Author: Belinda O

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a Grinch.

Wednesday, for example, while everyone at work was decorating for Halloween, I stayed at my desk and entered data into the computer. I did get up and survey the finished scenery–and that’s what it was, as we had an empty row of cubicles turned into “bootiful bootiques,” skeletons on the phone, graveyards, and heaven knows what else. I just couldn’t get into it.

Granted, I was suffering from some pretty bad shoulder pain, but even without that I doubt I would have been any more enthusiastic. Halloween just isn’t my cup of tea. I have a coworker who celebrates year round, and I think she’s nuts. I keep quiet about my feelings.

Today, many of my co-workers will bring in their kids to trick-or-treat, and I’m really hoping it’s a slow day work-wise as they could get disruptive. The co-workers and the kids. Yes, I’m a Halloween Grinch. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be nice and even fun. But my heart won’t be in it.

As for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’m better about those holidays. But I do have a hard time with all the family celebrations others are having while I’m alone. I sometimes get invited to Thanksgiving at the homes of friends or co-workers, but unless it’s a group of “orphans,” I don’t go. I’m not comfortable with the family gatherings of others, especially when I may only know one person, and that individual is likely to be very busy.

This year, since Christmas is on a Wednesday, I took the Monday and Tuesday beforehand off. I don’t have any plans other than to watch all my favorite Christmas movies, and it’s ticking off one of my colleagues who has plans with her family and has to work because I’m not planning to do so. Well, too bad. I’m just as important as she is, even if I don’t have family to celebrate with.

So maybe that makes me a Grinch as well. But I think it’s more about self-care than selfishness, even if my co-worker doesn’t see it that way. Holidays are hard for me.

I wish I had some advice for those of you who wonder how you can help others you may know who will be spending the holidays alone. I know the suicide rate goes up during the next few months, and loneliness is a big part of it. It’s not a concern anyone needs to have about me, but knowing it is a concern for many makes me sensitive about giving advice. I do okay, but others may not. Be aware of warning signs.

But also know that even those who may be alone may be doing okay and respect their wish to spend the holidays with their cats or dogs rather than your family. It may be a lot more lonely to spend time with a group of people as closely bonded as a family than it is to spend it watching TCM.

Image Credits: Halloween © mandu77–stock.adobe.com; Turkey © Rony–stock.adobe.com; Hands © lululand–stock.adobe.com

Walter is doing his best Oliver Twist impersonation and begging for a little bit more. However, he and Mimi are on strict diets and he won’t be getting any more today! I say strict, but he still eats pretty well, so no feeling sorry for him.

Image Credits: Cesar Cat © Belinda O; Paws in Heart © Bigstock Photos; Cat Eating Pizza © sudowoodo–stock.adobe.com

Yesterday, the local recycling center caught on fire. I don’t know the full extent of the damage, but I’m bummed for a couple of reasons. One, they provided a real service by recycling a lot of large appliances, like washing machines, TVs and the like, and judging from the smoke, that’s part of what went up in flames. Two, that’s where I take my recycling, and the next nearest place is twenty miles away. So I’m hoping against hope that the smaller recycling area will be open again soon. I really don’t feel like driving too far to drop off all my Diet Coke cans.

The smoke was visible from thirty miles away, and we could see it clearly out my office windows, a mere ten miles away. There was so much smoke that it led to some speculation that that center had been a drop-off for tornado debris (we had multiple tornadoes in May) and a lot of wood was burning. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Of course what actually burned doesn’t make it fortunate.

Situations like this are easy to dismiss as news headlines for a day if they don’t affect you directly. I wonder about this recycling business. Of course I’m probably affected in a relatively minor way if I have to drive a distance to drop off my recycling, but I’m thinking of how difficult and expensive it will be to rebuild the center. There are those who will be out a job, at least for a time, and I doubt they were paid well to start with, so it’s probably not a group of employees with substantial savings.

News reporters and newscasters are trained to remain objective in their reporting, and that objective tone can diminish our understanding of the cost of some situations. I appreciate the news outlets, like NPR, that interview those affected so some of the emotion can come in to the story. Still, the story is reported one day and gone the next. Yes, there are ongoing stories, but generally we don’t know the full impact of many of them.

I mentioned the tornadoes in our area earlier in this post. I work with people whose homes and property were severely damaged, and they’re still dealing with the consequences. It is one thing after another. There isn’t always a whole lot of good information in situations like this. One coworker I sit next to was afraid to get FEMA assistance because she and her husband are going through bankruptcy and she thought the FEMA help wouldn’t be available to her. I doubt that that’s true, but she feared even asking, in case she was given inaccurate information and later paid a price.

Now the hurricanes have hit. I have friends who have a winter home in Florida, and they only just today got word that their place survived the worst of Hurricane Milton. Yes, there was damage, but nothing that can’t be taken care of. I feel for them because their home here locally was damaged by one of the tornadoes in May, and they’re still cleaning up after that.

The same coworker who didn’t want to ask for FEMA assistance is planning a trip to Florida in two weeks. We’re trying to talk her into rescheduling, but she says she needs the vacation. Still, she gets on YouTube and watches video of all the damage in the areas she plans to visit. It scares her. I really wish she’d rethink her plans.

The aftermath of news stories is something we don’t always think about if we don’t live them, but it’s there nonetheless. Life is hard. Give to others when you can, especially if you’re lucky enough to come away unscathed.

Image Credits: News Headlines © suratin–stock.adobe.com; Recycling Symbol © Julia–stock.adobe.com; Tornado Damage © Noel–stock.adobe.com

Years ago, it was trendy to make “dead cat” jokes. There were even books with charming titles like 50 Things To Do With a Dead Cat. As a cat lover, I was offended by these jokes, but was told I needed to just laugh at them, that I was too uptight.

I didn’t laugh. And I didn’t laugh when later, at my first full-time job, my operations manager, Bill something-or-the-other, would call me over to him because he liked the swing of my hips. Again, I was told I was too uptight, it was just a joke. Today it’s called sexual harassment, and that manager could be fired for it. Back then, even the other women told me to just laugh along with Bill’s “harmless” sense of humor.

It wasn’t harmless. It deeply offended me, so much so that I can remember what I was wearing the first time he asked to see my walk. I was eighteen and needed that job, besides, there were no company policies to protect me.

Today, as we know, such policies are the norm, in fact, many of them are the law. We see ourselves as enlightened these days in those matters, which leads me to wonder, in what areas do we still need work?

Many advocates for those with intellectual disabilities take the charge against using the “r” word, yet I still hear it plenty. I know most of you reading this blog probably don’t use it, in fact, you may not know what word I’m referring to, so I’ll just say it: “retard” or “retarded.” It’s offensive to me, and many of those who have that disability know that the word, whether directed at them or not, refers to them.

My mother recently encountered an immigrant woman who didn’t know what ice cream is. “How can she not know that?” Mom railed, with more than a modicum of disgust. “Her English is good. I guess she’s just uneducated.”

Uneducated? Because she’s an immigrant unfamiliar with ice cream? That’s not only unfair, it’s bigoted. It’s a word I hear thrown around a lot, and it’s not always said about people with a lack of education, simply people who don’t know the same things the speaker does. Let’s toss that word out of our vocabulary as well, at least when it’s said derisively. Even if people are uneducated, it’s not always their choice.

The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament speaks to some of this, referring to madmen who lie to their neighbor and then say, “I was only joking.” (Proverbs 26:19). I think that lies, in this case, can refer to hidden barbs, comments masked as harmless yet that in reality are loaded with injury.

The fact that that proverb has been around so long tells me it’s a problem that’s as old as humankind. I know it’s probably always going to be a problem with kids, but as adults, let’s focus on growing awareness and help some of those thoughtless comments go down the drain.

Image Credits: Ice Cream Cones © Vector Nazmul–stock.adobe.com; No to Harassment © IndigoElf–stock.adobe.com; In the Middle © Vitalii Vodolazskyi