Monster Jam

In my house if you say Monster Jam and Grave Digger, it is synonymous with one another. Monster Jam is an event where souped up trucks take on one another in exciting jumps. Grave Digger is the name of one of the tucks, and the drawing card for this event. My sons and my grandchildren love watching the monster trucks. They love the names and the color of the vehicles and the noise. My one grandson has the whole collection of monster trucks.

If you are looking to spend an interesting few hours at the Monster Jam event...don't expect it to be quiet or to be able to hear one another. Expect lots of noise and definitely expect to be entertained. The Monster Jam usually takes place in the arena with colorful trucks on enormous truck tires competing with one another. The noise is deafening and the fans should wear earplugs. Occasionally, there is the strong smell of diesel fuel in the air. The trucks pretty much fly through the air and crush the beat up cars that are grouped on the dirt floor.

It is a different way to spend 2 to 3 hours with your family and enjoy the show. Trucks with names like Brutus, Spike, Bulldozer, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle are crowd pleasers. But the real winner and all time crowd favorite is a black and green truck, sporting a skull on the side called - Grave Digger. Grave Digger usually ends up with the most points from the races, and the winner of the event. This year was no different.

I spent the afternoon at Monster Jam with two of my sons and four grandchildren. Between the pop, bottled water, and stale nachos with cheese, we enjoyed the trucks spin around the arena, fly over the cars, and smash them on their leaps. It was pretty cool to watch those monster trucks spin around and kick up the dirt as they showed off to the crowd's delight. I think that might have been my favorite part of the entertainment. In between, there were the quad races with Team Pennsylvania coming out as the ultimate winner.

The crowd was as colorful as the trucks. Some of the little fans wore Grave Digger hats shaped like trucks. The hats came along with the purchase of cotton candy. One interesting side show was watching one man walk down the steps and having his pants fall down. I laughed and turned my attention back to the arena and continued to watch the event.

It was fun, off the wall contrived entertainment. It was loud, but worth it. It was not just truck competition, but a show. It was a totally different event then the ones that I am used to and you know something, once I got into the show, it was great! I enjoyed it as much as my 6, 8, and 9-year-old grancdhildren. What can I say - I'm a sucker for something totally different and unusual. I am looking forward to going to the Monster Jam next year.

If you have ever been to a Monster Jam, what are your thoughts about this event?

Psychics, Past Lives, and Spirit Guides, oh my!

The first Saturday of every month is “Renew Your Spirit Saturday” at the new age shop in town. So I signed up for an intuitive reading. My choice of psychic was based primarily on her 40 years of study and experience, which balanced my doubts about the angels and guides and divine messages she promised to evoke. I admit I was skeptical. How could someone tell me about my future in twenty-five minutes? Smoke and mirrors, I thought as I sat across from the psychic behind a rice-paper screen as people wandered nearby.

I came armed with two pieces of advice. My scientist friend said, “Don’t tell her anything about yourself and don’t answer her questions.” Mary, who I share this blog with, said, “Ask her about our blog.” I’d planned to do both and did neither.

The psychic, a middle-aged woman dressed in beige slacks, a white top with a long white-fringed scarf around her neck, looked nothing like a psychic. What was I expecting—long trailing skirt imprinted with mystical symbols, a peasant blouse, a scarf tied around her flowing black hair?

As she took my hands, I warned her that I was skeptical. “That’s okay,” she said, “most people are.” We held hands; her eyes closed, mine open. She was summoning my guides and I sensed when she let go of my hands that none of them had showed up. So the reading began in very general terms—we are entering a period of awakening and cleansing. The recent disasters and death are evidence of that. Growth leads to love of all things. People who have died in these disasters have chosen to go. I could feel myself stiffen. What did any of that have to do with my future?

Then suddenly one of my guides made an appearance. This guide wanted me to go further in seeking awareness. Out of nowhere, the psychic saw a joyful side to me that I’m not nurturing because I don’t believe in it. Now that was spooky, I thought. Since I’d just written my last blog about finding a sense of play with my grandson Dylan.

The guides gave other instructions. (Guides are people who have known me either in this life or past lives.) I needed to meditate, which will lead to more awakening in my writing. (She asked what my job was and I told her I wrote mystery novels.) I needed to shift my thinking, and then I’d start to rework my writing, take it in another direction, maybe a more spiritual path. How did she know that I’d been thinking that very thing all week? How I really wanted to expand my writing beyond mysteries.

When I mentioned a nightmare I’d had that week, she told me that my past lives are still hanging around giving me nightmares, holding me back, she explained, “You’re an old soul. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve had many past lives.”

Then toward the end of the reading she said, “You’ll be a well-known writer.” Okay, I know, she was telling me what I wanted to hear. But the strange thing was it felt right, not in an egotistical way, but in an “of course,” kind of way. I felt she was confirming something I already knew.

Did I believe her? I don’t know. I do know that I felt lighter as I left the shop and exited into a blue sky and sun everywhere after a solid week of winter grey.

Life tangles you up, beats you down sometimes, and so what does it hurt to believe in guides who trail your spirit, energies that can be directed, and a woman who tells you what you want to hear? My visit to the psychic was an act of optimism, because it presumed a future and the possibility of change.

Do you believe in psychics, spirit guides, and/or past lives?

Do You Want To Play?

Last week my adventure involved recapturing that sense of play we often lose as we age. I didn’t go skydiving or take a belly dancing class, or any of the other prescribed, clichéd activities meant to stimulate aging baby boomers. Something else to check off our bucket lists as if these activities were cardiac paddles meant to jump start our hearts and keep us alive. Instead I spent a week with my three-year old grandson, Dylan, while my daughter recovered from a C-section.

From the minute I walked into the house, and Dylan said, “Nana, come play spooky forest,” I felt my mind engage and my spirits lift. He’d remembered spooky forest—the story I created the last time I visited him on Christmas day.

Let the games begin, I chuckled to myself, as I hustled up the stairs to his bedroom and the vast train table, complete with trains, tracks, people, cars, trees, heliport, bridge, and buildings. All the necessary elements for a walk through the spooky forest where the ghost, always played by Dylan, scares the lady, always played by me.

By mid-week Dylan, who was housebound with a cold and dealing with a new baby sister, needed to run off some energy, so I created another game—socks in the belly—designed just for him. A pair of his rolled up socks stuck under his shirt accompanied by the chant, “socks in the belly,” sent Dylan running through the house laughing and saying, “Nana, chase me.” Totally, ridiculously silly. But oh, so much fun.

Toward the end of my adventuresome week, Dylan performed his no-no dance for me prompted by my daughter. Dylan ran from his bedroom onto the upstairs loft area in full view of the master bedroom where we sat, shouting “no, no, no, no,” and dancing in a circle. My daughter and I applauded his performance.

But I felt there was something missing. So I took Dylan into his bedroom and showed him how to bow. In typical three-year-old fashion, his bow was a little too deep, but very dramatic as if he’d just sung the lead in an opera. His blond hair falling forward, his toddler body slightly off balance. But he got the idea.

The next no-no dance ended with a dramatic bow. My daughter laughed, the new baby stirred in her bassinette and the afternoon slowly wound down. I left the next day feeling exhausted and exhilarated.

So why is play so important to me as a grandmother? Probably because of my experiences with my grandmothers. My paternal grandmother, who I saw on a regular basis, was a lovely woman who ladled ice cream out as if it was mashed potatoes and we were the troops. She had a lot of grandchildren and I always felt like I was just another one of them.

My maternal grandmother I hardly ever saw because of distance. But as a child, we exchanged letters and she made me feel special. In one of my letters to her I shared my desire to have a monkey as a pet. (Hey, I was ten-years-old.) She wrote back that she thought it was a great idea. I’m sure she didn’t really think that, but she’d stepped into my ten-year-old world where monkeys could be pets and live in tiny suburban track houses. She was my creative grandmother who wrote poetry and could sew anything without a pattern from a sofa slipcover to a canvas awning. Later when I became a writer, I often thought of her. How her creativity was as essential to her as breathing.

So what do you want your grandchildren to remember about you? I want mine to remember that I was the grandmother who told a good story and knew how to play.