So Here We Are

Yo, my not-so-little warriors! I thought I would be back here before now but instead I get to be here now. I needed to percolate and process how I would talk to you, if you were here. When I started this, half a million years ago right after the internet got borned and all, you were all still really freakin'small and I din't expect to have so much to say. I also didn't have a road map for how to navigate being a grandma from this far away.

We know each other some now and I know that you read. You read good stuff - man, we're so lucky we get to read and that some of it's good stuff. Aaahhh, but I digress (which pretty much always happens.) I've given way too much thought to what my One Job as a grandma is and the best I can come up with is that I need to be a more consistent writer again, and more fearless. That fearless part is not my fave, because, like every other human I've ever encountered and really liked - I want you to like me. You're super cool and I still forget that I get to sit at the Cool Kids table on some days. (To be clear: I get to sit there ALL the days and I just forget some days. I do have days where I think I might not rock as steady as I do.)

So, I'll just show up here and you either will or won't and I'm cool with it. I'm going to keep the format the same and try to just give you three pretty clear things, but now that you can engage in critical thought - I'll try to provide content that makes your parents ask what you're looking at on your device. My logic is that IF I can hold your attention for longer than three minutes - that is legit...

one FOR sure - graduate from high school. I'm pretty sure that's not really a deal for you guys as you all seem pretty invested in your educations, but it's more than that - learn how to do your laundry and pay your own bills, do the car thing (it's expensive) and the phone that's not on your parents plan and learn how to clean pans without destroying the finish. Mend your own clothes and change your own oil if you can. Buy good shoes and take care of them so they last longer. Know how to sharpen a knife and start a fire. Plant some trees and eat food you've grown. It's more about your utility and self-sufficiency than anything. It feels good to be able. 

two GET.outta.here. Travel as soon as you can and go as far as you can. While it's not imperative that you travel alone, DO travel alone and go to places where you're hungry with curiousity and a little scared so your head's on a pivot and your heart skips some beats. I really hope you learn to speak other languages, too. I learned Spanish a long (long long) time ago and still remember enough to converse under travel pressure. I will always be thankful for that and it's helped me navigate the art and music coming out of that part of the world, too. There's way WAY more to our stories than just this country and ... how can you know what you love or don't if you don't try everything? Travel. Go, DO things and gather stories. All the things, and g'head and be scared - it's appropriate. If it wasn't scary everybody would be doing it and the boujie would smoosh our landscape like a mayonnaise spill.

three Even IF all this AI and ChatGPT works out fine - learn how to write, my little dudes. I swear t'gawwwwd, I will have to haunt you if you squander this opportunity to borrow from your killer DNA and keep the legacy alive. Never stop keeping actual humans creative and productive by reading books and listening to the stories you hear. Write pretty sentences and build solid paragraphs. Storytellers cannot be replaced with bots, no matter how clever they may be programmed. And, don't use that technology to cheat on anything. I would imagine you could if you wanted to, so just don't.

I know I don't have to say it, but I love you and your guts.

I love your brains and intentions. I dig your lil baby agendas. Go.be.do. 

xomomo

Three Things: Storytellers, Spies & Good Seating

 yo. my lil'warriors.

It's been a bit since we hung out here. Leave your shoes by the door and grab a drink. The cat will move as soon as you almost sit down on her. She'll move, I promise, just sit. I'm going to try harder to be a good communicator and maintain some peace in my heart believing that I'm doing everything I can to be a good enough grandma. (note the "Good Enough" part because I really don't want my expectations of being The Best Ever to smash my ceilings over here.)

I like to pretend that we've been meeting up here for almost sixteen (or ten) years. I pretend that you kinda know who I am and sometimes you wish I'd tell you something. While the brain part of me knows that's probably not true, the heart part is totally gonna play to that. It's super-weird that there really is no handbook on how to be a grandma when we have flying cars and whatnot. Ah, but I digress.

Soooo so much has changed, since you were born... since I decided I'd best write down the important stuff and fire up this little blog machine. When I was your age my grandparents were already pretty much mostly dead so I never got to know who they really were. I wasn't a big thinker at six and seven and, turns out - they weren't really big writers. Now that I'm older than the oceans - I have a bunch of questions that I won't ever get answered. Not a big deal, but I get The Curious ... like a virus. 

I'm optimistically clinging to a grain of hope that there's some small chance you'll find yourselves here sometime and you'll gain some deeper understanding into the meaning of life and why things are the way they are. I dunno. It's a total crap shoot. But I do know that if I don't try there's no way we'll know. It's just science.

From now on, the three things that I throw down once a week (oh please let me be that good) will be more than just manners and smash the patriarchy stuff. I'm gonna spill some tea that's way more real than a thousand tired memes.

one I offer this up so as to give you some insight into where I'm at lately. You should totally do a deep dive on Nellie Bly and then make a transfer and lay if on my world. Western medicine is so completely, dangerously broken and corrupt as to kill about 1300 people every day in America (I didn't link that because there is so much data and SO so much conflicting data and you gotta know fosho, the powers that be don't what us to wrap our brains around the truth but y'gotta trust me - Covid was childsplay comparitively.) 

But if you're on the marginalized fringes of this capitaistic life and death nightmare and you need nonscary healthcare - you might be hosed. I've played nice for a long long time in this arena and my compliance has amounted to support and endorsement. I've run clean outta ways to care about how I'm perceived so now I use recording devices and ... enough about me. What's blowing the wind up your skirt lately? I very much hope something is blowing the wind up your skirt, to be honest. And, Nellie Bly's story is fascinating enough to make me pretend like I'm part her, part Queen Victoria, part Lizzo/eilish/prine hybrid... you know what I'm talkin'bout. And, I very much hope you're deep into some powerful plans or deep thinks.

two I always deserved a seat at the table but I didn't believe it. I don't think I even fully understood the concept of that table till I was in my thirties, so there's that. No regrets and I still wish I'd gotten that memo a little sooner in the game. Dude. It was wicked hard to be taken seriously in business boysclubs when I was such a girl. I also didn't have to be the lifesaver every single.freaking.time. I was a cartoon of helpfulness and overachievement fantasy, and I give it zero stars. Do not recommend. I only share because this is a realization I have just recently come to and THAT trips me out. I'm way late to this party, man.

It looks like you guys are building lives with much better boundaries and tons of self-care, so I'm hopeful you'll take care of you and not settle for less than you deserve. Hopefully you'll be better able to separate your bliss from what you gotta do to survive. I'm pretty sure there can be an intersection of these two things and that you aren't building lives that make it necessary to hustle like I did. The hustle is not really great for long-term happiness and I could have hustled less if I'd realized my worth sooner. So, never forget that everybody should love you like I do. Grandma love is free range and so organic it makes you blush. 

three your great grandparents were freakin'crazy rock stars. They were also dangerously flawed humans and not actual rock stars, but way bright stars who got to get their sassy little fingerprints all over some great history. If you ever do a deep dive into epigenetics and start to look at the family lines and wonder how on earth this all worked out like it did, know this: Your ancestors were some ambitious hungry clever nuts.

Your Greatgrandpa Mueller told me that he invented the process by which they turn normal agate into carnelian agate and he gave me a couple stones that I wish I still had. He invented the process that made it possible for road signs to glitter in headlights by crushing up glass and including it in the paint mix. He also said he lived on the reservation and drove a Model A for the Indians in Oklahoma when he was only 12 years old. He joked that he was a runner (for illegal booze.) In the basement of their home he had an entire museums' worth of increidble stones and petrified wood and Indian artifacts that were all donated to the Smithsonian when he died. 

Papa Z was one of your other great grandfathers, and his highlight reel would be a clip of a laminated ID card because he swore up and down that he, singlehandedly with the Jesuit priests at St. Louis University, invented the laminated school ID and it just blew up from there and now we have topshelf AmEx black. Then he'd be on a ship headed to Japan where he took pictures and posed with Disney and wrote aviation stories for the press till magically he appeared and started the first global aviation information empire and publishing business. He was the craftiest of the legendary madmen sociopathic scientists. He turned keeping track of truths into a sweet life and crafted a personal world built on a bed of lies. Killer material for a story, there.

Both these dudes were emotionally unavailable at best and inattentive or abusive at worst, but they both did whatever it took to provide for their families and meet societal expectations. They weren't necessarily worse or better than their peers and when old people say "times were different, man" THIS Is what they're talkin'bout willis. Dads in the old days were not much like dads now (typically.hopefully) They couldn't have done it without the powerful fierceness of your great grandmas who were way too big to discuss here. They get their own three things on another day, and it'll be long. 

Freakin'creatives.

Creative endeavors, creative accounting, creative storytelling and painting and roadtripping and singing and playing and dancing and sitting under trees with people from other countries to watch the sun risings. We are a clever tribe and you're bound to wonder about that, at some point. So I leave breadcrumbs.

I'll just share everything I can remember and maybe someday when you're, like, fifty or so, you'll wonder something and then you'll remember, "OH yea! Snap! Momo left me an entire digital shitton of words over at that one place..." and you'll be glad that the internet got borned and I decided to not shut up.

I love you. 

If I didn't, we wouldn't be here.

breaking all my own rules

Me before I got a laptop

one I am only one pasty white girl born and raised in the Midwest in the early 60's. My parents were direct descendants of 3rd generation Irish and German immigrants. They were the by-products of Old School Catholic indoctrination and values.  These values were passed along to me and I worry that some of the important stuff may not get passed along. You can choose to disagree with me because we live in America. That's cool. I wouldn't take ANY one single thing I say as gospel truth. This is the Internet, and it's your job to not believe anything you see here and disagree with it if you see fit.

My mom: Momo, Me & BZ

two My mother was a saint, and not a day goes by where I don't want to tell her something and hear her voice. She believed in the Camelot days of the Kennedy's and she bore a strong resemblance to Jackie. She had a tiny waist, a radiant smile and she was a Delta Gamma. Her perfect dark hair curled up at the ends and she wore an apron. She could cook meatloaf and twice-baked potatoes in high heels. She left us her recipes, written in her handwriting and they are among the most revered keepsakes of her love. She gave me the hope that people are, for the most part, good. She, dang-near, single-handedly taught me about forgiveness and survival and hope.

Momo 1 & Momo 2

She came from a solid working-class family in the Strawberry Hill neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas. He father sold insurance for New York Life and her mother stayed at home and kept an immaculate and well-ordered home. They lived with-in walking distance of parents, aunts and uncles, dozens of cousins, the trolley tracks, the church and school, the doctor who made house calls (out the back door and across the alley) and the pub where Papa Leo could be found when it was dinner time. They played cards and sang in 5 part harmony for entertainment. Family meant everything and defined them. She was one of the five Connor sisters and each of her parents were from families that had, like 15 kids each. I'm talking about HUGE family gatherings that happened often.

JZ, The Lears: Record setting aviation flight

three My father did the best he could ever day. He was a professional success (I've been told that he was the world's very first aerospace editor.) He came from Jefferson City, Missouri and has a past that is either too tragic or too convoluted for me to remember. I know it wasn't pretty.  And, it's big enough to fill a good long blog or a short little book.
There will always remain the question of whether he did, or did not, have involvement with the CIA. He was brilliant and shifty.  He was out of the country often. I used to spend hours thumbing through his passport.

My father's family

He was born into a world of limitations and abuse that speak highly of his ability to survive. He was never perfect, but neither was anybody else, so it never really buried the needle on the weird-o-meter. He was blessed by being born into a world of strong and conscientious uncles and cousins. He taught me to write and edit with the best of them and his expectations both pushed me to be a better person and to become a girl who is prone to some wicked-bad self doubt.

Justin (JT) and Chelsea

four I got to help make two exceptionally gifted, thoughtful and conscientious children. They have proven that they are solid citizens and empathetic and accountable parents. They write letters by hand and they help strangers. They live life large and in meaningful ways. They're capable and kind. And they never fail to either make me crack up or get button-bustin' proud. They have given me grand babies, and I can only tell you that the love is exponential. I keep thinking my heart can't get any more full, and then it does. I don't get to see the babies often and I want to make their worlds easier than mine and my parents. And truthfully - they're still too young to get it, and I don't want to forget it before they'll get it. Nor do I want to bore 'em with it when we could be swimming or somethinng.

There. That's my street cred and history. I am thinking it will give you some insight into why I am here and doing this. Hope your winter rocks out loud, and let me know when you disagree with me OR if you would like to be a guest blogger. I love learning what other people think. And, for whatever reasons: People just keep sharing things and stories and laughs and tears with me ... and I think they are all pretty fantastic.

copyright 2011 moemasters thesethree things

Cheap shoes, true love and pets

első Do not wear cheap (and/or ridiculously uncomfortable) shoes. Those feet you're walking on are the only ones you're going to get. Bad shoes can jack up your back, knees and hips (not to mention your good humor.) Good shoes may cost too much, but I promise you'll be glad you have them. Go Barefoot when possible.

második If you love someone (really love someone) make sure they know it. Hearing "I love you" is a pretty cool thing, but you'd best be prepared to prove it. Be clever and thoughtful - learn to know the people you love well enough to make their time here more rich. Don't ever say "I love you" unless you really mean it and don't say it because you feel like you should. If you've chosen to say it, be sure and show it.

harmadik If you think you must have an animal: Take care of it - for real. I had the recent misfortune of knowing a woman who complained endlessly about the 2 small dogs caged behind her house (through wicked hot Kansas summers AND sub-freezing winters.) They hadn't even been out on a walk (mush less, petted) for close to three years. Her kids promised that they would take care of them - therefore, she will not. 
She is why we have the ASPCA. Taking care of a pet requires thinking outside yourself. 
I know you didn't ask, but I have to tell you: I don't think I'd hang with people who are capable of hurting animals. 
That is totally uncool on about every level.
Think about it.

copyright 2010 thesethreethings