Gratitude. It's the key to abundance. So why have i lost that key so many times?

I think The Clapper is ingenious. You lose something, like light in a dark room. You clap for it, and BOOM! There is light! Now put it into play with my keys, which I am constantly losing. If I wasn't sure I'd look like a wilderness kid clapping to scare the bears away, I would hook the clapper on my key ring so I can hunt it down effectively at 6:33 AM when I'm running out the door to work. Hmmmm, now let's think about it for a second. I would be grateful for the Clapper, if it were attached to my keys. But, I would still trip over the cat, the last pair of jeans i wore, the unicorn Paint-By-Numbers set that my daughter was working on, and the book, "Dr. George Washington Carver" (it's a good read. i highly recommend it.). Because i still would run into the room, late at 6:33 A.M. and be in too much of a hurry to turn the light on! But that's just me. My common sense doesn't kick in until at least 8:07 A.M. i wish i had a clapper equivalent for gratitude. i mean, really, there are so many great things that come with life. Lessons, good or bad, have a consequence and a silver lining sometimes. But i find that the gratitude gets lost sometimes. Somewhere under the books, the pets, the business of life, the gratitude for those very things can get lost. And don't even get me started on lessons and gifts that are coming my way every day! The miracles that show up every day seem to fade into ordinary routine, until gratitude is factored in. For instance, I don't think about electricity, until a snow storm makes me frantically look for a flashlight (ANY flashlight, including the pink one under my daughters bed, or the pen light on my keys... which i can't find in the dark, without the Clapper). Also, I never think about the battery in Hoss, my ridiculous but comfortable vehicle, until I'm running out the door at 6:34 a.m., slide into the leather seats, anticipating the warmth of the bum warmer as i turn the key, and i hear the "CLICK-CLICK-C.L.I.C.K.-cli..." and then nothing. Then I'm thankful for the battery chargers that son #1 automatically has in his truck as he fixes me up and sends me on my way. You know, stuff like that. Gratitude is the key to abundance. It is just up to me to find the silver lining when the lessons that come my way aren't easy, or fun. Thus the Clapper idea. Of course, that would be too easy. When son #3 says he doesn't like my cooking (again), i could just clap at him, and I'd be grateful we had food at all. Or grateful that i didn't strangle him with a wet noodle. Maybe i should get a gratitude Clapper for him. Then he can be glad i didn't make him eat my hamburger/eggplant/noodle surprise.

So a trout walks into a bar, and orders some Spam....

INFATUATION. Yark. Not because it isn't fun. Yark because, well, infatuation is the limbo of the harsh reality of love. There is a start. There is a middle, and sometimes, there is an end. Infatuation comes in like, ummm, like...like the spam on a hook to bait the unsuspecting river trout. Trout: Just floating along, maybe looking for a bug, or a bit of Flotsom to chow on. Maybe just feeling out the current. Then WHAM!!!!! A bit of Spam is just dangling along in the current with him/her. "What kind of goodness is this?" He thinks....And takes the bite of apparent goodness. Only, after he takes that first blissful bite, with maybe a bit of perma-grin as he looks around at his trout-posse, knowing THEY don't have Spam in THEIR mouths.... does he realize that this goodness comes with some commitment. And that's what I'm talking about. The hook. Now this hook is just there, shoring up the Spam of love, at first. We may even call it fun, a tool, or no strings attached....Spam. But there is, each time, a leee-eetle bit of e-ouch!-what-was-that?...ness.... It may even be that as long as it does not start to pull too much ,too hard, or too many times, that we can get used to that Spam flavored hook. Ok enough with the fish stories. All hooked fish end up getting pulled out of the river of comfort to be dashed against the rocks of reality at some point. Depressing? YOU try having a spam covered hook in your mouth, with all your friends laughing at you..... I guess what i think about infatuation is this: It HAS to be that alluring, because if we knew or thought about what happened AFTER the infatuation, we may just pass on it and go back to the safety of our ho hum lives. OH YEAH..., our lives seemed so ho hum, before infatuation came sniffing around. All of a sudden, it doesn't matter how late we stay up, how little sleep we get, how many dollars we may spend, or how many daydreams float by at work, as long as we can get just a LITTLE bit more of the elixir of love. DANG IT!!!!! And while we are at it....Have you ever wondered about how stupid we look to others when we are infatuated? like the fish with a hook in his mouth swimming around looking smug. What his friends see is a fish that's going to get it in the end. But the hook guy is happy about it!!!!!! Ok well , the same thing happens on dry land. Our friends look over our heads at each other and roll their eyes. Or when we are texting with that stupid perma-grin look on our face?..... Yeah, they roll their eyes then too. Now why do they roll their eyes??? BECAUSE THEY KNOW THE DIFFERENCE between love and infatuation, apparently. The only ones that don't get it are the ones going ga ga in stupid meeting places, like across a crowded KFC to get together for 1/2 hr of what-if-ness. Like i said before, Yark.

If he laughs at THAT joke, he must be a horrible guy....

Always keep a quarter in your purse, just in case... Keep your ankles decently crossed.You never know who's looking..... Have a friend call with an "emergency" when you get in trouble.... Look in his bathroom medicine cabinet. THAT says a lot about him... If he goes for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd base on the first date.... RUN!!!! (and be very angry when he doesn't call later)... I have more. Every woman does. It makes us feel better when we are giving advice to an innocent woman. I think every teenage chick, and most pre-teens, have something like this in their arsenal. These are the tools that we have for the battle. Um, THE BATTLE.... The Battle Of The Sexes??? Yyeeah, it's still going on. At least that's what I hear. And fear. This is what I was armed with from the time Adrian B. got booted from my house because "girls don't play with boys" when I was ... 8? Little by little, Adrian, Matt, Steve, and...What's-His-Face... the guy with the curly hair and dimples????... got culled from the neighborhood play group and tossed into the boys club where trucks, trees, and anything that got them dirty and scraped up was acceptable. Us girls usually were led into Barbie play dates, dress up, and cooking. (For the record, I hated Barbies and cooking. My cooking attests to it.) I think it was just easier for moms of girls to get that look on their face... the one of disdain and just a leeettle bit of nausea, when boys got older (the unmitigated gall!) as their girls did too. And like a light going on around the neighborhood, mom's would tug on their daughters apron strings and tell them little things to make the culling a bit easier...."Well, you are getting too old to play with him. He is paying too much attention to you." And all of a sudden the question was, "Is that bad? Am I bad? I was having fun playing in the trees/scraping my knees/playing Barbie with him". The next thought being, "boys have fun this way, and girls have fun that way..." and never the two shall mix. All of a sudden, we were DIFFERENT. Instead of there just being friends, it was Boys, and it was Girls. We knew that already, of course, but suddenly it mattered to the moms, so it had to matter to us. The leap from friends to US VS. THEM looked like this: A. we are different from boys. B. mom doesn't like us to play with "different" anymore. C. Different must be BAD D. BOYS ARE BAD and must be watched out for.... I know. Guys, if you are reading this, you either have a story like this but it's turned around so the girls are the enemy, or you are scratching your goatee and saying, "what the?????" Does it explain why girls got so creepy from about 8 years old on? Now you know the secret. We were told you were the enemy. Its true. Ask any girl in G-ville. (They are all on Facebook anyway.) In fact, just look in my Facebook friends for the girl that was in your neighborhood. She's the one you used to hang out with, and then BAM!! kicked you in the shins when you passed them. For no apparent reason. Now you know.... Here's the reason I bring it up in the first place: I'm a little bit bitter about it. I lost some really good guy friends when I was 8. Well, I (being the stubborn girl I was) hung out with them, off and on all the way until high school. Maybe, Neighbor Friend Around The Corner, you were just as stubborn as I was, and that's why we didn't care what our mom's said, but still.... Guy Across The Street And 2 Houses Down, we got the short end of the stick because my mom and yours were of the same mind that we both were the devil to the other.... The point is...... Ladies....... What if the boys/guys/men in our lives weren't the horrible people we were supposed to watch out for? What if there are guys out there that are gentle, kind, and want whats best for them and us? What if, dare I say, we are so conditioned to watch out and identify the bad in the boy that we don't know what to do if a good guy walked up to us and treated us right? I'm pretty bold to say that there could be amazing men out there. I know it because at any point now I'll get some emails letting me know I've been brainwashed. Here is where I get really bold, though. What if it is the WOMEN who have been out of the loop? What if we are so worried, and freaked out about getting taken advantage of/ripped off/hurt (and sometimes for good reason), that we have forgotten how to be open to the good that a guy could bring to a friendship/relationship????? hmmm? I speak about this because..... well..... I was dumped. By a really good guy. A really really excellent guy. nope, not my hubby. although he is a good guy too. I'm talking about someone that is no longer able to talk to me because he has been forbidden. By his love interest. His love, lets call her Brenda, is not assuming I will seduce him, necessarily. She assumes HE WILL CAVE. For the reason that he is a man and therefore BAD, he must be reined in with the friends that he has. As in, no women friends. Did I mention I've known him all my life? No? Well, yeah, I'm bitter. But really I don't have anyone to blame but my womenfolk. Do we know lying, cheating jerks? yup. But the real question is, DO WE KNOW ANY GENUINELY GOOD GUYS?.....Cricket....Cricket..... These are guys that have been upstanding through life. Made mistakes, sure, like we all do.. But have learned from them and used them as stepping stones. Just like the goals the women who have struggled in life strive to reach. And here is the scarier question: Do I know any women who are genuinely good? OF COURSE..... (I look past my own flaws, don't I) :) And I look past the flaws of my friends and any woman I admire..... yada yada..... Do some of us women to know what to do with a guy that is just good? And, is it just me that flounders with how to treat a guy that isn't a perv, a creep, and a loser? I'm at a loss. Mostly because I realize that somewhere down the line, it went from guys hanging around and being in the club of life, to creating the "What does he mean by THAT comment" girl only club that turns everything into a nuance or need for a comeback. Not good. Not good for me at all, and Not good for us as the genteel, tender strong loving powerful compassionate ladies we are capable of. Competition and competitiveness just has it's drawbacks here. What if a guy wants in? What if he means what he says? What if he wasn't meaning what we thought he really meant? The questions all come down to this: Are we, ladies, strong enough to let that in? Guys, this might also answer the question of why, when you are being genuine, the lady you want to impress (or had no idea you were impressing) got that odd look on her face that says, "SURE your a nice guy. Sure I'll take what you say at face value" but the attitude is like being back handed by a tennis pro. I'd love the input, not from the moms that have never had anything go wrong with their kids, but the moms that were the kids. I'd love input from the guys that were put in their place by the women they unintentionally offended and didn't know why. Or the dads that have insight to us crazy women.... Or the men and women that know what to do when a nice guy/girl shows up in their space and they buy in. Not necessarily because they are infatuated, as this could be a co-worker, a potential friend of a spouse, or a waiter/worker/server that you see isn't out to make you bleed. But infatuation could play in just the same. Ladies? What input do you have as to knowing that there are jerks out there because we have all dated one, had one for a (possibly) brother/uncle/cousin/dad/grandpa/nephew..... but how to treat a guy that isn't a jerk? What if we have been conditioned to watch out for the bad so much that we don't recognize the good? Ever happened to you? And..... GO.