To resolve really important things, sometimes you need the kind of mind that can unshuffle a Rubik's cube.  Forget THAT.  I'll just keep shuffling until I find a problem that I CAN solve, re-solve or just pass on to someone else.  I resolve to solve only the problems in my life that are easy.  Whew, that took some thinking.  I feel better about 2009 already.

Here are a few definitions of the word 'resolve:'

      To deal with successfully :  

         a: clear up

         b: to find an answer to  

         c: to make clear or understandable  

         d: to find a mathematical solution of  

         e: to split up (as a vector) into two or more components especially in assigned    

              directions

These are actually the definitions of the word, 'man,'  This is their MO, their raison d'etre...it's in their DNA, and they won't rest or stay married to you unless they can... a) Clear things up for you, b) Find an answer to anything you might throw at them, c) make it clear and understandable to you the reason why they will never stop and ask for directions, d) Create a mathematical solution to your frustrations with a sum total that can be written on a blackboard...and finally, if things don't work out...e) They will help the both of you to split up into two or more components especially in assigned directions...that means, you to your mother's house and he to the nearest Hooters restaurant.  

Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but raise your hands if...1) You're a man and you're guilty of even one of the above...or 2) You're a woman married to a man like this.  I rest my case.  And, I long for these conditions in my life again.  I've learned how to deal with these people now.  I know how to 'man speak,' getting out what would otherwise be a half-hour discussion with a woman into a two-sentence query to my man with definitive parameters and a time frame for solution.  They're good-to-go under those circumstances.  We just have to use our gal pals for everything else...except sex, of course.

They like to resolve any issues in that department too...by either 1) wham-bamming and then thankin you ma'am or...2) creating so much foreplay that your narrow window of orgasmic pleasure passed way before he slowly poured warm honey in your navel (because you're now thinking about how to get the honey out of the sheets).  A good X-rated film on mute can solve a lot of problems for the both of you.  But, ahhh, isn't it lovely to dance cheek to cheek, to kiss for an hour and to hug in a way that is knowing and soft and trusting.  Oops, I'm digressing into a day dream.

I resolve in 2009 to be happy, simple as that...however that manifests.  I'm giving up worry for the whole year instead of just for lent.  I'm going to trust in love again, be there for my family, write our New York Times best seller, ride horseback again, make a viral video that a million people will see and make lotsa money as one-half of The Midlife Gals.  Whew, I'd better get after it!

Happy New Year...be NEW!

KK
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I have been trying my damndest to figure out what to resolve ever since KK assigned me this topic.  I might say, "I resolve to be a better person"? but I don't.  Being a better person never got me anywhere except overlooked, overworked, and relegated to the back of the line at the set-catering truck.  I was a nice person for most of my life.  Fuck that, I'm smarter now.  And as Kathy Bates so fabulously said in Fried Green Tomatoes, "I'm older and I have insurance."

I have been resolving to lose weight for my whole life.  Sometimes it works.  I had periods when I looked really skinny or at least lean, for years.  Then it would sneak up on me again (like now) and I'd be having to resolve to lose weight again.  So, that's a good resolve and tomorrow, January 1st,  is a perfect time to do that.  Also to try the latest hang-over remedy and tell your sister that you're sorry for whatever weird stuff you said at the party last night to the handsome guy who was hitting on her, the bass player in the band, and the Governor of Texas.

Sometimes I wish the world would resolve its 'issues'.  People on it are always fighting and fussing.  I don't think it will ever stop though.  I think spirits like us are meant to come here to experience the good and the bad, the dark and the light, and Dancing With The Stars.  Stuff isn't supposed to be resolved in the third dimension.  It's just supposed to be dealt with and used as a means of growth, spiritual awareness, and a way to taste the abundance of the earth.  After all, angels are ethereal and therefore can't taste New York Cheesecake.  I also doubt they have great make-up sex.

So, I guess I'm not going to resolve to do anything except maybe not feel guilty about taking long naps on Sunday afternoons.

SalGal

I went to an ashram once many years ago.  I had to be there for a whole month in order to get a yoga teaching certificate.  At the end of our program, we would be tested, both with a written exam and then presenting an entire one-hour yoga class of our own.  Well, I was just worried sick about it for days because I wanted OUT of the ashram.  It was creepy and culty, and those people were not members of my tribe.  There was one little crippled bliss ninny who lived and taught at the ashram, and shortly before our test, she announced to our class that she was available for worrying.  This notion, at the time, solidified to me that these people were just plain nutty.  The more I began to think about her offer and worry about my upcoming exam, I thought...'what the hell.'  So, I found her and asked her to worry for me.

I'll tell you what...that shit is powerful!  I just 'gave it up' to that little crippled bliss ninny and went on about my way...watching the other students ponder, sweat and worry their little heads off.  I was cool as a cucumber, I swear, and passed my exams with flying colors. I still use her to this day...only I have to picture her in my head.  I'm sure she's still out there worrying for everyone, so I mentally add my name to her lists.  

I googled "professional worrier" because I think there is some money in this idea.  I wouldn't be like the ninny from the ashram and worry for free...are you kidding me?  That could do permanent damage to both my psyche AND my soul.  Oh no...I'd charge out the wazoo to worry for other people.  You have to be a strong-assed person to do this kind of work.  On second thought, I don't want this job.  I've done it all my life anyway...playing the baby-child-pleaser of my family.  That allows for plenty of worrying.  But, in this economy, just think of what a great gig being a worrier would be.  You could make a MINT!  Be sure to have a psychiatrist on retainer though, because you'll probably need her.

I just keep practicing the "yes, and..." instead of the "yes...but."  This whole 'going-with-the-flow' thingy may sound trite, but trite is truth for me these days.  So, I'm skipping along the yellow brick road tossing out my cares and worries, watching them glob onto the mean apple trees in the forest as I head to the Emerald City.  I hear they've got a GREAT spa!!

KK
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Worrying is a waist of time. It is spending time thinking about things you don't want.  Now you are worse than broke, you have spent your wad as a block of time you could have enjoyed with visions in your mind of crystal palaces and clouds shaped like angels.

I heard a story once about a monk or a lama or someone like that who had spent his whole life meditating in silence.  In his very old age, as he lay dying with his students all around him, he said four words, "Don't worry, be happy."  Bob Marley heard this story too and that's why he wrote the song with the title of the same four words.  If he had lived a few moments longer he may have had another four words to say, "Shut the fuck up."

Shut up the dialogue in your mind about all of your problems and learn to focus your thoughts on beautiful things like tangerines, day lilies and chili dogs.  None of those things cost very much and you can even steel the day lilies from somebody's yard.  Anyway, why concentrate and wallow in the problems you have?  Take some action steps, look at everything as an opportunity to grow, and be thankful that you are not Leona Helmsley.  She was rich and look at what that got her.  Also, she was as ugly as a bulldog and had the same growl.

Be thankful for what you have and that's a good way to spend time.  That way you don't end up broke because your mind-files are full of folders that when opened?bring true wealth.  Gratitude is golden and what better thing to have in the bank than gold.  That way your mind is occupied with thinking of good things and you don't have that wrinkle between your eyebrows that makes you look like Andy Rooney.  You don't want to look like Andy Rooney, do you?

Worrying makes you age really fast.  The more you worry the more you turn into a pruney, unhappy blob of useless thoughts.  Hire a Worrier, I'll do it for you but I don't come cheap.  Or get a worry-stone and push all of your worries into it and then stash it in a drawer until you have some more to put there.

So, stop it!  Just stop it!  And remember, anything you do a lot?.you get really good at eventually.  Start to change your mind's pictures right now and do it every time you catch yourself worrying.  Soon you'll be as good at that as you are at driving, making a piece of toast, or?worrying.

Don't' worry, everything will be okay,
SalGal

I'm just curious, that's all.  I know where socks go, one at a time after you put them in the laundry.  The sock thief, of course.  Come on!  EVERYone knows that.  But, that's all I know.  For example, where does all of our poop go?  I mean, I know it goes into the sewer system, but then what?  With everyone pooping all the time, shouldn't there be brown poop lakes everywhere?  Sewage treatment plants you say?  Don't tell ME that they turn that poop into clean, clear water because I don't believe it.  I just do not believe that, and I won't drink it!

Where did John Thomas Haney go?  He blew into town in 1976, swept me off my feet and three days later, he was gone...poof!  But, not without telling me that he would call me soon.  Why do they always say that?  Why don't they just say, "That was really fun, and you're magnificent in bed, but I'm a wanderer and I'll never call you again."  Okay, I see why they don't say that.  Never mind.

Where on earth did all the old cars go??  There are junk yards, yes, but not nearly enough to hold all the '57 Chevys or the old New York Checker cabs.  I'm mad about that on several levels, one of which being that I actually owned an old Checker Marathon car that was the finest automobile I ever had.  Doesn't it just make you smile when you see an old T-Bird or Caddy or jalopy?  Where are the rest of them...and all those big, bulbous sedans from the 30's?  Where?

And, when you swallow as many pills of a morning as I do, where do they all go?  I try to visualize the Lipitor going straight through my blood vessels, scraping all the Thanksgiving gravy and dressing plaque away as it goes.  I then see the fish oil pills rubbing along the inside of my skin like I do with lotion on the outside.  The vitamin C pill goes to my 'immune team' and gives them a gold star for keeping away colds and flu.  My glucosamine pill makes a bee-line to all my joints and oils them like they oiled The Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz so I can move more easily...and finally, my Nutralite herbal supplement that my Granny took until she died at 101, moves all around my body, giving kudos to the good areas, scolding the bad and generally bucking up the whole system until it's just swelling with pride!  And, that's all before I'm even out of my jammies!

I'd ask where all the clouds go, but then you all would think I'm really stupid.

KK
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This whole question started because the city of Austin has completely changed the whole dynamics of our recycling bins.  We had two plastic bucket/bins before, one for glass and plastic and cans, and one for paper and cardboard.  Of course it made sense that all the paper would be put in a big shredder and come out as pulp to be turned into newspaper, Starbuck's coffee cups, and incredibly expensive stationary printed with palm trees and sold at Tommy Bahama stores in Beverly Hills.  Okay, I get that.

But what about tin cans, plastic cups and glass?  You can't just pour all of that into a big machine and chew it all up together and mash it out into a substance that is useful.  Or can you?  Oh! Maybe that's what they just paved our street with.  Yeah, just add a little tar and there you go.  No, no that can't be.  There must be some people who, when the big recycling truck arrives, sort the plastic from the cans and the glass.  But I have never met any of these people or heard of any of them.

Anyway, to make things even more confusing, Austin has distributed big, blue recycling bins to everybody and now we are instructed to put everything in them, everything.  What are they thinking?  We were sorting for them and now they don't want us to.  Now paper, plastic, cans, glass and cardboard are mushed together.  Where does it go?  What do they do with it?  It reminds me of Charleton Heston in 'Solient Green' at the end of the movie as they take him away and he's yelling?"It's people!  IT'S PEOPLE!"  It makes me think that all of our waste really gets mixed together in a giant vat and melted down and turned into displays at Target stores, I-Phones, and water park slides.  I picture some of it going into huge machines on conveyor belts made of the same stuff and coming out the other end as Legos and frozen tater tots.

I know everything is being recycled but into what?  I welcome your comments.  I'm a little afraid,

SalGal

Sal and I are left to our own devices this evening on our Internet radio program which should prove more than interestink!  Please join us when you can.  Show is at 6 pm CDT...you‘re bound to laugh which will add 8 minutes to your life!

KK and SalGal

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Themidlifegals, Your links have been removed, please consider upgrading to premium membership.

I know you've already seen and heard commercials for Christmas, and it's not even Thanksgiving!  Please explain this to me.  Please tell me that we are not so crass as to spew out 'White Christmas' over the grocery store sound system before December 1.  I'm all about holidays, but after awhile it makes me mad...like all the political commercials and stories over the last TWO friggin years...I was so mad by election day that I didn't want to vote for ANYone.  I did vote, of course, and my team won.  The peace and void since election day of television admonishments over candidates has been blissful, I must admit.

I say I will be pleased to be over all the crassness of the two Fall holidays that now seem like one after January 1st, but truth be told...then we have to wait until SPRING for Easter and that's a long time between holidays.  Then I will be longing for the Easter Bunny, I mean, Jesus...no I don't, really.  I prefer thinking about the Easter Bunny than what happened to JC.  It's just a happier thought.  

Walmart and Target are to blame for all the commercials...they're the ones who started jumping the gun here.  Then your Beall''s, Ross's and TJ Maxx's fell into line.  Before you know it, Christmas in July (another total marketing ploy that seems to have caught on) will keep going until the new year and Santa's outfits will just change with the seasons...starting with a Hawaiian shirt with little elves on it into a hand-knit turtleneck sweater with Rudolph's head and red nose on the front and his ass on the back.  And, what would Santa be on Halloween?  Hmmm...maybe a witch?  That whole idea is just too disturbing to think about.

So, now they're telling us that it's not too early to send out our Christmas cards.  Do they think we're complete idiots?  Are we?  I always remember the first card I receive every Christmas season and I applaud the sender for his/her attention to the rule of posting early.  Were I to get a card before December 1, however, I would be leery of its contents...especially if I have any known enemies around that time of year.  

Don't misunderstand me, please.  I LOVE Christmas cards, so please send me one, but as I have aged, their numbers have dwindled and not because my old friends have died...I'm not THAT old.  I'm not sure why now that I mull over it.  Just remember when you're sending cards...put a photo of YOU in it if you're going to send photos of the grandkids.  I like looking at photos of grandchildren because it reaffirms my decision to be childless...especially screaming babies on Santa's lap photos.  But, I want to see a photo of YOU, the SENDER, my FRIEND.  Hurry up and send it though, because the US Postal service has upped the deadline to the day after Thanksmas!!

KK
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I wouldn't mind if we celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas all year long.  It would be one long, never-ending holiday called Thanksxmas and have nothing to do with Thanksgiving day or Christ.  That way nobody would be offended and Jewish people could get presents too.  We would just be giving presents to our friends willy-nilly for no good reason except to celebrate that Thanksxmas is now two hundred and ninety five days since its beginning or because we know our Auntie Pearl needs some new underwear.  "Hey, Auntie Pearl, here are some step-ins for Thanksxmas!  Oh!  and a gift for me?  Thank you so much Auntie Pearl, I really needed some orange socks and they come in handy when it's 105 degrees outside like today.  Thank you and happy Thanksxmas to you too!"

People would not need an excuse for cooking a turkey or making a fruit cake.  We could have lights in our trees all year long and little kids at Halloween could dress up like elves and reindeer and Choctaw Indians.  We could have fake, white plastic trees on the decks all year round and have stockings hanging from the fireplace mantle for June wedding decorations.  We could carve Uncle Sam's face into pumpkins on the Fourth of July and dance around the Maypole on December 25th saying 'happy Thanksxmas to all and to all?.buy wholesale!'

I've confused myself.  Maybe we should just leave things as they are.  

SalGal

In celebration of Halloween which I still don't quite understand, I pay homage to the many ways that people scare the crap out of others in order to receive pleasure...very disturbing.

Our BFF, Sweet Pea, sent me a totally nondescript email link to a game of tic, tac, toe.  The screen prompted me to pick an 'X' or an 'O' which I did and began to place my 'X' in a square...the computer put an 'O' up to block me...another 'X' from me, then there was a pause as if the game had shut down when ALL OF A SUDDEN!!!!!!!!!!! the entire screen is filled with the SCARIEST MONSTER FACE moving all around and SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!! from an open, bloody mouth...well...it just scared the peewaddle out of me.  My heart literally stopped and I had to be given CPR right there in my chair.

Now, here's the thing...I was SO furious at P for scaring me in such a, may I say it?, cheap way that I immediately called her to protest, and I mean really protest...make her feel really bad because of the cost of the EMS boys who came over to revive me...I wanted to create an atmosphere of doubt in her mind about whether or not I would ever speak to her again.  And, as it happens, I believe my exact words to her were, "I AM NEVER EVER GOING TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN...EVER!"  She just laughed and laughed and told me that she had sent the same thing to everyone.  There was no getting through to her about how upsetting her action had been...how damaging to my psyche.  Those people who scare others just don't care.  Their point IS to scare you so if you get upset, that makes them happy.

I can't wait for Christmas and Jesus.  He would never scare me...well, not like that anyway.
KK
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To me, Halloween only meant that I could go on the prowl for candy all over the neighborhood, and if you didn't have any or weren't at home I would tump over your geranium pot.  Trick or treat!  I was the bad seed on Halloween nights.

The Ancient One, AKA The Stunning One when we were little in the fifties, wasn't one for costumes.  Back then you couldn't get them at Walmart because there weren't any Walmarts.  You pretty much had to make them or put in some energy making paper-mache angel wings or paint a big yellow 'S' on a beach towel so your son could be Superman.  I do remember one year when KK was dressed up like a rabbit with big tall ears and everything.  That's the last costume I remember seeing come out the screen door of our house.  As KK says, we had to use our own imaginations so we went as Tom Sawyer or a hobo.

There was the stereotypical old lady down the block who always made home-made, candy-popcorn balls that none of the kids wanted.  We wanted real candy in brightly colored wrappers or candy corn.  I felt sorry for that old lady because I knew it took some work to make those popcorn balls so I always hit her house and then gave mine to the brown Standard Poodle that lived two doors down.  He loved them but died early, and I always blamed myself for that.  I didn't tell anybody though.

I am ready for the kids this year.  I'm going to be a witch.  I got a great hat from the ritzy drug store that has bats and spiders and bugs all over it, and I'm ready to scare the kids.  I like to scare people, especially little kids.  Anyway, the costumes these days make the kids look really cute and I am half way through with my caramel popcorn balls.  Nyuck, nyuck.

SalGal