After reading so many of the wonderful posts on the site today I had a thought I’d like to share. It’s a nice word about something my husband does every year.

Around the beginning of November, he begins writing a thank you memo to his staff and faculty. This totals about 90 people.

He says something to and about each and every person, from the highest in his administrative staff to the little known person who cleans the school in the middle of the night. Everyone no matter who they are.

His thank you list takes a lot of time and thought. He is careful to be very sincere. The hardest part of it is when he has someone on his staff who is causing problems. A couple of years ago someone was making trouble and actually tried to get him fired by attempting to make him look bad in the eyes of his board. And, yet, even after being given the ok to fire this person, he didn’t and he actually found a paragraph of thankful things to say about this person.

I admire this about him and it makes me thankful for him. We can even be thankful for those in our lives who we may not like or who make trouble for us. They help us grow. They teach us patience.  

So today I’m thankful for all the wonderful people I have in my life but also for the ones who I wish I’d never met at times because they, too, help make me the person I am.

Remember the book and the movie “The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood?”

Well, I realized something. My 80 year old mom is a Ya Ya!

She’s been friends with the same group of girls since they were 16. Even though they’ve all moved to different states, married, had children, been widowed, and just plain gotten old, these women still call one another each and every month.

And they’ve shared some adventures, let me tell ya.

When my mother and her friends decided to move from Syracuse to California, they piled together on a train. They arrived in Los Angeles and moved in together in a small house. Two of the three girls went to work, one of them stayed home to cook, clean and do the shopping. They shared one car. And they had a blast!

One of the friends had to return home so she went back by train. My mom and her other friend, Alice, decided they’d had enough of their California adventure so they made plans to go back to Syracuse.

They bought a Coleman stove and a fold up tent, put their belongings in their car and drove cross country, stopping at camp grounds and pitching their tent night after night. This was in the 1940’s!

I guess I’m telling this story because as Thanksgiving approaches and I think of things I’m grateful for I have to include my mom. Even though she and I differ in so many ways and we’ve clashed often during my lifetime, I’m so grateful that I have her here to share her stories and her history.

This morning I told my husband I was feeling rather flat. I’m homesick for the mainland. I wish I could just get in the car and drive a couple of hours to the next town or across state lines for lunch. In his very valiant effort to fix me, he suggested we get in the car and go to Lahaina for lunch.

Lahaina isn’t going to cut it. But, his thought was in the right place and I appreciated him for it.

I think what’s really going on here is, I’m lonely. I have a smattering of buddies to pal around with or play golf with but I really crave regular interraction with girlfriends. I want to make a pot of coffee and have a friend or two over to just sit and shoot the breeze. I want to grab a girlfriend and go have pedicures and lunch. I want to go shopping, in a real mall with real stores. I want a friend to come over and help me pick out valences for my dining room.

I live in a place that is like a small town. My husband is the headmaster of a private school. Many of the women who I would like to cultivate a friendship with either are parents or board members. The last time I befriended a parent, I quickly learned her hidden agenda in being the friend of the head’s wife. It was all about special treatment for her child and her complaints about one of the teachers. This made me very sad.

It’s much like being married to a politician. Everywhere I go here people recognize me; much of the time I’m smiling and talking with someone who has cornered me in a store or a parking lot and I have no clue who they are. I guess I really don’t mind that too much. I’m a social person. But sometimes being in so many social situations with strangers feels overwhelming.

Ok, so now I’m going to point some of the blame on hormones. I know what’s going on in my body right now. A good portion of my emotional squirliness is being caused by an earthquake of hormones. There’s a strange kind of comfort in this.

At least I know it’s only temporary.

Thanks for listening. I’d love to hear others share some stories, too.

So I just have to say, once again, that being a member of this site has been an enriching experience.

I just got off the phone with one of our members, Cathie Dodd, chattycathie on her profile, and the owner of Tears of Joy Video. We had a wonderful chat, lots of laughter, sharing information, comparing notes about business. She’s a smart lady. She knows her business of video production and editing. I’m sure that I will become one of her customers.

When I came here I was not intending to use it as a place to market my business. I’m isolated here on this island. I miss the mainland and my mainland friends. I needed a place to connect with home. I needed girlfriends.

I found all of that here. Being able to market my business and having my wonderful fab40 friends order my chocolate, well, that was a bonus and it is so much appreciated.

But I feel that this is a place where, for me, lasting friendships will be made. And for that, I’m so grateful.

So as we enter this season of giving thanks, I give thanks for the diverse and sometimes colorful, quirky, silly, controversial community we call fabulously40. And, I give thanks for the friendships that come of it.

I need to vent, just a little, about my computer and I’m hoping for some feedback from those more “plugged in” than I am.

One would think that, if I type something on my keyboard the letters just show up on the screen, right? Is that too much to ask?

Apparently it is.

When I type here on this site, everything flows well and there are no problems. When I type something on my Outlook Express, I have no problems.

However, I recently joined facebook and was looking forward to doing a little fun corresponding with friends but every time I type something there, it’s as if I don’t have a working keyboard. I can pound on those letters and type very slooowly, and, words are produced sporadic at best.

Same with Gmail. I’ve been told that I should just use
Gmail and give up Outlook Express. But, I can’t seem to get my keyboard to work there, either.

Is it just me or has anyone else heard of this?

Now, I’m not complaining because usually it’s so dry here that rain is a welcome sight.

But, this is RAIN. I mean toad strangler, I mean cow peeing on a flat rock kind of rain. Flash flood warnings, monsoon!

It started about the time the kids at my husband’s school arrived in the parking lot. Squealing, screaming, teenagers running everywhere. It doesn’t occur to a teenager to use an umbrella, it’s just not cool.

I just heard thunder which means my cat, Murphy, will be down here in a minute to crawl under the sofa.

I was planning to go downtown today. If this keeps up I’ll have to make it tomorrow. When it rains here, our highways get really flooded.