Satisfaction

March 2010, courtesy of Bing.com

Mick Jaggers is sixty-eight years old.  Yes, yes he is.  I read it in Sunday’s paper.

Was it so long ago that I listened to him and The Who in my room on the farm?  Can’t get no……can’t get no……can’t get no…Satisfaction…

I was standing at the top of the stairs, listening to my brother’s radio in his room, humming along.  “Satisfaction?”  What the heck does he mean?  I even looked it up in the dictionary to make sure that I knew what he meant. 

State of being satisfied; reaching a point of feeling completeness; satiated

Being all of thirteen or so years old, it occurred to me that the singer should have been satisfied.  I mean, after all, here he was, from England!  England!  And, he had a record that was playing on the radio all the time.  Plus, he and his English  band had been interviewed on television.   The interviewer asked him if he had gotten 'any satisfaction', and Mick said NO. This man, this Mick Jaggers, should have been very happy, very complete.

Years later, when I had learned more about Mick Jaggers and The Who The Rolling Stones, it again occurred to me that these people should have been satisfied.  But, they were not.  Drugs, alcohol, lots of sex, fame, money—they had it all.  One of their band died from an overdose.  Each struggled with addictions of some sort.  Why weren’t they satisfied?

Now, at age 68, Mick Jaggers should be able to have a perspective of his life.  I wonder how he would answer the question:  Am I satisfied?

What do you think?  What do you remember about that era?  Those songs?

Sunshine and Her Baby

Our time with our granddaughters, Bright Eyes and Sunshine, gets shorter every year as they march away from us and run to school.

I spent much time with Sunshine when she was still in pre-school, and her sister was in full-day school.  We had three hours together and Sunshine used every minute to tell me about her thoughts on big questions and thoughts.

  She knew all about it.

Solar System?  Ask her anything and she could set me straight.
The Digestive System?  She has that covered.

Fairies?  Oh, yes, there are fairies, Grandma.

Now, Sunshine is in kindergarten, and we have a short hour on alone time, but Sunshine manages to educate my husband and me on anything important (to her).

My youngest daughter will be having a baby in June or July, so there have been a number of discussions about this and travel to Switzerland to see the baby when it comes.  Sunshine has heard it all.

Yesterday, in that short hour between kgt, and regular school dismissals, Sunshine opened her heart and mind to share her wisdom.

“You know, Grandma?” 

No, Sunshine, what?

“When I have a baby, YOU and GRANDPA will be GREAT-grandparents!!” *giggle*  And MY MOMMY will be GRANDMA!”

Yes, sweet baby, we will be.

Then Sunshine made a point here that we call her ‘baby’ because we remember that she once was a baby, and that her mommy was our baby, but she’s a grown-up mommy now, and…..

 “Well.  When I have a baby, you can come and visit, y’know?”

Oh, we’d love that!  Thanks, ba….Sunshine.

“But, you will have to wait a day or two after the baby is born…”

Of course, we will. But why?

“Well, I’ll have to teach my baby a few things.  ???  I’ll have to teach her what to do and what not to do.  And, what to say and what not to say.  Grandma?  Do babies move their mouths when they are just born?”

We were caught short here, and I tried to explain that everything is new to a baby, so they move everything.

“Well, you’ll want to see the baby before she opens her eyes.  Babies look so cute before they open their eyes, all squished up.  Don’t you think so, Grandma?

Before we could formulate an answer, Sunshine moved to a different topic about a bird that she just now saw, “Out there, Grandpa!  See it?”

Such is steel-trap mind of Sunshine.

Mattel's New Trend toward Modesty

Every Wednesday, I go to my daughter’s house to watch my granddaughters when they get home from school.  It used to “baby-sit” but now they are in school.  Often, I feel that they view me as the one needing care, especially if I have a migraine. 

My husband works near my daughter’s house, so he and I drive up together; he drops me off in the morning.  Then, in the mid afternoon, we pick up the girls.

This means that I spend a lot of morning time at my daughter’s house.  I use her computer, check email, read the paper, write, watch TV, or even do some light housework.  In the course of my time here, I have learned many things about my ‘little girls’, but will share just one observation.

I'll just take a quick bath...

The cleanest things in my daughter’s house are the Barbie dolls. 

Those buxom babes are stripped naked and scrubbed clean whenever the girls take baths.  Then they lie in sun-bathing nakedness to dry.

The tutu comes off, but the leotard stays on...

Lately, Mattel has been incorporating clothing as part of the Barbie construction.  Nothing major, just a built-in bikini or leotard.  Why they started doing this, I don’t know, don’t really care. 

Note that the bikini bottom is permanently on.

Since the Barbie has only pretty firm boobies as a sex indicator, I wonder if this move was part of the costuming.  If you have had a girl who dresses her Barbie multiple times a day, in a variety of cheaply-made-but-flashy-dresses, then you realize that parts of those dresses are all over the house (especially the shoes, those stupid high heels that never stay on, and tend to get sucked up in the vacuum in nothing flat).

Who will keep track of this?

Those shoes?  Gone in one day!

While this post reveals no big epiphanies or great human event, I enjoy writing about the trivial and the minutia parts of daily life.