Postcards from the Funny Farm

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I have music around me as much as possible. It lifts my spirit and makes me more human, I think. Someone might say that I am in my own la la land because I have a playlist for before the kids get here called “Feelin’ Good Classroom Music.” To that voice I say: “No, it took effort to get those songs loaded and it takes effort to press play when I get to work.” I put music and meditation on a high pedestal when it comes to work. In a given day I am barraged with requests from the administration, parents, and of course the kids have many needs. As an educator, it is easy to get caught up in my “to do list” and stress over it. When I stress out, the first casualty is my creativity and that ironically is that can solve most these professional issues of stress.

In short: I need music at the beginning of the day.

I’ve read that every one of the 5 senses has a different component related to memory. Scent, for example, has hedonic component where if you smell something you haven’t smelled since you were a kid, you might recall volumes of memories … it can even be overwhelming causing people to pass out I have read. Music is like that as well.

I have on this songlist music that takes me away to a place where I feel free and open to create and innovate my work. I also have a big comfy desk chair that I bought years ago at a discount furniture. It helps the musical effect, let me tell you! I am a moody person, to put it simply. For me, music is just as important as a drug would be. Recognizing that and being responsible to have a boombox or computer playlist in my work area is a facet of responsibility, no la la land here ;)

There are meditation actions one can take such as TM, prayer, mantra repetition and others. These are also important. There are so man things I can do proactively to have a great day at work. Nothing, however, prepares me better for my job of creativity and patience than quality time hearing musical notes and melodies being played in the morning. Whether it’s Theme from a Summer Place or DEVO singing Girl You Want from the Tank Girl soundtrack, playlist rules and I know it makes me a better teacher in a good mood every day.

Have you made a “Feelin’ Good” playlist?

This is my “creepy” story for Shelly over at this Eclectic Life. She was very kind this past month to ask me to judge her “scared silly” writing contest. This is sort of my “entry” after the fact since I already picked a winner. You can find the list of all the entries in the footer of this post. Anyway, as far as my story goes: I hope it comes across as well as it does when I tell it live. I have many stories from my youth but this one absolutely takes the cake because it is so “ethereal” yet 100% real as well. Rest assured, the following story indeed happened and I have run it through my mind ever since trying to make sense of it on a purely scientific level: maybe you can, I’d be very grateful.

I was 12 years old and my 3 younger siblings were all riding in the back of a brown Oldsmobile station wagon, both my parents were up front. We were driving back in a scorching summer from my great grandparents’ house in Apache Junction, Arizona. Normally the drive from there to Southern California, where we resided and all still do, is a painted masterpiece to enjoy as you make the hours of driving. Today it wasn’t like that because the car was having severe issues. We had pulled over twice to let the car cool off since it was overheating. It was a stretch for miles that presented no gas stations and rarely did a car pass up by. That’s how the scenic route is. When the car overheated a third time, my dad told us all to get out and walk.

We waved our hands at passing cars hoping to get some help. No help came. Finally after what seemed like the whole day, a tow truck pulled up and a guy got out who looked like someone out of Deliverance inly less attractive. His name on his makeshift uniform read: “Butch.” I’ll always remember how that man looked. It felt scary at that moment for me, though my mom and dad seems to feel as if they’d won the lottery.

Butch towed us up the hill to his service station. That’s actually too nice of a name to call it. There was a half-destroyed Exxon sign that was fastened to a set of thin trees with bungee cables. My brother and I bolted out of the car (he carried us all in the car as he towed it which was kind of cool) and ran into what seemed like a bathroom. Inside there were busted up condom machines and leaking water all over the place. It wasn’t even a bathroom, it looked more like a post-nuclear film for the government. We went back to our parents to find an unsettling sight.

Butch was yelling at my mom and dad, telling them the car was fixed and he needed $1200 dollars from them. This was circa 1983 so there were no cell phones and in fact Butch said he didn’t have a phone. I remember the frightening next sentence that Butch said to my parents as I watched a three legged dog hobble into the rest room we had just exited: “Well you’re gonna have to get it cash. I will keep one of your kids while you go into town and get it.” The air stood still. My dad is a very calm man and I have rarely seen him lose it, but he was about there with this man. My Dad then decided to get the family into the car. Butch said, “Don’t try leaving. You owe me.”

In the car my dad, being a Christian men’s group leader, said we should all hold hands and pray. My dad prayed a prayer that really seemed to calm my two sisters who were crying down and it actually made me feel at peace as well. I don’t think you can imagine how good it was to feel peace in that situation for the oldest of 4 kids who felt totally helpless.

Soon after the “amen” a white valiant pulled into the gas side. Since no one had come by the whole time, my dad said “son. come with me” and we bolted over to this car. It looked like a family out of the 1950’s. Two boys with braces and headgear and perfect flat-tops. The mom was primping her hair and the dad looked nerd central. My dad explained our situation to the other dad and he nodded as if he knew it already. He explained that they had been praying as a family in the last town and the mom said she just felt like they should get more cash. So they had the cash we needed.

My dad wrote him a personal check for the $1200. The other dad gave him the cash and we paid Butch.

The car wasn’t even remotely fixed and we broke down again later but eventually by a string of events, made it home. I remember being so tired when I hit my bed that night.

To close this up, I know there are many ways to explain this creepy yet victorious story of my family driving across the desert … but you haven’t heard it all. When the check was never cashed my dad tried to get a hold of the man and his family through the contact info they had given him … turned out the phone and address never existed.

Thanks for reading my story. Like I said, it happened to me and I don’t think I could ever make up something that good. It’s hard to get my mind around that story without believing it was supernatural.

Have you ever seen something you thought was supernatural?

Here are the other stories in the contest, they are all amazing:

THE ENTRIES:

• KatelynJane’s Notebook Scared Silly
• SusieJ entered Definitely something foul going on over there…from her archives.
• Crystal at Song Of My Soul entered from her archives “Hey, at least I can laugh at myself, right?”
• Marcia, at Tumbled Words entered “The mask, three prompts combined.”
• Jessica at Life As I See It entered a post from her archives, “It’s Here.”
• Penelope At Cafe at the End of the Universe wrote “The Bathtub Below.”
• Cyn at Rage Against The Cliche entered “The Tears of the Phoenix.”
• Robin at Around The Island posted “Treed, or rather staircased.”
• Amy Palko at Lives Less Ordinary added “Scare Silly By The Fairies.”
• Cindee at CiNdEe’s GaRdEn entered “How I Scared My Daughter Silly.”
• The Wandering Author wrote “Wake Up, Little Susie.”

It was an amazing Safari last week. I read some great blogs by old friends and added several new ones through the binoculars. Most my new blogs here were discovered through Entrecard.com. Just a little plug for them, they are cool. Check these out. As always, each post received a well deserved Stumble. If you have a post you’d like me to consider on a safari, please drop me an email.

Ask Mimzie Great Q&A in the spirit of “Dear Abby.” Mimzie has other styles of posts where she truly cracks me up with her wit and sassiness. This is a neat little section of her blog. You should check it out and if you like it: subscribe. Oh, and of course you can send in questions.

FreshPeaches I have always loved fresh peaches. This great diet/nutrition blogger tells you all the buying secrets.

My Top 5 Songs From the1960s What are your favorite songs from the 1960’s? Malcolm gives his awesome 5 and invites your input in his comments.

4×4 Sources Of Writing Inspiration: Group W... This is a great creative idea for a writing challenge. If you are looking for a backlink and want to write something creative, do this one with me.

Name Brand and Generic OTC meds A story of how a cougher learned why name brand meds cost more.

My TiVo thinks I am deceased I love TiVo and I found out one of my new blogger friends does as well. Is this something we should feel guilty about? nahhhhhhhh.

How to Use and Optimize for Google Image Searc... Having an alt and title tag within your pictures is an SEO must. In fact, if you don’t have the alt’s it will fail a validation. Katy writes a great post as always with photos showing you how to include these. If you are not doing this, I highly recommend reading this post.

Deflated While the trip do donate platelets didn’t pan out as she had hoped exactly, this post is phenomenal because she manages to photograph step by step her trip to give blood. That is dedication to blogging. This is an interesting post.

Danny Boy Jessica the Rock Chick wrote this little gem of a post about being Irish and about St. Paddy’s Day. The words are poetry as always but the peak of the think is the picture of an actual green river. I don’t even think it’s photoshopped.

Organized, I am Organization is such a powerful tool. This post shows how Marcia is getting her computer stuff organized and in line. I believe when you are organized, you can do anything! Oh, and she’s using Flock as a browser now which is also a great move!

Four Days Off A great reminder to her readers that work is just work and not something to get a “bleeding ulcer” over. I think we all could use this reminder in the form of a diary entry.

Damian A post about being cursed (or blessed) with the name Damien. She gives lots of examples of Damien through history that often get ignored in favor of the OMEN fame.

Movie Review: Vantage Point Is An Original, Exciti... A movie review on the famous “BlogCritics” about this clever, original suspenseful film with an all star cast including Dennis Quaid and Forrest Whittaker.

Do you Know Where Your Widgets Are? Article that examines which widgets are worth your time and which aren’t by giving some basic principles.