I Accidently Summoned a Lemon!

 

I grew up in a house with parents who tended to be Passive-Aggressive. For example, they never told me what I did wrong; I had to guess. Dammit! There were too many choices! Since I was a dumb kid, I frequently didn't know that I had actually done something wrong, so my response was, "I didn't do anything!"  And their response was, "That's the problem!" I still don't know what that means.

One day I was visiting my sister and I accidentally shut a kitchen cupboard a bit too hard. She came into the kitchen and asked me if I was upset. I looked at her, trying to think what I did to be asked...aha! The cupboard door! And started to laugh. I told her at what I was laughing--Mom would never tell she was mad but slammed cupboard doors. Sis started laughing as well. Like Pavlov's dogs...there we were.

I majored in Communication in college. It was there I learned about double-binds and passive-aggressive communication. Recognizing this as behavior I had witnessed growing up and was actually practicing, I worked hard on how to respond in a positive manner rather than the same-ole-same-ole. Instead of trying to guess when Mom or someone would give a vague request that sounded like a loaded question, I learned to ask what was wanted. That way I could decide if I wanted to follow-through. Instead of having people guess what I was REALLY saying, I said what I was really saying. (and yet, how many men told me what I really meant. And I'd tell them if I had meant that, I'd have said that.  Some learned....)

And I learned how to calmly and responsibly argue with someone. I learned to take responsibility for how I feel and state it as such--instead of saying "you make me feel/angry/crazy," I'd say, "When you do this (describe the behavior), I feel this way," (describe how I respond). Now this was a great way to disagree as I am taking responsibility for how I am feeling and describing the behavior of the other. Hopefully this can help them not feel attacked and we can talk about the behaviors and the feelings. 

Okay, the truth about the best part of arguing was that I smoked.  Yes, it know it's a stinky horrible habit, but it was great when arguing.  I could think before speaking because I could take a puff or two before responding. And then the response could now be a thoughtful calm statement.

Yes, that was when I was a smoker. [un]Fortunately I quit smoking on March 24, 2001. And suddenly I had no filter! OMG! Everything that entered my head flew out of my mouth. I found I was terrible at the behaviors of staying calm and responding respectively!

I thought about taking up smoking again so I could get back to my good discussion behavior. But naw...that had been too much work quitting. So instead I started to try to practice calmness. 

Do you realize that when someone is calm while another is angry and frantic that this makes them more angry and frantic? Yeah I didn't either. Communication research says that we will match each others communication behavior...but either I'm suppose to get angry and frantic or I'm suppose to walk away because being calm never calms the other down. *sigh*

Well, there is a reason we are simply "practicing communication".  We all want to be understood; how we achieve that is often a mystery. I hope I can get this right at least a day before I die. 

Nirvana

and so it goes~~~
peace

Finding the Perfect Ratio

As kids, my sister and I ate cereal every morning for breakfast. We loved cereal. Mom would allow us to select our own cereal. For many years, our selections had to be non-sugar-coated selections. Dad loved Wheaties. Mom loved Grape Nuts. Kix was good choice for us.

Pat and I always ate breakfast together. The story we heard from our parents is that one morning when we were very young, Patty came into our parents bedroom on a lazy Saturday morning. "Moke," she said to the sleepyheads. "Make moke go way." Yeppers, they jumped up and ran into the dining room to see the toaster on fire. My sweet big sister was making the two of us breakfast of cereal and toast. The bread caught in the toaster and set the dining room on Smoke. The burnt spot under the cabinet was still there when Mom sold the house in the late 1990s.

Yes, breakfast was a sister-together project.

As we grew a bit older, we would read while we slurped our cereal. It started by reading the cereal boxes. The backs of the boxes had reading and crafty stuff. There were adventures. There were advertisements. There were things to cut out and make. Heck, they even had records on some of them. Very entertaining, these cereal boxes. And when Mom allowed us to select certain sugar-coated cereals, life just got better and better. Sugar and wheat and box-backs! Pat's favorite was Sugar Crisps and Sugar Pops. I loved Alpha Bits. Oh and when they arrived in 1958, I loooooved Coco Krispies.

Now there was always a problem with the balance of milk-to-cereal ratio. Often when the cereal was gone, there was too much milk left. So we would need to pour a bit more cereal into the bowl. You know, to keep the ratio correct. And perhaps a bit too much cereal was poured into the bowl; therefore, we needed to add more milk. This might go on for a few times before we achieved the best ratio. We went through many boxes of cereal that way. Coco Krispies was very difficult to find that ratio ;)

So we read, kept our eye on the perfect ratio, and enjoyed breakfast. We moved from the back of the boxes to bringing books to the table. And there we'd sit, slurping cereal, reading our books.

As we grew older, cereal became a true comfort food for me. As an adult, I couldn't buy it because I would eat too much too fast. It didn't matter what I'd buy. I even tried Wheat Puffs, but to make them palatable, I needed about a cup of sugar.  So I changed my breakfast to eggs and toast, or simply a drink of something--maybe milk or juice. Now I make myself a Iced Chai Tea Latte every morning. I still read while I eat breakfast. Breakfast is for reading.

My sister never left behind cereal for breakfast. She has it every morning and happily goes about her day. Whine she was here nursing me back from knee surgery, as with every visit, there was a box of cereal for her. She would make my breakfast of eggs and toast and latte, but rarely ate anything but cereal. When she left (thank you so much for helping me!), Doug made my breakfast for me. 

When I could stand for a bit longer, I began to make my own breakfast. I found that pouring a bowl of cereal was much faster than making eggs and toast. I started by eating the remainder of Pat's cereal instead of cooking something. Then, with my bowl and little plate, I'd hobble back to The Chair and settle in. Instead of reading, I started watching old episodes of Perry Mason. Why Perry? Well sure...because he is Perry Mason.

And now, thanks to my sister, I have cereal again every morning. As an older adult, I no longer buy Coco Krispies (I still can't control myself!) but eat Raisin Bran Crunch every morning. Milk is poured just right so that there is a bit left over to slurp from the bowl. 

Who wants to cook eggs when you can simply pour and slurp?

And so it goes...it's all my sister's fault that I must have a bowl of cereal every morning. That's just the way it goes.
peace~~~