It's what day?

Has time ever gotten so far away from you, that you believed it was another day? This not only happened to me recently, but also to a couple of my coworkers.

I woke up one day last week and I thought it was Saturday. I was happy because although I work on Saturdays, it's my "Friday" and the highway for my drive into Sacramento, usually is very light with traffic. It's a nice, relaxed drive to work. Then it hit me, it wasn't Saturday, but Thursday. Seriously, how could I have been so off on the days? Wishful thinking perhaps.

Today, I was heading to my desk when I saw one of my coworkers in the break room making fans. We give fans to guests who are going on one of our walking tours. We call it 1850 air conditioning. I was surprised to see her, because she normally doesn't work on Fridays. I went over to wish her a good morning and found out she thought it was Saturday. She is scheduled to work tomorrow with me, but she truly believed it was Saturday and she wanted to get in early, so her husband told her he had an appointment nearby and he would give her a ride to work.

She didn't realize it wasn't Saturday until our supervisor saw her and asked why she had come in. She wanted to get in early, and by golly she did, a whole day early.

Her husband wouldn't be able to pick her up for a couple of hours, so she started making fans.

Later in the day, I'm walking to my desk and my supervisor asks me, "What's the date, the 5th"? "No," I corrected, "It's the 7th".

Gee, how time flies. It seems as soon as we hit September, the weeks go at full speed until the end of the year. Hold on tight, the busy season is just starting and I'm sure you to will be questioning the day.

Time to Remember Burt

The time is February 11, 1982 and Johnny’s guest on The Tonight Show is Burt Reynolds. One of the segments will include a “This Is Your Life” with Burt because it also happened to be his birthday. The credits were rolling on Murphy Brown when a short promotion announced, “Up next a special episode of The Tonight Show as we remember Burt Reynolds”. I stayed on the channel.

I learned of his death earlier today and immediately, my mom came to mind. Burt was one of her Hollywood crushes; the others were Tom Selleck and Kenny Rogers. It was through her that I too became a fan of Burt Reynolds. The earliest one I can remember is Smokey and The Bandit, with that black Trans-Am and Sally Field. From his interviews, he seemed a person who had a sense of humor, the one who would play the practical jokes. Throughout the years, I saw a fair amount of his movies including Cannonball Run, Boogie Nights, Deliverance, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (with one of my favorites and also my mom’s Dolly Parton), and The Longest Yard. On television, my mom and I would watch Burt on Evening Shade. In one episode, my mom had two of her crushes on the show, when Kenny Rogers was a guest star. 

Then, just a few months ago, I was surfing through Amazon Prime movies and came across one called The Last Movie Star, released last year. It starred Burt as an aging former movie star and his agent is played by Chevy Chase. Burt’s character, Vic Edwards, gets a letter saying he is to receive an award and is invited to come to the ceremony, which was being held near his hometown. The letter states some of the past recipients of the award (which were some well-known actors), and believing that it was a legitimate ceremony, his agent convinces Vic to go. Once he lands in the small town, he realizes things are far from what he was expecting. I enjoyed the film and would recommend it. There were funny moments and scenes which made me cry, as we watch Vic reflect on his life with the help of a straight talking assistant, assigned by her brother, the organizer of the event, to chauffeur Vic around town. Watch it, if you get the chance. It’s called, The Last Movie Star.

Thank you, Burt, for entertaining us through the years. Rest In Peace, and give a hug to my mom. She'd get a kick out of that!

September is the time for babies

For me, September is the time for plenty of birthday wishes. So many of my family members and friends have birthdays in September, including my brother (he’s turning 50). According to an article on Time.com, September is the most popular month for births in America. Nine of the top ten days to give birth fall between September 9^th and September 20^th. The average pregnancies last an average of 38 weeks, which means people are getting frisky in December. It makes sense, not only are many places experiencing cold weather and staying indoors, but it’s also the holiday season with a lot of celebrations on the calendar.

I think September is a great time to have a birthday. The summer heat has started to cool down, but temperatures are still warm enough to BBQ. The daylight is starting to shorten, but there is still enough light out to enjoy some after work activity. The local “tourist” areas have calm down, because the vacationers had to get back to soccer mom/dad duties. This alleviates the traffic and gives the locals a chance to explore the less crowded attractions.

My birthday is in March and it is always a hit or miss, when I want to plan any outdoor parties. Will it rain? Will it be too cold to be outdoors? Will snow block the road to Lake Tahoe?

So which is the least popular month for births? It’s December, with the 25^th being the least popular.

Happy birthday to all those September babies! In the photo is my brother with our mom.

Time to wake up

Beep, beep, beep.... beep, beep, beep.... beep, beep, beep... there goes the evil alarm clock shaking me out of my dream. I keep my alarm under a pillow, because it's just too loud. So I slap my hand down on the pillow to stop the beeps. Time to get ready, to get out of bed. That's right, I don't immediately wake up. I'll turn on my lamp, it's beam position to glare towards the wall and not at me. I don't need that sudden blast of light hitting my eyes. It's 6 a.m., which for some people may not sound so early, but I'm not a morning person so it takes me a bit of time to get myself out of bed.

I turn to my other side, I stretch my legs, stretch arms, and if I was having an interesting dream, I try to go back into it or at least try to remember some specifics of the dream. This time of the year, it only takes about 10 minutes to finally sit up and start walking about. But the time is changing and soon, I won't see any light from outside instead it's going to be dark and the room cold. I'll want to stay bundled up under the warm covers. There have been a couple of times when I fell back to sleep, but 20 minutes and I was awake again. Not too bad, because I set my clock seven minutes ahead, just in case.

I normally get to sleep around midnight, after reading for about 30 minutes. I know I should get to sleep earlier, but even when I get to bed at 10 p.m., I'm just laying there trying to go to sleep and end up going to sleep around the same time. So I stay up. I'm just a night person.

On August 31st, California lawmakers voted for later start times for schools. Maybe it's time for a later work time. I vote for 10 a.m.

As for today, off to the shower to help wake me up.

Time for a day off

It’s Labor Day; time to take a day off from work! Wouldn’t it be nice if everything could just close for the day and workers could spend some extra time with the family, or just sleep in late for one extra day? In a fantasy world perhaps that might happen, but in the real world, retail stores must have their Labor Day sales, restaurants need to feed families who were lucky enough to have the day off, cars sales need to be processed, the ill need tending to, police need to patrol, emergency personnel need to be ready to jump into action, and to those who seem the most deserving of not having to work on Labor Day… the farm worker.

In the heat, in the rain, the farm worker spends hours harvesting the fruits and vegetables we use for our salads, smoothies, entrees, sandwiches, and so much more. Just think of what you ate today? What would your meals look like If you had to go out and pick your produce from the fields?  Would your burger dwindle down to just bread and meat? Gone would be the lettuce, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, pickles, even ketchup (need those tomatoes). There would be no potato salad, Meals would become so bland.

My family on both my mom and dad sides worked in the fields, harvesting a variety of produce, some harvested cotton and I remember my mom working in a nursery, preparing flowers. She would tell me how her and her siblings would go pick strawberries. It wasn’t just during the summer, it was year round. When my mom, aunts and uncles were in high school, they would go pick before and after school. It was a family of eight kids, so it was something which had to be done to make ends meet. 

They knew the value of hard work. I believe it’s something which is being lost on today’s youth, which take so many things for granted. I saw how hard my mom worked. She became a single mom before my brother and I were out of grade school. At times she worked two or three jobs, to keep us in the better side of the city. She was a great example of working hard, and stretching dollars by finding treasures in thrift stores and clearance aisles, and making time to also enjoy life.

As for myself, I did not work today, not because it was a holiday, but because it was my regular day off. I did my laundry, straighten up the apartment, and did some grocery shopping.  I didn’t get that 3 day weekend some people looked forward to enjoying. I’ll go back tomorrow for another normal work week. So to those who were able to get today off with pay, I hope you enjoyed the time with family and friends. My brother and I did get a treat from back home, when we picked up our order of pan dulce (Mexican sweet bread). 😀

Take time to follow your passion. You may have heard the line, “do something you are passionate about and you will never work”. Unfortunately, it’s not always so easy to do. I would have liked my profession to have been a writer or actress. I don’t have the voice to be in musicals (love attending them), but I could have seen myself on stage or as a character actress for films or television. I can say I was an extra once for a Japanese movie called Strawberry Road which was film in and around my hometown of Salinas, CA.

There was a call out for extras, so my friend and I went, not thinking we would be chosen, but we ended up be called in for a nightclub scene. We checked in with wardrobe and makeup, then waited, and waited while the crew worked on the lighting. Finally, we went in to rehearse the scene. I was placed on the dance floor and my friend got to sit in a booth. After rehearsing we left to wait again, until the director was ready to film the scene. So many times of repeating the actions…wide shots…close-ups… various angles… focus on the main actors, focus on the supporting actors, general shots. All day and into the night we worked on the nightclub scene until we got the OK to leave.

Yes, there was a long of wait time, but the experience was also a lot of fun. To my surprise I received a call a couple of days later if I could do another scene. I found myself in the fields of San Juan Bautista. Once I got wardrobe and makeup taken care of… I was out planting strawberry plants as the cameras rolled. Still, it was an adventure. Later the same day, I get another call; they wanted me back for another scene. I had to say no, because I had already taken too much time away from work at a busy time. Just when you find something you think could be your passion, reality hits, and it back to work. I have thought of joining a community theater group, but making rehearsal and show times would always conflict with work schedules. I can’t afford to be without a full-time job, so it makes it hard to follow that passion.

Now, I finally have a full time job, which has more flexibility. I believe it’s time to learn more about how I can participate in local theatre scene, and this 30 Day Writing Challenge is tapping into the other passion!

Time – We never know just how much time we have on this third rock from the sun. Today I was reminded of how precious our time is and how we need to make time to enjoy it.

I was at work, when I heard one the voice of one of the tour guides on the walkie-talkie. She was asking for someone to come out to her group. She left the building about 10 minutes earlier and now she was asking for help. The Tour Manager rushed out and he called back to have us contact 9-1-1. It turns out an elderly woman on the tour looked to be having a stroke. A block into the tour, she trip on a step and fell to her knees, but she continued on. When the manager reached the group, she had an episode of losing control of part of her facial movements, and then she passed out. She was with her family, 12 relatives in the group who had just celebrated her granddaughter’s wedding yesterday. Thank goodness, among the group was an ER Nurse, who noticed the symptoms of a stroke, and did what she could to help her until the paramedics arrived. The elderly woman was taken by ambulance to the hospital to get checked out. A couple of family members left with her, but the rest remained and continued with the tour.

We learned later, the woman had fallen earlier in the day and hit her had on a stairway. She told her family she was fine, but I wonder if she may have received a concussion from the fall. Falling again during the tour didn’t help any, and maybe it triggered the stroke.

We just never know when we will give a final farewell to our family and friends. Just a few hours prior this woman was celebrating a joyous occasion surrounded by loved ones, today she finds herself in the ER where I hope she will be on the road to recovery.

Time, don’t take it for granted.