Taken In

Writing post titles amuse me. Almost always, at least with mine, there's a double entendre that occurs to me. The first one that occured to me this evening was of the dress-alteration variety because, thanks to Adrienne at The Rich Life on a Budget, I have a lovely new red dress hanging in my closet, waiting for me to create an "occasion" (mind you, I shall).

I suppose this could also be about taking in a child or a stray animal... But it's not.

No, this post isn't about anything quite so enjoyable.

It's about this letter* I received in the mail yesterday, accompanied by a $997.70 check from a hospital's account, drawn on a Wachovia Bank in Virginia:

Melrose Markerting Inc.
465 Edgar Ave
Vancouver, BC
V5M 8K9
Phone: 1 905-598-0206

DATE: July 29, 2011
CLAIM: GR27630602

SWEEPSTAKES CLAIM NOTIFICATION

FINAL NOTICE
We have made unsuccessful attempts to contact you regarding your Consumer Rewards Program winning.

In accordance with the Consumer Rewards Program Commission Policy, your prize award money has been forwarded to our clearing / disbursement institution to release your funds to you.

Your lump sum payout is US $9,600.00(NINE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS) CONGRATULATIONS!

Kindly contact Claims Agent Kelly Evans at 1-905-598-0206 as soon as you receive this notice for further instructions on how to claim your grand winning.

We have enclosed a check in the letter. Per your state regulations, you will be required to pay a tax and processing fee before your lump sum winning can be sent to you. Payment will be made directly to your tax agent. You will also need to fax you tax payment receipt to the fax number above.

Yours Sincerely,

N. Deeks
Nathan Deeks
PROMOTION MANAGER

HOURS: MONDAY TO FRIDAY FROM 9AM TO 6PM

A word of explanation. Okay, several words. First: I am almost relentlessly pragmatic. My dreams, and I do have many, are quite attainable, mostly rather practical. (Some people might say, "Boring." Doesn't bother me a bit.) Second: My days of being dazzled by get-rich-quick and MLM ventures (a.k.a. pyramid schemes) are long over. I admit to some particularly poor choices in that arena when I was in my early twenties. Third: I really don't believe in "something for nothing".

That said... I was momentarily taken in. Sure, I was skeptical, but I have given in the to occasional online or phone survey that offers entry into a sweepstakes just for participating, so there was a possibility, albeit a very slight one, that this could be legit. My husband and I Googled every part of the company name, address, people named in the letter, "Consumer Rewards Programs", etc. and found nothing at all - certainly nothing that screamed, "SCAM!"

Then I did the next logical thing that occurred to me: I picked up the phone and called the number. The woman who answered identified herself Kelly Evans. I asked her a few questions about the process, told her I didn't recall having entered any particular contest. She said she could answer my questions, that I wouldn't have to make the tax payment until I filed my 2011 taxes, but that they send the first check of approximately 10% so that there's a kind of proof that you have enough to cover the taxes when they do come due and to verify that the winners have been informed of the taxes on the winnings. (Or something along those lines... It's late and there's a 7-year-old babbling at me just now...)

So I allowed myself some uncharacteristic daydreaming. (Note: I do daydream, frequently, but usually about fiction stories I'm writing.) What could I do - what WOULD I do - with $8,600 (approximate post-tax winnings).

I would pay off the majority of my credit card debt - enough so that I could pay off the remainder by the end of the year. I would pay for my car tags (which are due in a few weeks). I would pre-pay our car insurance for the next six months. I would give my mom a little extra to help cover expenses when she comes to visit next weekend. I would take some extra with me to visit my family up north when I go in a couple weeks.

See? Practical and pragmatic and responsible. Alright, you caught me, there was one final purchase on the list: a new yoga mat from Manduka. Specifically, The Goods Package:

I'll take mine in Electric Midnight Thunder, please.

So it was with some trepidation that I took the check to the bank today. With that much thought invested in it, a part of me had already formed an attachment to the idea. I didn't have a clue about any of this before yesterday afternoon, yet by today at lunchtime, it seemed almost "mine".

Then the bad news... Apparently, it's a common fraudulent scheme. You cash the check, you make the tax payment, you never get the remainder of the "winnings". And I experienced disappointment. Mixed with a tinge of embarrassment because the girls behind the counter immediately made those, "Oh, we've seen this before, it's fake" replies to my inquiry about the check, along with the unspoken, "Really, you must've known all along that this was too good to be true."

Yeah, I guess I did. But I'd let myself hope all the same.

It's probably a good, serendipitous thing that I've been re-listening to the podcasts that Oprah did with author Eckhart Tolle a few years ago as a read-along of his book, A New Earth. There is a lot of explanation about forms and attachment to forms and emotions of pain or sadness that can arise when you lose a form to which you have formed an attachment. This check and the promise of winning this money had become my big moment of change, my turning point where I finally have all (or at least most) of my ducks in a row, and can move on to the "bigger and better" parts of my life.

Sweetheart, it ain't gonna be quite that easy. It will take time and effort and there is satisfaction to be had in that thought and those actions. I staved off the tears with some conscious breathing, allowed myself to feel taken in without pointing an angry finger at "those people who did this to me". I was grateful that I'd thought to take the letter with me to the bank so that they can follow it up and maybe catch the perpetrators. I was also grateful that I didn't blindly deposit the check, use the money then find out later that I would have to repay it. That would've been far worse than losing it before I'd really gotten it.

My credit cards will wait for me to pay them off in my own plodding time. I will come up with the car tag money from somewhere. I will pay the car insurance monthly if need be. I will cook for my mom when she visits, fill her tank up before she departs if I can. I will take whatever money I am able with me on my visit up north.

And I accept that I will get The Goods when the time is right for them to be part of my life.

*I did my best to recreate the letter faithfully, including the misspellings. I was going to scan it, but my scanner is being crabby... If it turns out that this is NOT a scheme, I will remove this post altogether so that I cannot be sued for libel or slander or defamation or whatever.

Aye, Dream

Giving myself permission to dream big can be a real stretch. Yes, really, it's true - I'm such a pragmatist, perhaps because I'm a Virgo or perhaps because my father and his stepfather are both practical men (also Virgos) who heavily influenced my thinking. Often enough as a child, I'd make an offhand comment about something I wanted and one or the other of them would launch into a detailed explanation of what steps one might take were one to actually attempt to acquire the object of my desire. All three of us are also left-handed and creatively inclined, particularly in pursuits that require logic - for me, that means crocheting with its attendant mathematical constructs.

But back to dreaming… When my husband (and I love him for this) talks about his next big idea or the book that we're writing together, he thinks so far out of my comfort zone that I tend to just sort of tense up. With our book, it may be, "We could be the next J.K. Rowling with the next Harry Potter!" or "We could have movies made from our series, like Twilight, Percy Jackson or His Dark Materials!" Always punctuated with an exclamation. All of which makes me feel very nervous and as though I'm standing on the edge of a precipice. I don't want to disappoint him, but J.K. Rowling is probably a once in FOREVER phenomenon and sure, movies regularly get made from books, but we haven't even finished chapter one of ours so that possibility seems impossibly far out beyond the horizon.

Still, his dreams make a good counterbalance to my own. Mine that often look something more like: "Maybe I'll get a blog post written this week," or perhaps "I'd like to try to get three loads of laundry done AND put away this week."

What would I dream up if I allowed those boundaries to really dissolve? Don't know - let's find out…

I dream of travelling around Europe and elsewhere to experience different cultures firsthand, allowing my remaining preconceived notions about what's "normal" to fall away.

I dream about a writer's retreat that is a small but cozy space with a kitchen(ette) and a place to lie down for a cat nap (or a rip-roarin' snooze). Maybe a Mother-in-Law's cottage adjacent to a larger home, maybe an elegant loft in a large city, maybe just a gussied up tool shed. I've actually entertained the latter quite recently during trips to Lowe's and Home Depot - aren't they adorable? Ostensibly, they'd be heated and cooled by solar power.

Outdoor Living Today's Pentagonal Penthouse Garden Shed at Home Depot

  

Cedarshed Clubhouse (8' x 16') at Lowes


I dream about having plenty of cash on hand for whatever might arise, need or want, so that I don't have to scramble about, make do or resort to a beg/borrow/steal mentality. By this, I don't mean millions of dollars. Frankly, I don't know how I'd quantify it. A bank account that perpetually had a balance of any given whole number followed by at least three zeros would probably fulfill this criterion. Four zeros wouldn't be bad either…

I dream about contributing to my/our world in a meaningful way - making gum (more specifically, reporting on the process of making gum) certainly isn't wrong in any inherent way, but it doesn't really feel like we're doing anything of genuine worth to improve the world in any qualitative way. Quantitatively, we're manufacturing a lot of "stuff" and I might have just a wee issue with that, but we're not the sole contributors to that monster, so…

I dream about writing books that people enjoy reading and purchase as gifts for their friends and discuss over cups of tea (or coffee, if they must). I'd even be tickled to hear complaints because that still means I've triggered something in them strong enough to elicit a response.

I dream about helping people begin to peel back the layers of gauze that obscure their sight so that they can see more facets of the amazing, wonderful, beautiful, astounding, awe-inspiring world of people, animals, plants, minerals and elements around them. I am already working on my own gauze, wispy and ethereal as it is.

I want to help other Picky Eaters become Persnickety Eaters in whatever form suits them best. And write memoir cookbooks of their journeys and my own.

I do dream. I can dream big and vague and not worry whether my dreams are at all feasible or how I might accomplish them or in what timeframe and with what resources. Yes, I acknowledge that manifesting my dreams - any of them - will require specific action, but never worry. Worry serves no purpose but to delay progress toward whatever goal I might pursue.

What are your BIG dreams?

Just Weight

There's this conversation that plays in my head, not a perfect loop because it changes slightly with each iteration. The tone varies from mildly disappointed (a sort of "tsk-tsk") to aggressively condemning (this end of the spectrum is rather frightening). The content has been more or less unchanged for the past twenty-odd years. Yes, it occurs to me that that represents just over half of my lifetime.

A sample, at any given moment, might sound a bit like this:

You really shouldn't eat that [ hot dog / Dairy Queen Blizzard / cheese pizza ] because you've already had plenty of food today. There's no real reason why you should be hungry at all. If you have to eat something, it should really be a vegetable, but nothing too heavy. No pasta, no bread, no cookies. Really, you're a size what? And why haven't you been to the gym? If you really wanted to, you'd make time to get to the gym, at least several times a week for at least an hour or so each time. And you should always have all the laundry done so you won't ever need to scrounge for gym clothes. You used to be really fit when you were younger, what happened? The [ shirt / bra / jeans ] you're trying to squeeze into are going to show all of your fat rolls then no one will see anything but that, not listen to anything you have to say because they'll be gawking in horror at the rotund and obese monstrosity that stands before them masquerading as human. Perhaps it'd just be better if you hid somewhere, better than exposing yourself to other people. Why did you let it get this bad? What is wrong with you that you didn't fix this before now? You've been thin before, even if you didn't always know it; surely to goodness you can do it again.

So… I'd better stop there because it's only getting uglier by the second; I've already got a lump the size of a baby whale in my throat and tears threatening to spill. Something to know about me: I would never even entertain harsh thoughts like that about any other person. Sure, there might be a couple folks out there whose actions I find utterly reprehensible and disgusting, whose demise I certainly wouldn't mourn, but I wouldn't layer two decades worth of harsh, judgmental criticism and scathing hatred on them? Just, no.

I wouldn't pile the pyre that high then never set it alight, never set it free.

What is it in my psyche that clings to this? Why can I not seem to bring forgiveness to myself for this one aspect of my self? Why does every single food choice, each morsel that I lift to my mouth, have to come under scrutiny? Why have I equated the number on the scale or the size of my clothing to my value as a human, my worthiness of approval and love? How can I release the guilt, accept myself as I am in this moment, know that I will change when I put the effort into changing, and be okay with life as a process, not an end result?

I use this blog to explore those things which most challenge or inspire me and I understand that sometimes makes for morose reading. Strangely enough, many friends have equated me with sunshine, told me I'm someone who brightens their day, which is my way of sharing with readers that I'm not always a wound-up ball of self-despising panic. Just internally. Hahahahaha.

I am getting help to work on changing these mental patterns but the written word has long been so cathartic for me. It's my best refuge from the storms in my brain, the perfect safe harbor. From here I can explore the things I can't always speak out loud lest the tears fall and lay me bare to endure more hurt.

Oh, the psychology of it all… it's just weight, not who I AM.

Pregger Dreams

My dreams have always been fairly vivid. I recall a few recurring dreams from childhood that seem to gain new layers of meaning with each year that passes. It's also fairly well established that the fabric of women's dreaming changes while they are pregnant (a quick Google of preganancy dreams yielded over four million forty thousand hits).

So it's not surprising, especially given my experience with the Noodle Dude, that I would have a dream about the new baby not wanting to nurse. Well, it was more than just that, actually. I basically "awoke" (within my dream) to find that my child had been born, I had no recollection of the event, and somehow had NOT needed another C-section (as I had with Noodle, for breech positioning). That's startling enough, but then to be handed my infant, who was at least a few weeks old if not older and who began to suckle hungrily, but became almost immediately uninterested was very unnerving.

As a really weird component, the child was distinctly (and beautifully) mulatto. Though I've never dated anyone other than Caucasian men (for no particular reason) and am married to a Caucasian man, I've always thought that mulatto babies were the most beautiful I've ever seen and wanted one that shared my genes. Especially a boy. I couldn't determine in my dream whether my baby was a boy or a girl (I didn't defrock them), but I think it was a girl.

Since it was the first pregnancy dream this go 'round of which I have more than a vague recollection, I figured I might as well document it. The baby won't be mulatto (unless aliens have swapped out the DNA) and we don't know the baby's sex yet. I do very much hope that I am not "absent" from the delivery and I have sincere hopes that breast feeding will proceed better this time than it did last time!

Perhaps I will enlist Noodles' buddies to assist with keeping the unpleasant dreams at bay - how could the boogeyman fail to be frightened away by these two:

A "Gaggle" Got Me Going

Gaggle
–verb (used without object)
1. to cackle.
–noun
2. a flock of geese when not flying.
3. an often noisy or disorderly group or gathering
4. an assortment of related things.

gaggle. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gaggle (accessed: February 05, 2008).

I looked this word up (on my fourth browser tab this sitting) because I was reading a newsletter from a link in my email that talked about writers establishing websites for themselves. I have had a couple blogs, this one included, that I have kept up only sporadically and a domain I have never used... Just like the last domain I never used prior to both the hosting and the domain running out. (Fifth browser tab opened to check and see who's using that old domain - hmmm... not terrible: http://www.craniumstudios.com/)

Anyway, I was thinking of my currently unused domain/hosting services and began to ponder text for it. What else does a writer do if not ponder text, eh? I envision some melding together of my like-minded friends' talents and in such a vision, some of the intro text might look something like this:

Our gaggle of gals boasts impressive talent in a variety of creative milieux. Passion for community in its myriad forms brought us together and we've all grown thanks to the experiences we've shared. Now we would like to share those experiences with a larger audience.

I know, it's raw, but I like the words "gaggle" and "milieux" - And I know what I mean, so let's just call this a rough draft. Maybe I'll lose the alliteration at the front end.

Okay, so here's the call (don't worry, I'm sure I'll make it again in person) - To all my Black Hats and other like-minded female folk, I would like to extend the invitation to launch Persnickety Me with me. I might need some whipping (won't that be fun?) to keep at it, but I need (on so many levels) to complete this one thing. I'm happy to find space for links, arts & crafts for sale, recommendations, articles, whatever floats anyone's boat. I'm learning the computer side so it might be very basic at first, but I've got a couple tricks up the proverbial sleeve.

See you all real soon!