Seems like 10 minutes ago

I love lists, I was reminded yesterday when I heard a radio show host musing about his Top 10 movie soundtracks. I got to thinking, do I KNOW 10 movie soundtracks? Oddly enough, all I could think of was Rodgers and Hammerstein's score from the old TV version of "Cinderella." When I was 10, it was a TV special starring Lesley Ann Warren with her charming crooked smile and the handsomest guy I had ever seen playing the prince. He was dreamy, really. I wanted him with all my heart. But back before VCRs, you'd have to wait for "the repeat," when the network would decide to air the show again. Nevertheless, I fell in love not only with the prince but with the music and still can sing just about every song from that show.

Just last year I learned that the 1965 version was a remake. PBS aired the original 1957 version -- starring Julie Andrews, who was absolutely gorgeous then, with a voice as clear as a child's and a waist as big as my wrist. And although early TV productions were pretty crude fare, filmed with only a camera or two and cardboard sets that looked like a high-school play, there was something wonderful and raw about them.

But back to Lesley Ann and the dreamy prince. These songs still make me weep with prefeminist joy: "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?" and "Ten Minutes Ago." Now close your eyes, pirouette and pucker up.

Life sucks, and other adventures of grownups

Well, Monday began full of its usual promise, then slowly unraveled. Gray, cold rainy. My office phone continues to ring: People are still pissed off that UST didn't invite Desmond Tutu to speak here. Our staff gets to listen to their self-righteousness. We have taken hundreds of phone calls over the past 10 days or so. It's tiring, and I wish these people would get over it. I was sympathetic, now I'm just plain tired of tirades from the left, tirades from the right, Israelis, Palestinians, anti-apartheid activists, peaceniks, blog-readers. Right now, they're all nasty.

The phone rings again: It's our new college graduate, due to begin his first "real" job that day, voice shaking. The job has fallen through. Some HR person has told him, "guess we weren't supposed to offer it to you without authorization from corporate" or whatever. Dozers. Jerks. Idiots. They haven't thought that they're cutting off a real person at the knees. I ache for him.

We hear that our next-door neighbor -- who lives in our old house -- has had a stroke and may not know who we are. We never see lights on there anymore. He and his housemate may have to sell the house, as it takes two incomes to afford the payments. His partner is a realtor, and you know how that work is going these days. Meanwhile, he's making breakfast at 3 a.m. because he doesn't believe the clock nor wonder why it's still so dark.

The pattern continues through the evening. Some of hubby's potential customers decide that naw, even though he's put in so much time on their bids and plans and projects, well, they've just decided to call someone else. Sigh. Customers often don't think much of your work being your family's bread and butter, your self-esteem, your raison d'etre. For some reason, these kind of losses feel like knife wounds. And in this economy, these blips are tough to weather.

I didn't sleep well last night, with all of these things aching in my mind. Even the cat was pacing. Ick.

Weekend winners

Every so often No. 2 daughter gives us cause for a real nice party. She ran the Twin Cities Marathon yesterday. It may be "the most beautiful urban marathon in America," but the 2007 edition earned "sweatiest" honors. It was 73 degrees at race time, and by the time we strolled up to watch around 11 a.m., runners were already dropping like flies. Actually, at Mile 23 I saw few runners but lots of haggard walkers. A spectator with a huge mastiff caught the eye of an exhausted runner toward the end of the race. The tired marathoner quipped, "Ya think we could ride him?" Also heard from an entrant on the course, near race end: "When IS that fucking bus coming by?"

Congrats to Emily for finishing, much to the relief of her mother, in under five hours. And congrats to her sister, Nicole, for going beyond the call of duty in the Sister Support Department, entertaining her twin toddlers along the course for two hours while we waited. (Note to readers: A marathon will interest a 2-year-old for about 5 minutes. A marathon will interest a 2-year-old on a sugar high for about 3 minutes.)

Special thanks go to our favoritest niece and nephew-in-law, Amy and Kurt, for a marathon party (read: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) to mark the occasion. There's something special about a day that starts with mimosas and Bloody Marys at 9, continues with strawberry daquiris and ends with Johnny Walker. I won't go into what that something is, but ... a belated toast to our No. 3 child, Nate, who just nabbed his first real job. Here's to gainful employment and another marathon: the repayment of student loans! Huzzah!

Mundane musings

Sorry I haven't been blogging very regularly over the past few weeks. School's back in session, which means I'm actually working in my office all day long. I'm so busy that I come in around 8:30 in the morning, look up at 4 p.m. and wonder what happened. It's kind of like being on another planet for much of the day, then driving home and discovering that everything is sort of like I left it. Which is disappointing, sort of.

So call me a loser, but I recently discovered that I can watch all the TV shows I really like (but, in our house, are pre-empted by the guy who holds the remote) online if I decide to take a lunch break. Woo-hoo! So I can watch "Ugly Betty," "Grey's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives," "Brothers & Sisters" and all those chick shows for which I regularly earn my husband's scorn. I love the Internet!

Fade to black

My office windows overlook the beautiful Mississippi River, interrupted only by the Mankato stone of the St. Paul Seminary. The seminary's oldest, turn-of-the-century buildings are beautiful and stately, but the administration building and student residence, circa 1985 or '86, have some kind of toxic-looking mold growing on them. Maybe it's from pollution or lack of sunlight on the east side of the building or whatever, but every time I look up, I see these golden stone buildings, blackening. It's a little weird because I feel like it's some kind of sign. Time for a sandblasting, I guess. In more ways than one.

Annals of the unemployed

I'm in the prayer mode for all my unemployed relatives: my recent-college-graduate-with-school-loans-to-pay son, my baby-on-the-way nephew-in-law, my long-unemployed nephew who has been living off the earnings of his now-unemployed girlfriend. Sheesh. What's with all of this joblessness? How's a person supposed to eat? For some, like my nephew-in-law, job loss leads to great offers from competitors. For others, like my son, the luster of that shiny new degree is starting to fade with the reality of the crappy job market; he'd probably shovel shit if you paid him and you can't lose what you didn't have, but it hurts just the same. So say a little prayer, hum a little OMM or remove a pin from the voodoo doll, would ya?

What's your name?

Someone I know has a penchant for calling one of her buddies, who's a little spacey but of normal intelligence, "Retard." The other day, I asked her, "Why do you do that? You wouldn't call another friend, who has skin darker than yours, 'Nigger."" She was pretty mad at me.

"How can you even equate the two words like that?" she railed. I stood my ground.

When I was a kid, we used to call stupid kids "retarded." That was before we knew much about real mental disabilities, and we called the people who had them "retarded." Like they could catch up if they only hurried. We also had great fun telling "hair lip" stories until one of our mothers had a new baby born with a cleft palate. He couldn't nurse and had to be tube fed until he had surgery. Our mothers shushed our "hair lip" imitations, so we turned the "hair lip" jokes to "retard" jokes.

A few years later, I learned that "Mary," a sister of one of my mother's friends, was "retarded." I was shocked. Hadn't a clue she couldn't add numbers, drive a car, read a map and do other grown-up things. I always thought Mary was just a friendly, funny and kind woman who enjoyed hanging out with her older sister.

Fast forward about 20 years. My son had to do some volunteering (I know, that's kind of contradictory) during confirmation class in middle school. One of his friend's parents invited him to help his Special Olympics swim team. I learned a lot about mentally challenged kids that year, and so did my son. He was lucky to have one of my "Mary" experiences.

Do we ever grow out of our human penchant for making light of others' misfortunes, weakness, difference? Maybe not. Witness what we still make fun of here in Minnesota: Iowans, drunks, Indians, immigrants ("Ole and Lena" now are "Ahmad and Muhammad"). Do we laugh? You betcha. We're sooooo not perfect here. But maybe we can work a little harder to care about the folks at the butt of our jokes, and we'll eventually grow out of the name-calling years.