treaters dressed as ghosts, ghouls and goblins
A trip through the cemetery seeing tombstones and skeletons
Ghostly haunted mansions where the creaky door sings
These are a few of my favorite things

Wolf howls and cat yowls and masks to hide faces
Blood drips and the wind whips as my heart races
Jitters and critters that the dead of night brings
These are a few of my favorite things

When the sun shines
When the bird sings
When I'm feeling fare
I simply remember my favorite things
Then I'm up for a real good scare

Still standing

[image error] After spending time in the hospital, caring for my father in his recovery from open heart surgery, watching him go from being a strong, independent man to a frail, weak, almost childlike soul, my husband insisted we take a break and go for a ride on the motorcycle in the country to get some fresh air and forget about the family circumstances for a bit. The fresh air and sunshine cleared my head and things didn't seem so bad, until I saw a decrepit old house that reminded me of my father; it looked as though it must be full of happy memories, but tired and failing. As we pulled away from it, I realized that it was winking at me, letting me know that it wasn't ready to give up just yet.

I was inspired to quickly jot this down because of a writing exercise offered by
Stephen Hise at http://www.indiesunlimited.com

Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas - Book Review

[image error] I imagine Firoozeh Dumas' Funny in Farsi would be funny in any language. Mrs. Dumas has the ability to find the humor in any situation.
Firoozeh Dumas was born in Iran and raised there until the age of seven. Her father, Kazem, who had gone to school in the United States, and a great story teller in his own right, filled her head about life in the US. Her family was transported to Southern California for two years because of her father's job, then moved back to Iran. A couple years later, another move to the US became permanent.
Funny in Farsi is a collection of memories of Firoozeh Dumas as she went through the changes in lifestyle, cultures and everyday happenings of a young girl growing up. There are stories of her father trying to get rich on "Bowling for Dollars" and of her learning to speak English all the while trying to teach her mother the language. The escapades of her entire extended family come into play starting with trying every kind of food available and then using every fad diet to conquer the tasting spree.
Tales of the "F" Word, summer camp, and a not so fun trip to Washington, along with her attempt at finding herself through the many jobs she endured, show her strength and courage to get through any situation. Funny in Farsi is not a comedy; almost every part has a difficult, in some cases heartbreaking, undertone. Firoozeh's capacity for finding the fun and humor in those situations is inspiring.

¶¶¶¶

Firoozeh Dumas

[image error] The night before last, I had the pleasure of attending a Visiting Artist Series, along with my daughter, at Hilbert College in Hamburg, NY. The guest speaker was Firoozeh Dumas, author of national bestseller, "Funny in Farsi - A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America."
Firoozeh and her family moved from Iran to Southern California when she was seven years old. She knew nothing of the country or language except through her father's shared memories of his graduate school years. Her speech highlighted memories of growing up learning a new language and the customs of her new home right along with her parents, sometimes being the child, sometimes being the teacher. Her witty, humorous tales entertained her audience even though some of the topics were quite serious.
I was able to obtain a copy of her book, "Funny in Farsi" which she signed for me. I look forward to reading it with hopes of it being as informative and entertaining as she was on stage.

A Blast from the Past

[image error] This past summer, I went to a college orientation for my youngest daughter. She has two older sisters, both out of college and a younger brother, now entering his senior year of high school. At this orientation, I was informed that this group of kids have never known a world without computers or cell phones, or massive amounts of tv channels, not to mention anything wireless.
They have never seen a time when dogs could run loose or kids could ride on their mothers' laps in a car or it was safe to walk through the woods alone or lay out in the sun for hours and hours.
These thoughts came to mind when my husband came across some papers from long ago and in them was a picture of Don Berns of WKBW fame from the early 70's. The good old days... hip huggers, bell bottoms, clogs, afros, lava lamps, shag rugs, pet rocks, blue eye shadow and when thongs were something you wore on your feet.
Don Berns was a radio personality on WKBW, the most popular station in our area along with the likes of Sandy Beach with his infectious laugh and Danny Neaverth (Danny moves you fanny in the morning). WKBW was the Top 40 Music Station with a 50,000 watt transmitter right here in Hamburg. You could always count on them for the best music, lots of laughs and of course a nice even tan - they had a 20 minute beep to tell you when to flip over while laying in the sun.
It's nice to reminisce, but to be honest, it's nice to get past the past, too. OMG - Elephant pants! What was I thinking?

Out of Control

There is a turning point of my story that I have been unable to attempt writing. It has been eating at me for a while. I haven't written in a couple months because life has gotten in the way. When I have thought about what I want to write, I get distracted and my mind wanders and I can't think of how I want it to evolve.
On my first book, I never thought about the story much when I was away from the computer. I just sat down at random times, day or night and the story just unfolded before me. I never really got writer's block or had a hard time with it, it just came to life. When the words wouldn't come to me in the way I wanted to express them, I just got up and walked away and forgot about it. A short time later, even if it was only a few minutes, I just sat and typed away again, fresh and relaxed.
Now, I have the time, but when I sit down to write, it's almost as if I'm afraid of where it will go. I have a bad feeling about it. My character is in a dangerous situation and he has become a good friend to me. I am leery of trying to control what happens to him by trying to save him and at the same time compromising what I think my writing ability is.
It's almost like sitting down with a Ouija Board. I know if I let it happen, evil may take over and dominate. If that happens, will I, or my character, have the strength to come back? I'm kind of a fairy tale type of person. Somewhere in there, I believe in happy endings, good prevailing over evil, the bad guy receiving his just desserts....
I have been through a lot lately and the darkness is creeping in; the light at the end of the tunnel is getting dim. If this takes over, my character is going to suffer greatly. I'm not sure if I should wait until this passes over, or if I should just let my friend handle it on his own. Hopefully he is stronger than I am right now.

It's all relative

[image error] It's all relative...
Love, hate; silence, too much info; hot, cold; laugh, cry; up, down; rich, poor; young, old; happy, sad; beautiful, ugly...
Most of these things have no meaning without knowing the opposite. Such is life. You take the good with the bad, the balance of nature. It's when things get all thrown out of kilter and knock you off track that none of it makes sense.
In family squabbles, it's no longer black and white; everything becomes infinite shades of grey. He said, she said; weak, strong; right, wrong... It is even more difficult when child becomes parent and parent becomes child. Nurturer becomes needy, strong becomes frail, dependable becomes dependent forcing immature to grow up.
I hope when the time comes, that I will have the strength to not become a burden.

Role models

It's funny how your life can turn around in an instant. I lay in bed unable to sleep because of a leg cramp that wouldn't give up. I got up and walked that off, then I decided it was time to add a new comment on my blog. The only thing that came to mind was all the worrying I have been doing lately with issues of family health problems that seem to have taken over my life. I didn't want to write about that, but like I said, it has taken over my life and every thought is intertwined with it.

I sat at the computer, took a deep breath, preparing myself to think of something else and as my screen lit up, I found a document that my sixteen year old son had typed up earlier for his last homework assignment of this school year. Apparently, he had to write about role models. It took my breath away.

The first sentence was - "My mom wrote a book." He went on to explain that a character in my book, Samantha Collins, was his role model. He described her characteristics as fun loving and helpful and told how she made the best of her life even though she had an inoperable brain tumor. Sam came from a troubled past, but overcame that to become a strong willed, caring person. He wrote how he realized through her that there were things about himself that he didn't appreciate and this led him to strive to be a leader rather than a follower.

There was more about the importance of role models and how they can be a good or bad influence on peoples' lives, but the part that hit me the hardest was the last two sentences - "It seems as though Samantha Collins made me into a new person. But in reality, my mother shaped me into the person that I am proud to call myself today."

My kids never cease to amaze me.

My Parents

Mother's Day has come and gone. A little over six years ago, my Mom left me. She left me with enough happy memories to last me the rest of my life. There were camping trips and picnics and family parties and family reunions and of course, Christmas in July. There was cleaning out pumpkins and decorating Christmas cookies and my ever favorite home-made rhubarb pie made with fresh picked rhubarb from her garden and then there was her strawberry freezer jam - mmmmm! The fragrance of springtime lilacs in full bloom bring her back in a heartbeat.

As kids, there were walks to the fair and watching fireworks with her in the back yard. There were bike rides and sledding and ice skating and building snowmen and swinging on the tire swing under the Maple tree. There were kisses for boo-boos and hugs goodnight. She was patient and kind, but with one look, she could let you know you crossed the line. Those looks were not just reserved for her own children; friends and cousins would stop in their tracks from one stern glare from her.

She left behind a legacy of four children and five grandchildren that will hopefully remember what a terrific lady she was. Her family was the most important thing in the world to her.

Those were the kinds of thoughts I expected to be thinking about on Mother's Day. Instead, I spent a good portion of the day in the ambulatory care center with my Dad. He had fallen the night before and in the morning, my brother finally talked him into going to get checked out. He had hit his head and his eye was swollen shut and his ribs hurt with any little movement. After lots of tests and it was determined there was no brain bleed and no broken bones in his ribs, he was sent to the hospital to monitor his heart.

I sat with him thinking of the times as a kid I thought that he was the strongest man in the world. He could do anything. He was everybody's favorite uncle and my friends all thought he was the coolest Dad. Although we had our issues as any family does, he never did anything to get us on Oprah or Jerry Springer. I wish there was something I could do for him besides just sit there. All he wants is to go home. Who would have thought one trip on the sidewalk could do so much damage.

I wish my Mom was here. She always knew how to fix things.