Pam's Blog

My post the other day about Girl Scout cookies reminded me about my Camp Fire Girls vest. I found it, along with some beads, badges, and a charm I earned long ago. I shot them in my light tent this weekend. One of the badges is specifically for selling candy. Not sure what the other badges or beads were for.

This week I was surprised to find the MySpace page of a young man I knew who died of his own hand on July of 2006. On the “In Memory of” My Space page, this guy (dead now over eight months) has a dozen friends, some of whom still leaving comments for him. In fact, he has over 50 comments. Ten of those comments have been left in the first two weeks of this month.Through a convoluted series of clicks I ended up on MySpace. How I got there and what I was originally looking for aren’t related. Isn’t that the way it is sometimes on the internet? You start heading in one direction and you end up in another direction … or at least you stop at places along the way that you didn’t think you would.

That’s how I got to MySpace. I abhor MySpace. There are so many reasons I object to MySpace and I’ll just list a few. First and foremost is the gaudy, icky, horrible look of just about every single MySpace page I’ve visited. I think all the backgrounds are annoying. Either they are too dark to read what’s there, too bright it feels like sunglasses are necessary, or just plain distracting with all that flashing, darting, glimmering hearts, lines or whatever going on. Not to mention the page is too wide for the screen. I hate sites where I have to scroll left and right as well as up and down.

I have to admit that the target audience for MySpace is about half my age. So, maybe I just don’t get it. To me it seems the “communication” going on between MySpace friends is inane, profane, and out of line. I feel a “kids these days” coming on so I’d better stop before I propel myself into an even older demographic group than I belong.

This is still quite curious to me. How can dead people have a MySpace page … or any web page for that matter? And why? And who is *really* maintaining this page? How many other dead people have MySpace pages? And what about the people who are posting comments on the dead guy’s page. An out pouring of guilt, anger, and sadness are infused in their messages. They miss him. They blame themselves for his suicide. They are processing their anger openly and outwardly on his MySpace page, knowing that he can’t read it and that other people do.

And maybe that’s what the survivors of suicide need; a place to vent and to heal. At different points along the way I think we all wonder what it is that we leavve behind after we’re gone. In this case, I guess it’s a MySPace page where people can leave a comment.

At $3.50 a box, Girl Scout cookies aren’t exactly a bargain. But then again, it’s really not about the cookies.

Growing up, I was a Camp Fire Girl. It’s a similar organization to the Girl Scouts. Camp Fire Girls start as Bluebirds and then grow into Camp Fire Girls. We did projects and worked toward badges and beads. I remember going to conventions in the Fargo Civic Center where Camp Fire Girls would wear their vests with, what seemed like, hundreds of beads hanging off them. We went to Camp Fire Girls camp where we could ride horses, swim, sing around the camp fire, and sleep in bunks in cabins.

Instead of selling cookies, the Camp Fire Girls sold candy. I remember the trepidation I felt having to ask someone to buy a box of candy. (I guess I knew sales wasn’t my cup of tea at an early age). One woman on our block, Mrs. Noble, was always willing and happy to buy a box of candy. And I was grateful she made it so easy to make the sale. Mrs. Noble died not too long ago. She was spunky, smart, and a wonderful friend to many.

Now, it’s my turn. My to support a young girl in a young womans’ organization be able to earn badges, go to camp and to make the sale of Girl Scout Cookies easy. And if I have to eat a few cookies as a sacrifice, so be it.

The temperature reached the upper 60’s today in Ann Arbor and the shedding of winter can be seen, not only in the bare brown grass on the ground, but in the introduction of all things spring: teenage girls in tank tops and shorts, more people on bicycles, motorcycle riders and orange construction barrels. The thump, thump, thump of the neighborhood boy’s basketball has been silent for months and it’s back again today, as are the chirps of birds.

I haven’t seen a robin yet. That’s always been my signal that spring has arrive. Soon, though, I’m sure they will appear very soon.

I had a mammogram yesterday. The mobile Kamanos Mammogram Unit visits work every year. Malloy provides this valuable benefit to us and picks up the tab. It’s a great benefit on so many levels. It’s paid for, we’re still on the clock, it doesn’t eat into our preventative benefit and we skip the hassle of making an appointment and driving all the way to the hospital.

There are two women who stock, set up, drive, and staff the mobile unit. The technician, Deb, and I got chatting about yoga. As she chattered on about her yoga experience (did it for a while and hasn’t done it lately), her meditation practice, and how she honors a different chakra each day by wearing matching jewelry and socks (all the same color, but different colors daily depending on the chakra), I was struck by how matter of fact and how normal/natural it all seemed. We could have been sitting at an outdoor cafe’, two friends chatting over coffee. Instead I was standing, naked from the waist up with her handling my breasts like a lump of clay.

We all have different talents. Deb’s is making a potentially unnerving, uncomfortable situation like a chat at a coffee house.

If you’re over 40, have a mammogram. Have one yearly. And I hope you find a technician as talented as Deb in the Karmanos Mobile Unit.