Rose-Colored Glasses

My friend, Sue, accidentally left her sunglasses in my car last week after she accompanied me to Cassidy’s choir concert.  I had good intentions to mail them back to her but first had to hop in the car for a trip to Tennessee and my cousin, Mandy’s, wedding.  Cousin Lorri and I hit the road in the morning and, before I knew it, I had traded in my very dark beach shades for the white designer frames Sue left in the console.

Fall was in full “bloom” on the trip.  While meteorologists had called “the peak” a week earlier, our trip south revealed brilliance in the trees I can only describe as stunning. It was distracting at times as we rounded corners and cut into the hills of Kentucky, all the while being dazzled by nature’s glorious slide show.  I am sure Lorri thought I was exaggerating at how beautiful I found our surroundings.  It wasn’t until I took the glasses off during a shady stretch of highway that I realized the lenses were rose-colored. Really?  Rose-colored glasses?  So 1960-something, right? I put the glasses back on and was aware that the colored lenses were altering my view of the world.  Yes, colors were brighter, the sky was clearer and a color of blue I don’t think I have ever seen before.  Cool glasses.

A weekend with family members, some of whom hadn’t seen each other for 15 years or more, ensued. A lovely wedding, delicious time with some of my favorite relatives, introductions to some cousins I had never met and, so much food, we thought we’d burst, consumed most of the weekend. 

Sue’s glasses were tucked inside my purse for the entire weekend.  I put them on at least 100 times, both literally and figuratively.  No hatchets were buried; in fact, with so much water under the bridge, it didn’t seem the least bit necessary.  These clichés passed through my mind a dozen times over the weekend, while I half expected the other shoe to drop.  Everyone seemed so genuinely happy and yet we had only begun to scratch the surface of the enormous span of time we had been apart as a family.  It felt okay to leave despite the lack of depth to our conversations, so we did just that. 

Promises to keep in touch and preliminary plans for future gatherings were made before we exchanged hugs, loaded up our cars and hit the road for our respective trails home.  

The leaves on the trees had faded even more over the 4 days of our stay, so I slipped Sue’s rose-colored sunglasses back on my face.  What a beautiful drive.

Facebook is So 2010

Some time over the past two years, I joined the throngs of other middle-aged moms across the world and created my own facebook account.  "This facebook thing is really going to allow me to keep up with my adult children who are venturing out all across the country," I said to myself and to my peers, most of whom were (obviously) mildly suspicious of this move on my part.  I rejected the squinted eye gaze and occasional "isn't that just for kids?" comment and launched into full facebook mode, uploading my profile pic, filling in all the necessary information about which TV shows I like and reducing to a single sentence the one value upon which I have based my existence (favorite quote). Once a legitimate face-booker, I instantly searched for my children and requested them to "friend me."  Next, came all the other relatives, who, amazingly, were already on facebook.  Even MY mom had a facebook account....I was, apparently, the last to know how facebook had already established itself into our lives as common and ordinary. Surely, now that I was on fb, I would be able to see what the big kids were up to, "Like" their activities, comment on their photos and, occasionally, brag about their achievements to the many members of my extended family who seemingly came out of the woodwork.  Yes, I could do all those things, and before you knew it, friend requests started showing up in My notifications.  50 friends, 60, 70, whoa! How is anybody supposed to keep up with all of these friends?!

Several of my "new" friends started sending me invitations to play FarmVille...holy crap!  Before I knew it, my plantation was producing enough food to feed a small country, I had an entire herd of cows, some of which glowed in the dark, my chickens laid eggs by the dozens, the ducks needed to be plucked, neighbors were leaving me yard signs which, understandably, needed to be reciprocated, bats swirled among my fields, the trees needed to be harvested, every neighbor in the countryside had crops for me to fertilize, and I Was Exhausted!  I'll never forget the day I inadvertently neglected my eggplants and they all withered and died...the shame. I have only admitted the following to one other person because I knew she would understand:  Before I quit FarmVille, I harvested every eggplant, sold off every last chicken and cow and barn and tractor, and planted a yard sign in my neighbors' yards saying goodbye.  Sheesh! 

Since that day nearly a year ago, I have stood quietly by as various posters aired laundry that was not only filthy but some of it would make your hair curl.  Sure, I can hide those folks, too, and I did.  But, then I was out of the loop...friends would send me notes:  "What's going on with So-and-So?! Can you believe what he/she said?!" "I don't know," I would reply. Quite frankly, I didn't want to know.  It felt so invasive to be privy to people's personal anguish, out in the very public facebook world. The more people put out there, the more I withdrew.

So, today, I have 366 friends, most of which I have hidden on my wall.  I don't play games, I don't post my kids' achievements, I don't "Like" many status updates and I haven't looked at 362 of my friends' Walls in months.  I do, however, stalk the pages of my original 3 reasons for joining Facebook in the first place.

So, while I have your attention here, I want to let you know that this "Here's The Scoop" is going to become my version of what I wanted facebook to be, only better.  I will post family updates from time to time, from my personal experiences and from those I glean during my stalking adventures. Two promises:  I am going to blog only when I feel I have something relevant to say, even if nobody else ever reads it and this blog will be a completely positive reflection of a day in the life of a family.