A Low "Ha!"

I haven't written much - or, really, at all - about the incredible two week vacation that the Awesome Fiance and I took this summer.  We've been back for over a month now so it's probably time to revisit it.

I could write about the travel experience itself but the airline (I'll call it "Untied") would probably put me on the "no-fly" list after reading my tirade.  I'd have to create new, more descriptive words beyond "dunder-headed ass clown" and "inept corporate maggot" ... and I'm just not feeling all that creative today.

I could write about this being the ONLY time in my life I've actually taken two whole weeks from work for vacation.  Yes, I had a sabbatical, which was 6 weeks, but in all the 29 years I've been employed, I've never taken two solid weeks of vacation.

I could write about the food ... OH.  MY.  LORD.  THE.  FOOD. ... but that'll probably just make me hungry and I probably wouldn't be able to describe some of the dishes to the level of deliciousness they deserve.

I think I'll write about my overall take-away from the first portion of our two weeks.  The "Family" portion.

Ya' know that family you see on occasion when traveling?  Grandparents, grown children, grandkids ... dining together, smiling and laughing, posing for goofy photos, etc?  The clan that piles out from the minivan and walks into the mall, maybe wearing similar teeshirts ... or the multi-generational gathering on the beach - a few are reading, some are splashing about in the water, the youngest members are creating elaborate piles of sand?  Well, I was part of that family as a child.  My best friend really did have the perfect family and I spent countless hours as an extended, adopted family member.  Oh, they were SO much better than my real family.

Dad was a teacher, an avid weekend golfer, and liked to take rides on his motorcycle.  Mom, also a teacher, liked to go on walks, spend time with her family, and be outdoors.  Son - the youngest member of the family - was into all things bicycle.  Daughter - my best friend - was everything I wasn't ... graceful, very pretty, delicate.  They'd include me on short weekend getaways and I'd see a family who REALLY enjoyed being together.  Parents who had conversations about news and politics and things that didn't involve work or animals or relatives.  Children who played nicely together and went to the movies together - not because they were told to but because they wanted to.  For me, it was surreal.

It was also fake.

I know now that my seemingly perfect adopted family ... was not.  Dad, it seemed, waited until the children were grown and on their own, and then got on his motorcycle and rode away.  Mom developed an eating disorder and handled her divorce as 'tho everything was fine when, clearly, it was not.  Little brother got married *WAY* too young but to a wonderful woman who nursed him back to health for a year after a very nearly deadly motocross accident.  And best friend, who had aspirations on being a psychologist, instead became a grumpy, gloomy, unhappy stay-at home mom who shielded her own small children from their "awful" Grandfather ... even as she herself continued the cycle of cheating on - and eventually leaving - her own spouse.  I stopped being a part of her life after her second child.  We just didn't have anything in common anymore and I got tired of trying to set up the lunch date that clearly was never to be.  We had a mutual friend who kept me updated on her activities and, last I heard, her two oldest children asked to move in with their father because they were tired of being told how awful both he AND their own Grandfather was.

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So while, as a child, I had my seemingly perfect family and my real one, as an adult I knew that my real one was so much better than "perfect".  It was flawed, but flawed in a way I understood.  The members (myself most assuredly included) were maddening, but in a comfortable way.  We have family logic for the things we do - twisted as it is but it is, at least, logic of some sort.  And, as the airplane drifted towards our family getaway home for the week, I thought that I was ready for the quirks and actions and whatnot that were likely to come ... flaws and maddening members and twisted logic and all.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh I was mistaken.

It's an exaggeration, to be sure, that I spent the WHOLE week closing screens, sliding glass doors, turning off lights, turning on ceiling fans, drawing drapes, turning on the air conditioner, and locking front doors.  It's an exaggeration, certainly, that the week was spent washing the same dishes, clearing the same table, drying the same glasses, closing the same freezer doors, and wiping the same counter-top surface.  It's an exaggeration, yes, that my island time was filled with folding towels and doing laundry and explaining how air conditioning works and sharing that, while I was sorry the upstairs was 76 degrees (aka "super cold") in the mornings, our bedroom was still at 87 degrees at 11pm the night before because no one could be bothered to close a door or shut a window to keep the air temperature at a reasonable number - say, somewhere slightly lower than 80.

It did FEEL like the whole week was like that, but I know it wasn't.

"But remember", you say calmly.  "Remember that you were sharing the house with young children and you're not used to young children."

"And that's very true", I reply just as calmly.  "But what makes you think I was talking about the young children?"

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Ahhhhhhhhhhh but they are my people.  They are my family.  Are they perfect?  Ha!  No.  Thank heavens no, they are not perfect.

I Am Jam. Jam I Am.

I've gone through a *L*O*T* of changes in the past few years.  In fact, it would be accurate to say that changes - both big (my job, home, relationship status) and small (radio-listening habits, wardrobe, beverage go-to) - have been a constant for me.

I forget, though, that quite a few of these changes go largely unnoticed, especially by my friends who are based within my previous hometown.  Many are surprised at my living on the East Coast, or my not working in the sales technology sector.  And most have had NO idea that I have Parkinson's Disease.  As I've written here before, it's not the kind of thing one can just mention as an "oh by the way" sort of conversation topic.  If I knew someone who was diagnosed with PD (or something similar) and they shared the news with me, I'd have follow-up questions and I guess I presume that's true of others, too.  I could be wrong.

I was reminded not of what's changed but what hasn't changed in my life just last night, in a very wonderful way.  We sent a box of FMD jams to Shari, an ex-colleague of mine.  Shari and I worked in the same company on the same floor of the same building - and in the same department - for 3 years or so.  I eventually transferred into another division based in another city and, due to our different locations and job demands, I hadn't been able to keep in contact with Shari as much as I would have liked.  And then I moved and ... well ... we lost touch.  She sees Tim on occasion and, I guess, gets brief updates on me via him.

So it seems Shari's box arrived yesterday, and the receptionist alerted her to the delivery via email.  Shari forwarded me the entire email train, copied below.

*****************

From: Christina B/Reception
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 3:14 PM
To: Shari; Richard; Amber; Lindsay; Jeremy; Jack
Subject: Package in the lobby for you

Hello.

You have a package in the lobby.  Please come to pick up at your earliest convenience.

Thank you,

Christina B

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From: Shari
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 3:15 PM
To: Christina B
Subject: RE: Package in the lobby for you

Hi Christina,

I am leaving for Korea and be back on Monday.  Can you hold it for me until Monday?

Thanks

Shari

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From: Christina B
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 3:16 PM
To: Shari
Subject: RE: Package in the lobby for you

Hello,

Yes of course. We will hold it in our locked closet till then.

Have a safe trip!

Christina

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From: Shari
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 3:20 PM
To: Christina B
Subject: RE: Package in the lobby for you

Thanks.  Do you know what it is?

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From: Christina B
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 3:22 PM
To: Shari
Subject: RE: Package in the lobby for you

Not really - there's a sticker that says “homemade jam”.

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From: Shari
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 3:27 PM
To: Julie
Subject: FW: Package in the lobby for you

Hi Julie,

You are the best!  Did you send me jam?  I am not in the office and asked the receptionist to hold it for me.

Thank you so much!  I am sorry that I didn’t get to see you when you came by.  I always ask Tim about you.  I hear that you are engaged!  Congrats!  I am very happy for you.

I really appreciate you always thinking of us.  Hopefully we’ll connect next time.

Take care,

Shari                                                                                                                                                                               

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Yes, much has changed.  But, comfortingly, I still = "homemade jam".

FMD ... Arriving NOW Across The Country!

Whelp, it's that time of year again.

Over the past couple of days week, we've shipped out 14 22 boxes, each with 6 flavors of FMD goodness.

We have at least a dozen more boxes to assemble and/or ship - some we're waiting on to confirm addresses, others are being held while late-Summer vacations come to an end.

While we've managed to ship out 86 132 jars, we still have more jars in inventory than we even created in all of 2011 ... which is a little crazy to think about.

Just think ... FMD will be arriving to homes in over 20% 27% of the 50 states in this week alone.  That's also kinda crazy to consider, since I'm 50% of the FMD employee base.

I mean - did you even figure there WERE 41 flavors of jams?  And heck - there's still a few fruits we haven't tried yet ('tho, honestly, there aren't too many ... but there's a few).

 Thanks to the other 50% of FMD's employee base, recipes have been diligently kept, so if there are any "out-of-the-ballpark-homerun" flavors, we'll be able to recreate them in the future.

But, for now anyway, we'll keep shipping out the 2012 creations.  Since taste is a subjective thing, I know a few of our creations may better received than others but, overall, I'm a fan of the work we did this year.

 

For now, all we can do is just wait and see what the rest of the country says.

{Updated on Friday 09/07/2012}