Little Nikita rentals are going through the roof...

I have hooked up with generations of my family through Facebook. Nephews, nieces and cousins that I would never otherwise hear from are now part of my daily intake on this social networking site.

What amazes me most is the amount of information that I gain from the younger generation.

Case in point. Yesterday, my nephew who is a federal government worker made the statement that rentals of the movie Little Nikita would be increasing. Just that. Just those few keystrokes.

Now, I'm not a news junkie. But I'm married to one. Since DH is a news addicted viewer, I usually absorb enough news by osmosis that I don't need to watch much on my own. But DH is out of town for a short trip. So, I haven't seen any news. Okay, I haven't seen any news that's not on E!.

I jumped to my favorite news site www.myway.com and searched on Little Nikita. And the news stories popped up. The federal government busted several couples who were 'deep cover' Russian operatives ala Little Nikita. Since this movie was somewhat obscure when it came out, and it came out more than a decade ago, I realized that my nephew's comment was tied to the applicability of that label to these modern spies. There will be an entire generation of adults who may not have seen the movie, so they won't understand the news media's insistence on using that as a pop culture reference.

Fascinating, really. I'm not sure if I had read that news story that I would have come to the same conclusion as my nephew. I did see Little Nikita when it came out. I knew what it was about. I'm also a child of the cold war. The Manchurian Candidate and several other big screen movie plots all dealt with foreign countries spying on American soil.

The next generations didn't have the same political experience, it was all glasnost and 'the wall's coming down' for them. His observation that the Little Nikita reference might be flying over the heads of many readers was spot on.

Pop culture references are generally frowned upon in hard news stories. At least they were back in the age of real news. What we have now is more like 'infotainment' and can't be expected to follow the journalism 'best practices' that used to keep this kind of thing from happening.

I've got to keep checking Facebook daily. Who knows what those kids will come up with next?

--Sandee Wagner

I fought the lawn... and the lawn won

I don't generally GIVE UP. I'm pretty hard headed and I will admit to a stubborn streak. I also have no patience with unfinished projects. I want to start something and get it done. Half finished projects will make me lose sleep. Drive me crazy.

So, what I start, I finish.

By the same token, projects that are unfinishable bother me. I speak of yardwork and housework. These things are ongoing, never done. Never completed. They extend past my attention span. It's not that I don't do them. Because they are unending, they don't give me the same sense of satisfaction that a project that Can End will give.

So, I do other things and try to avoid the stuff that gives me no sense of accomplishment. I do housework and yardwork, it just doesn't fill a niche in my soul. I get no joy of a job well done when I do them. Because the minute I'm done cleaning the floor, it's starting to get dirty again.

I spent hours, days, weeks reclaiming my flower beds this year. On my knees, grubbing in the dirt. I hired the grunt work done and paid hundreds of dollars to whip the weeds back. Then stretched miles of anti-weed fabric and wet newspaper layered up to inhibit grass and weed growth.

In the past, we used the free mulch available from the Tulsa Green Waste facility. We backed up the truck and trailer and let the frontloaders dump hundreds of pounds of mulch into the bed. Then we drove home, got our pitchforks and spread it around. When we had weeds, I wondered if it was because the mulch, made from green waste dropped off by citizens, was full of bad stuff? Next time, I would pay for bagged, sanitized mulch.

Well, this summer it was 'next time.' I insisted we buy mulch, not use the free stuff. We threw over 125 bags of mulch. And then I stood back and thought, "There, now it looks good!"

A few scant weeks later, my heart is broken and my will is crushed. The anti-weed fabric is not. Apparently, the grass and weeds breaking through are stronger than the fabric. I'm not sure what the answer to all of this is, but as I look out the windows at my yard, I'm disappointed.

I don't feel 'job well done', I feel stressed and tired. I don't know how many hours of work it will take to upkeep these beds based on the weed incursion, but I'm pretty sure I don't have that much life essence in me.

So, note to self. Next time, desert landscaping.

--Sandee Wagner

Getting Older

I will be celebrating my 50th birthday this weekend. I can't wait. There will be a big barbecue and fireworks. There always is. I was born on the Fourth of July.

I'm not worried about getting older. It's a natural part of life and I've earned my wrinkles, gray hairs and stretch marks. What I am afraid of is death.

Getting older = okay
Dying = not so okay

So, I'm asking all you people who want to joke around with me on my birthday to do so with some tact. You can give me denture cream and a walker... but let's lay off the tombstones, okay?

On my 40th birthday, as a joke, someone put a tombstone on my birthday cake. I almost had a meltdown. It seemed so mean. I know it was lighthearted, but I don't really think I took it as a joke. Death just doesn't seem like a laughing matter to me.

All the nonsense with black balloons and RIP signs just seems so mean spirited when talking about a birthday. Someone who hits the anniversary of their birth--yet again--seems to have cheated death; not earned the need to have their face rubbed in it.

So, feel free to rib me about getting older. I can embrace that. The alternative is what gives me the heeby jeebies. Let's leave the death references to Halloween or All Souls' Day and keep the Fourth of July as a celebration of life. Let's eat cake, get sunburned and light some sparklers. Let's don't get all maudlin and consider shuffling off this mortal coil.

--Sandee Wagner

A Rainy Day

When I wake up in the morning, I can often tell the weather by the feel of my head. Apparently, my sinuses are as sensitive as a barometer. When the pressure changes, or a storm moves in, I can feel it. Mornings like this, I pop a pill almost before I roll out of bed.

On the one hand, I'm happy. I don't have to water the flowers today.
On the other hand, it saddens me. I won't be outside finishing up my art projects.

I'm going to have to run some errands today. Get some stuff done.

On a rainy day, lots of activities appeal to me. I want to curl up and read a good book. I want to watch chick flicks and laugh with friends. I want to hunker down, cook some soup and stay indoors.

Rainy days allow us to step back from the outside rush, take a deep breath, and relax. Heavy outdoor chores have to be set aside for another day. It's God's way of making you take a break.

--Sandee Wagner

Art Projects

The mirror mosaic flower pots are coming right along. I should be done with the mirror on the second one and ready to grout the first one today.

Projects like these suit me in some indefinable way. I started the first one (a birdbath) just because they broke a big mirror when we remodeled our master bath. It already gave me seven years of bad luck, right? So maybe I should try to make something of the broken mirror? I began with the idea of covering a bowling ball and making a gazing ball for the garden. But tiling requires one of the two surfaces bonded to be porous. So I had to look for something besides a bowling ball to cover.

I actually spent hours looking for an outdoor device that I wanted to cover in mirrors. I ended up with a birdbath. I found one that was smooth and rounded. And I began nipping the mirror into smaller pieces and sticking them to the birdbath with tile adhesive. I made two of the birdbaths. One for myself and one for my BFF, Tammy.

My sons mocked my efforts. The oldest told me that when he saw tiny birds with bleeding feet, he'd know they'd been to my yard. Not funny. I lined the edge of the birdbaths with slate tiles to give the little rats something to stand on that wouldn't cut their feet.

I don't keep water in my birdbath--that would actually attract birds and I'm not going for that--it just stands in the garden and looks pretty. Shiny. It catches the light.

It makes me happy every time I look at it.

When I decided I wanted some tall pots to flank the front door, I started looking at the garden centers. You can spend a bunch of money on pots. Who knew? I finally explained what I was looking for to my husband and indicated that I would probably do a mirror mosaic on them.

He came home with four pots. Big ones. They were on sale and he inverted one on top and showed me the height. About perfect, and way cheaper than the tall pots. He took construction adhesive and stuck them together and then caulked the seam. I don't know if it will hold the pots together forever, but by the time I smear them with adhesive and mirror and grout them, I bet they stick forever.

So, as I work on this art project, I find that I'm happy. My knuckles are bloody, by back is sore and I'm thrilled at the creation that's taking place. I love the look of them and I can't wait to get it done and put some plants in the pot. In case you're wondering, I sealed the inside of the top pot so that moisture could not leak through and mess with my mosaic.

It's nice to have a creative outlet. One that allows me to do something that only I need to be happy with. It's a very good outlet for restless hands. I'm convinced that I could find a more lightweight, less messy hobby. But not one that gives me as much satisfaction.

--Sandee Wagner

A Trip To The Farm...

I actually thought that I found a home for my dogs yesterday. I was chatting with my oldest son and he reminded me that he'd take the dogs. "OH!" I thought, "that would work out great!" I can quit worrying myself bald over these stupid mutts... then he completed his sentence. He said, "I'll keep them until I have time to make a trip to the farm."

It sounds rather idyllic. Like he was going to take them out to the country where they could run free and chase cows. This is actually 'man-speak' for shooting them. My son has offered to take my dogs out to the country, shoot them, and bury the evidence.

I wish I wasn't actually considering it.

A run in the country, followed by a quick bullet to the skull might be a better ending to my good dogs than dropping them off at a no-kill shelter. If I drop them off to a rescue league, their chances of being adopted is so slim. Chip is old and cranky. Sophie is obsessive compulsive. They are not going to be endearing to folks looking for a puppy for their kids. Chip and Sophie, between the two of them, are just barely a watch dog now. They have to work as a team to even put a scare into delivery men.

I'm beginning to think, not only about the quantity of their lives, but of the quality. If I know that they are low possibility adoptions, wouldn't putting them out of my misery be a better thing to do for them?

In case you don't see it in my narrative, I am not an animal lover. I wouldn't even be considering no-kill shelters (I didn't even give them a thought) until a reader here sent me a link to a bunch in the area. I would have dropped them off at the humane society and let them take their chances. Even though I know their chances of a quick adoption are very slim.

If they were easily adoptable dogs, one of the readers of this blog would have offered to take them...

Giving them a trip to the country, followed by eternal peace, is beginning to sound like the most humane thing to do for them.

--Sandee Wagner

Handwritten Notes

My darling DIL has asked me if I think the hand written thank you note has gone the way of the newsy letter? It seems like more and more often, we are exchanging greetings via email or phone. Less often, we are taking the time to hand write a personal note.

Because of that, I think the hand written note is actually gaining prominence in most people's lives.

If you take the time to write a thank you note, then the gift was of great or exceptional value, or the occasion was a special one. I still expect hand written notes from brides. When houseguests stay for a while, or someone uses a car or other big ticket item, it seems okay to just give thanks face to face.

On big gift giving occasions, like Christmas, I still think you need to send thank you notes to anyone who mailed you a present. It's the one way they are SURE that you received the gift. However, if you call on Christmas day, to exchange greetings, you can wax effusive about the gifts and preclude the need to write a note. If the person is sitting in the room with you, a sincere 'thank you' ought to cover it.

I try to write thank you notes. I don't always do so. I think there have been some holidays where I didn't write a single note... but I normally try to get them off into the mail before New Year's Day. I do feel guilty if I don't get them written.

Good manners never go out of style. There is no time when someone would open a hand written thank you and think, "why did they bother with this?" or "they could have just texted me!" Even though it's going out of vogue, hand written thank yous will always have a place in our high tech society. They are a sign of affection, gratitude and respect.

I don't write many newsy letters long hand any more. Most of my family is Internet capable and technology literate. They are easy to text, skype and email. But each year, I will send out Christmas cards and thank you notes. I think everyone enjoys a little personal contact once in a while.

--Sandee Wagner