Christmas Card for All of My Modern Family

Quote of the Day: 

Bah Humbug.

~The Grinch~

Current Local Weather: 

Weather? Drama? Cookies?

Where'd they all go?

Currently on my iTunes: 

Greensleeves

Vince Guaraldi Trio

Currently Reading: 

Skipping Christmas

John Grisham

Dear Friends, Family and my Family of Friends, 

Throughout the last few years I have become a super fan of Modern Family. 

Phil Dunphy is my dream husband, Cam is a close second and to say that I wouldn't be Jay's trophy wife if given the chance...well, ok, I wouldn't, but the family itself has been a source of fake comfort for me over the years. The lessons touched upon in each episode, whether it's not using a taser gun until you know you really need to, or making the most out of a bad situation (like when a relative gets arrested and you get excited about the court time because you get waffles out of it), Modern Family is the IT factor show for me these days. And I'm not a huge TV watcher, so this is a stretch and to go above my usual favorite of Glee, says a lot. 

Recently I watched again, the episode titled: Express Christmas. This was from the third season and if you have Hulu.com, you can watch the episode too if you go here. 

But there is a line at the very end of the show that gets me every time. Yes, I cry. There wouldn't be that emotion though if it didn't have significant meaning to me. Gloria (Played by the classic/timeless latino beauty, Sofia Vergara) narrates the end of the episode with these words: 

Family is family...whether it's the one you start out with, the one you end up with...or the family you gain along the way, which makes every day, December 16th.

I do have to admit that you have to watch the episode to get the last few words of her line, but the core of what she says should be taken seriously. This year I have had drama...ok, I lie, over the last decade or so, it seems as though the familial drama has taken its toll on me. And this isn't just the blood relatives. This is the family I've started out with, ended up with and gained along the way. And it seems that if there were ever a better time to apologize for things that happened in the past that cloud the future, to say those wonderful words: I Love You or to say, thanks for the memories, I'm sorry there weren't more of them...this time would be it.

So listen to this tune and please, read what I've written. This is my Christmas Card to you. Yes...you. All of you.

For the Family I started out with: 

***Pics are in no particular order***

Mom and her Boss holding the Olympic torch

Dad and his Natty. 

Margo and My Uncle Leon. Crazy man, but adorable.

Aunt Pam

Noodle. My favoritest cousin.

Wanted fugitives/Sostheim Men

Sostheim Family

Of course, this group of miscreants multiplied throughout the years. I'm an only child and my cousin Niki, although she had three brothers that are awesome, is still my best friend and closest confidant most days. We've had very good times, horridly bad times and many memories between us. Wouldn't take back or say I regret one minute of time with her. 

The Family I Ended Up With and Gained 
through the years:

Natty's proud daddy and her half-sisters, Evie and Hope.
These girls are such a huge part of my heart. 

Nat's Papa and Gram and Aunt Sherie.  These folks have kept Nat going
when her father and I could not. So very thankful! 

Heather. She lives downstairs from me
and is always willing to help and show love.
Her daughter and Natty Poo get along amazingly well! 

Brent, Blaise and Miles. Meditation
on the fly!

Incredibly talented, Signe Pike and I
after climbing Red Rocks last spring.

Sax player Chris Ward and I in NYC, Jan 2010.
Great listener, friend and amazing, amazing talented soul.

Sweaty, shiny, Cicily and Sean. Sean is the trumpet player
that creates my absolute favorite go-to music. My ears and
soul wouldn't be the same without him.

My first mentor in the agenting world, Scott Hoffman
Along side one of my secret writing crushes, Andy Mele. But no worries, I have
a crush on his wife, Lisa, too. 

Nick Belardes, aka Bakersballs, and I have been
talking online for years now. Finally met this fall. Was
a pure joy and gift to get to spend time with him.

Bonita and C at the retreat house. Giggling
like school girls. She's one of the best people
you'll ever meet. Her soul walks with God and
her words inspire. 

The Toxic Avenger at the retreat house...AGAIN!
If there is anyone who knows how life can
grab you by the balls until you do something
to change it, it's Phyllis.

Celia and my twins. She helped me out  as a babysitter,
grew into one of the best gal pals I've ever had.

Crazy Becki and I posing with
the rest of our friends. 

Dubious Chris Lemig. We were at Catamount
Reserves on Pikes Peak. This is his
best Catalog Modeling imitation. He has
taught me to laugh in the face of adversity
and stick with those that love you at all times.

McEachern High School Seniors, '95.
Without these folks, I would have never known
what real friends did and still do for you
and I never stop thinking of them. 

Doug Crandall and Me. He's the only
person that got me to spit BBQ sauce
up my nose during an interview. 

Best two girls in the world, Ella and Margo.
My 10 yr old twins...

Jake or the other Jake and my nephew, Cole

Another sister from another mister. Sarah Crisman.
She's been there for me through the good, bad, ugly
and through each Snickers and Vodka binge.

My first big band director and life coach: Wayne Goins.
This was taken in my kitchen after our interview. MISS YOU WAYNE! 

Kathy Barker and Wes Barker. 

Kathy started out as a "friend" of my folks and became 

a mom to me. 

Brandee Younger. Long distance dear, dear
 bestie friend & harpist.

Ted, Suellen, Jamie and Ned.
They're nuts. All of them. But they're the best kinds of nuts
you'll ever meet.

Can anyone say, Anne Rasmussen and Cicily
haven't missed a beat in each other's
lives for over ten years now...

Travis and Me at a writing conference.
He's the hairiest man I've met to date...but by far,
he is also one of the most dedicated
friends I have. 

Sometimes family come in funny
shapes, colors and sizes, like Tim Lefevbre.
He's one of the best souls alive.

And you thought I was crazy.
Heather, Shanti and Daniel and
I can talk about ducks, sex and ape babies
and still keep up and understand eachother.

Sorche, Justin, Alex, Jason
and Robin. Retreat offenders, restless writers and
rocky mountain climbers.

Rob and Kaylee.
Does anyone else see the family resemblance?

Ned. Enough Sed.
Without him, The New Face of Jazz
Would just be the New Jazz...lousy title,
lousy author, and especially I would lack my appreciation
for nice clothes and good makeup. ;) 

Marcus. He is just an awesome soul that I love.

My berry cool friends that have become family.
This is for Elizabeth Kinsey, Nick Belardes,
Becki Davis, Karen DeGroot Carter and Paotie Dawson
(who slept through the whole thing) 

Jaijai Jackson. Bibi introduced us two years ago. Her and I are kindred spirits.
This picture makes my heart smile. 

Bibi Green and I, August 2011. Without her
Her words of encouragement & her dedication
to our friendship, I think I would have imploded by now. 

Michal Garcia a.k.a. biting boy
and I on our usual Skype calls. 

Who are these people? Oh wait.
They're AWESOME! LeeAnn, Lisa, Sue, Russ...
the original retreat brat pack.

This is an old pic, but so glad I found it. My sister from another mister and
caregiver with the biggest heart in the world, Karen DeGroot Carter and her lovely daughters
Lauren and Sarah. These women astound me.

Margo and Ella front and center,
Brent, Heather, Alexa and all the other
usual suspects in my building.
Love these folks
to pieces.

Typical family photo. And extended family...
well, can't speak for their involvement. Pete probably
started it.

Noodle and her hubby, Jim along with their son, Cole.

Carly is such a beautiful soul. And a saint
for taking the Joey on. 

Me, Margo, Ella and Nat-nat at the girls winter band concert , 2011

The original recipe Jim and the special recipe Jamie.
Two of my most favorite men on the planet.

Shanna (my gorgeous stylist and BFF) and Sue helping me before
a 2011 retreat. These women are amazing.

Scott Faithful and I in NYC. His poetry and friendship
have carried me through a lot. this is right before seeing Chicago on Broadway.

Heather and Kaylee. This roll
of pics is soooo like them.

Here's my Christmas Wish for you: Although I can not be there in person with any of you, I hope you will feel not only my spirit but the love I have for everyone on the blog, off the blog and in my circle of friends no matter how far or wide, black or white, silly or sane you are at this point in the journey of your life. 

Each and every one of you has touched me in such a way that I couldn't find the words that mean much more than love. And if love is life, then I've got centuries to go on. I love you for who you are and don't ever let anyone change you. You're you for a reason. And the real you is what makes me beam whenever you're around me. 

So, today, I leave you with a few words from the late but great George Bernard Shaw: "If you can not get rid of the family skeleton, you might as well make it dance." 

Yours in Merry Christmas', Making the Most out of My Tears and Moving on to the Next Big Year, 

Cicily                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

The Gift

Quote of the Day: 

The greatest gift is a 

portion of thyself.

~Emerson~

Current Local Weather: 

Nothing outside but a feverish need for a better reality

that has reached levels high enough to 

turn the mind into a furnace.

Currently on my iTunes: 

Little of Your Time

Maroon 5

Currently Reading: 

"The Glass Castle"

Jeannette Walls

***This blog is dedicated to Karen, Tina, Josh, Mark, Sara, Jeff, Ted, Jaijai, Bibi and Heather. 
Thank you all for the gift of your time and love.***

Dear Friends, Family and My Family of Friends, 

I hope this finds you all well. I'm still recovering physically and mentally from all that's gone on over the last few months. But the recovery has reached well beyond the physical realm of being. I've realized that I need to recover emotionally, too. And just like any other type of recovery, this is going to take more time than "I" think it should and more time than any professional tells me it will. Technically, I should be just peachy keen right about now. However, I'm not. There are days in which my depression takes over and there are days where I feel high as a kite just because I woke up without pain. Is what it is. And I've said this before, I'm taking the advice of my best buddy in the whole world, the woman that's the sister I never had but always wanted, Karen Degroot-Carter...I'm treating myself like the mental patient I am and letting things go. 

So what do mental patients do? Honestly, I don't have a clue other than what I've seen in the movies. And if I had to be stuck in a movie with other mental patients, I'd pick being roomies with Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest." GREAT MOVIE. But I do know that they're not rushed to "get better." They don't push themselves too far by trying to do the Laundry and the dishes in one day. They also treat each day as if it matters by taking time out for things that are important like crafts, catching up with family and friends and writing down their feelings and thoughts. 

It's no wonder that we're all going crazy in this country. With how busy everyone is these days, it makes me wonder if any of anything really matters. People are busy, I think, just for the sake of being busy. Multitasking is the way of the future. If you can not multitask with some kind of professionalism or with gusto and accuracy, you're not a candidate for most jobs. What this convalescence period has afforded me is the gift of NOT having to multitask. The gift of slowing down and the gift of having time to ask questions of myself, therefore getting to know myself better. 

I ask these questions daily. Have been doing so for months...years...Does each word I write, matter? Does each person in my life, whether they're near or far, know how much they matter to me? Are my words chosen wisely enough so that I can convey my love to them? When you spend weeks and months of your life alone in a hospital room, you can't help but start to think. You wonder if the reason you're sitting alone is because of the words you said or didn't say...you wonder if the reason you're alone is because people are genuinely busy or that they're freaked out by blood and needle containers and the thought of a sterile environment.  

This brings me to my point. It IS that time of year. The one retailers tell us that we can only show people that we love, that we love them with a gift from their particular store. But in my state of affairs, money is short and time is of the essence. The question I have to answer now, is this: what IS a gift? Do Macy's and Kmart and similar multibillion dollar conglomerates have any and everything I need to show love? 

My guess, and this is just a hunch, is NO. They don't have ANYTHING I need. What I truly need isn't available anywhere, in retail outlets or online. And unlike the Kmart Ad, it's not available today only. Although I've heard the general public say it's unavailable to them, it really is, they just can't seem to find it where they thought they left it. What I need, and everyone else I know, needs, is TIME. Time with you. Time with the person next to you, too. Time to do everything I can to give of myself to you in ways that fulfill your needs and mine, too. 

But the other gift I need is YOU. All of you. I don't need a new watch or even a new car. I did need a new vacuum, but Natalie was kind enough to make sure her father bought me one before the holiday arrived. :) 

As Emerson said in today's quote, the best gift is giving a portion of yourself. Why live or pursue life instead of death if you're not going to have this, this gift of yourself, as your greatest work and asset? If you're going to treat yourself as important as your biggest errand of whatever day you're running errands, then why bother? Are you an errand runner or a human being? Life is a gift. Trite and cliche', I know...but these gifts of time and life and love have to be your swan song. And as someone who has faced the light more than not and more than most people my age, I've began to reevaluate my purpose and understand, rather try to understand, that the needs of others are often greater than what they say they are. 

And although I need things like money and a dose of health, both physical and mental, stability (don't we all) I only truly need you and a little of your time. I called someone the other day that I hadn't spoken to in a very very very long time. We're talking, the last time I heard her voice was some time right after my high school graduation. In 1995. But I happen to see on Facebook that she was attending a concert with some girlfriends, and I happen to know the musicians playing in that concert. So it gave me a great excuse to call her or have her call me and "catch" up and hear her voice. I adored her in high school and always regretted not having more time with her and her brother. Of course, we're all grown now and have kids and lives that are thousands of miles away from each other, but even that little smidgeon of time with her on the phone and via text made my day. And what I've tried to do since becoming deathly ill, is find someone, somewhere, that could use a little of my time and make it happen. And although this is almost always a long distance affair, it is never a regret or wasteful. Even though I don't have many working portions of my body in this moment, giving of myself has been the greatest gift I've ever given to myself. 

I hope that you'll see the importance from my perspective and adopt it as your own. When time is running out, when time is the ONLY thing you have sitting beside you on the couch and embracing you like a lover, then time is the only thing you should be paying attention to and making sure that you're understanding what it really is when you decide whether to use it wisely or throw it away. 

Yours in Time, Teaching Myself Lessons Forgotten and Telling You I Love You, 

Cicily

Lackluster

Quote of the Day: 

My 'fear' is my substance, 

and probably the best part of me.

~Kafka~

Current Local Weather:

Compliant cloudless complacent complaints.

Currently on my iTunes:

"Mad World"

Michael Andrews

Currently Reading: 

This is How You Lose Her

Junot Diaz

Dear Family, Friends and my Family of Friends, 

Sorry it's been since August since my last blog. Everything between then and now has sucked. Ok, moving on. 

There are always going to be things in this world that you, or YOU, can't control. Wars, accidents, baby booms, hurricanes etc. However, I'm starting to believe this: For everything you can't control, there's something you can. You may not see or know what it is right away, but eventually it will surface. When it does, you need to hold onto it in the best way possible. LOVE IT. Don't loathe it or treat it like the black sheep of the family. Hold it, love it, squeeze it and then fix it to your best ability and set it free. 

However, you should know that just because you feel like you're completely out of control, you're never lacking in substance. LACK: Love, Apathy, Compassion & Knowledge. Those are words that should be part of your universal definition. Always. You begin to lack these things and you'll perish. FAST. Life is not a game and it's not something that you can win or lose. Period. You treat it as such and I guarantee that you'll lose at whatever game you're in the middle of. 

So, this blog originated fifteen days ago. I had originally decided the acronym would be the "F" word. But the last fifteen days have changed me significantly. I mean, not in theory, in the flesh and bone kinda way. The kind only doctors, nurses and those that have watched me go through it and that have been through it themselves will and would only understand. It's not something I can describe, but just know that even while you were sleeping, I was changing not just in size, but in mentality and emotionally, too. Fifteen days ago, I was able to "eat" food if I wanted. I was able to sit down with a friend and have an icy cold beer and know that it wouldn't take much to get me drunk. I had scars that were settled and complacent in their vast void of my abdomen. Now, not so much. 

But fifteen days ago I was admitted to the hospital. This was my third gigantic admission since September 26th. This marked my month and a half mark of hospital days. This also marked the first time that a doctor decided to listen to me and what was on my flippin, frackin', mind. And he didn't dismiss me as a hypochondriac, he said, I know. You're more sick than most people your age. As a matter of fact, if I don't help you, you'll die. Soon. You're physically starving. You're already in menopause. Your stomach isn't working. Another ten days and you'll be six feet under. So, what are you doing tonight? Busy? Plans? How bout an anesthetic cocktail and a trip down to the OR? 

Apparently I agreed to this zany adventure. Docs, crazy folk etc. All the same to me. I'm thankful for the ones that take care of you and the ones that try to hurt you. They're all the same, they're human. 

And, you guessed it. I'm writing this blog to you from my captive bed at Skyridge Medical Center in Parker/South Denver, Colorado. I've stayed in four different rooms at this hospital, this time, since the hospital was kinda overbooked for the week before the holiday, I'm in the pediatric ward. Kinda cool and if you hit the right button on the TV menu you can watch funny animal videos from you tube right on your screen! How cool is that? I digress. 

This admission was only four days in length. I'm getting easier to "treat" as far as my symptoms, making my visits to this pie in the sky hotel, shorter. Thank the good Lord. However, my diagnosis keeps getting worse. 

The night before I drove up to this hospital on my third admission, I knew I was going downhill, and in a very major way. I could feel it in my gut. Literally. If I sit around and think about what this all means in the candy dish we call life, I get angry. Depressed. Emotional. Scared....and if I dig even deeper in this bowl, I start finding those parts of me that are complacent, thankful and dare I say it, free. In the fabulous tune by Coin Hay, "Invisible," he sings, I'm invisible...now I can be free. And most of my days are spent feeling invisible. Free. Lackluster, but still me. I'm no longer hungry. I'm not feeling sorry. I'm trying to forget about the fact that I'll probably never be sexually active again or go on a date to the melting pot for a bottle of wine and kissing afterwards...so, I believe most folks call this PROGRESS. 

But when I tell people about my 50+lb weight loss in two months, I get a sigh, sometimes a look of disbelief and then inevitably they pat their belly and say, "Dude, can I have what you have?" And then I ask, really? Would you REALLY want to take this away from me just so you can lose the weight the doc tells you that you need to lose. Because I don't think you would. I'm a woman that loves to cook and cook for others. I have an entire catalog of my own damn soup recipes and I'm the woman down the all-American street in any town, U.S.A. that can't eat her own food. I'm suddenly lacking a big, metaphorically and literally, fat, appetite. A stomach. A life that goes beyond my computer screen. 

Everything that I thought was making up my core body. I'm lacking in style for goodness sakes! I wear PJs more than not and ya know what, they're never in style. Trust me. Go to the people of Walmart site and you'll see what I'm talking about. And what has replaced all this goodness? Suffering. Pain and more days of Crazy than I'd like to publicly admit. 

But what I do know is that beneath all this crazy is still a beating heart, half polished toe-nails (Someone please come to my house STAT to do a mani/pedi on me!) and a great soundtrack playing through my muddled thoughts. So yes, my battle wounds have proved fatal for my looks and love life, but my scars are healing and proving to be regenerating and recharging for the soul inside. And although I'm lacking in places, I'm never lackluster in my thoughts. I'm butchered but not dead...yet. 

Yours in letting go, lackluster lives and lovely souls, 

Cicily