Occupy hoodie

I believe Americans must have the right to peaceably assemble.  In the early days, I even attended a Tea Party protest here.  My decision at that time was not to join the Tea Party, but to remain GOP with Libertarian tendencies.  I feel in flux now.  There seems to be a horde of some who take a moment in time and pass judgment upon it.  Like Nancy Pelosi saying she "saw swastikas" (something that was NEVER substantiated) at tea party protests...it led to many clueless uber-liberals infesting the blogosphere with Godwin.

It's good when life intervenes in cyberlife because it makes us unturtle and look around.  It makes us really commune with our elders.  The ones who don't give a whit about what happens on a computer.  I suppose it's healthy for a person now to straddle two worlds ... the concrete one ... and the cyberworld because cyberland can impact the real world.


At 41, life's odd.  I'm either in the middle, or young, or old.  There's really no telling.  I have some longevity in my family, but I also have some early deaths.  Will medical science produce me some miracle cures for what might end up ailing me, or do I have months/years?  It's a good place to be, though, because I don't have to pretend to be either young or old.  I don't need to pander to youth OR old age.  I can watch what I see and comment about it.  I can do this whether you like it or not.

I'm lucky because I've been both blessed and cursed.  Jesus is my savior, but I'm not impractical.  Everything could be illuminated, or it could all go south tomorrow.  Whatever happens, I'm not afraid.


Knowing these things, I have some advice for the occupiers...


1) - If you are a Nazi or a communist, you are shit out of luck.  We have the second amendment and that's just the way it is, baby.


2) - If you aren't American, GTFO.  Go back to your own country and try to make your demands there.  Change in America should and must be left to Americans.  There is, literally, NO OTHER COUNTRY like the USA.  We're only 200 plus years old and we've invited a plethora of different ethnicities here to the golden door.   People have achieved greatness and overcome adversity...people of all stripes.

3) - You may think you are erudite because you practice moral equivalence.  Real Americans, though ... know right and wrong and we're willing to call it like we see it.  If you are not right ... we'll be here to call your bluff.   We're one nation under God and OJ might have been found "not guilty"...but where is he right now?  I imagine Casey Anthony doesn't have a minute's peace.

OJ did it.

4) - If you hate the system of government we have and think it should be different and if you hate America... seriously...go find a better country.  Move and put US out of your misery.  If they won't take you...maybe you'll finally HAVE to quit whining.


5) - I don't have a problem if you don't believe in God ... but if you want to try to REMOVE God, well, you'll have to go through many people.  If the militant God-hater, Satan-servants get the majority and decide to persecute those who believe in peace and have faith in God, this will turn into a terrible painting and God ultimately will wind up removing the blasphemy and throwing back a blank canvas.  Count on it.

6) - Quit hating the rich.  I understand your grievance with people who have genuinely done wrong and share your wish to see them brought to justice, but you are going too far.  Guillotines?  Really?  French revolution...are you nuts?  Our education system is rotten if you truly think we're at the stage for THAT KIND of revolution.  In France, people were starving.  Most Americans, if they'd get a sense of perspective...would understand that not being able to afford a video game system doesn't mean you get to lop of the head of the guy that owns the local electrical company.


7) - Turn yourselves away from the idea of violence or any system that could result in abuse of power and totalitarianism.  Understand the possibility of unintended consequences.  Maybe it will make you better understand checks and balances.

8) - Check your sources.  Internet is a mixed blessing.  Things are at your fingertips, but it's incumbent upon you to check and check and check again.  Your superbuddy might have this blog that you love because it confirms all of your biases ... but if 50% of the content is bs ... no one should accept the other 50% either. If you are listening to someone and they are getting you all wound up and angry and feeling like you are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore ... breathe.


9) - Quit blaming the older people for the current situation.  Especially the really elderly.  They have wisdom and are the real heroes of the nation.  They went through an ACTUAL depression and didn't occupy anything but their houses of worship.  They have a lot to tell you if you'll listen.  Sure, they may say things through clacking dentures, but shame on you for writing them off.  They sit by the window and pray that the USA will remain a good place for the little sweet kids' faces to keep smiling.

My Nana and grandpa are concerned that you might be a dumb@$$

*pause to take a breath*


10) - These occupiers in the USA should not be invoking occupations in other countries, particularly in the Middle East, because those aren't really turning out so well.  We all hoped, but hope doesn't buy you reality...does it?  So ... if you want to make YOUR occupy movement a good one ... find your sanity and come up with a coherent plan that works within the framework of the US government...  Also, understand that because of instability and evil in some corners of the world, the USA must NEVER sacrifice its upper hand militarily.


If you do...I may join you.  Until then...I'm going to occupy hoodie.

Stttttttttrrrrrretch.....

I'm always ever too much in my head and not so much in my body.   Recently, I did a little bit of beginner's yoga and I sort of enjoyed it.  I'm not the worship-Gaia, eat-granola type and I never will be...(I'm NOT buying Kashi again)...but I picked myself out a yoga DVD that I thought I might be able to handle.

Sure enough it started out with green advocacy (not that there's anything wrong with that) and was produced by Ga.i.am  (this is like Will.i.am?)...I rolled my eyes.  I am not Gaia...I'm just one of Jesus' rowdy kids inhabiting the blue marble.

Jill.i.am I started the tape and tried to follow and quickly found out that it's WAY above my pay grade.  So I had a conversation with myself.  Those happen sometimes.  This time I won and I decided that I'd stop the tape, turn to a music channel on my cable and stretch at my own pace.  There's a groovy one I landed on called "Soundscapes."  I thought, "A soundscape is JUST what I need while I try to breathe and stretch."

It was lovely.  And I satisfied my inner tyrant because I did it my way.  At the end, I decided that I should stretch my back.  I turned to another station and it was I think "soft contemporary".  It was a musical version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight".

Thinking of Elvis and all of us lonely people made me sad.  I'll stretch my back later.  But hey...it was a small victory for the day.

Happyness is...

my pet cockatiel Peeps not walking the floor trying to chew electrical cords ... or sitting on my tapestry frame chewing it, but contentedly preening himself while sitting on my ankle.  Spoke too soon...he's down on the floor now.  Oh well...I had to go to the bathroom anyway.

We r looking @you.

The funnyrushed feeling

...when you know you have stuff you've procrastinated to find and do...and you are hurrying...you tell yourself to slow down and all of a sudden you discover something that MUST be done today in a completely obvious place that you weren't looking.

Oh man. I have common sense retardation. Example.

I'm down at the laundromat and the washers can only take a smaller load.  So, as usual, I split my laundry into 4 groups and start the washers.  Now...what do I usually do?  When they are done...I load them into 4 dryers to dry.  Today I have an epiphany long on it's way.  The dryers hold more clothes than the washers. Instead of running 4 dryers (as is habit)...I can run 3 and save money and energy.  It was an "I coulda had a V8" moment...only I don't really like V8...but I DO like spending less on laundry.

Retirement Community - June 2007

No one else is awake as she breathes the morning's first smell of damp basement.  She slides into her favorite blueberry top and shorts.  Up the stairs silently through Nana's aqua living room to the kitchen.  She smiles at the extra IGA white bread on the counter.  Gets a chair to retrieve six Brachs coffee candies out of the biscuit tin on top of the fridge and into the pocket.  Swoosh as the bread slides off the counter and swings in her hand.

Back down the stairs and into the flip flops effortlessly as only the limber-toed can.  It is still wanting to be night.  She grabs her fishing pole and makes her way down the rocky yard to the dock.  The ascent onto the dock is creakless.  Two turtles are asleep on a log ten yards away and she wants them to know she is no threat.  They don't need to plunge into the safety of the water yet.

She knows that she is paying time.  There must be time spent in order to catch enough fish for the fry.  They bite on white bread doughballs and they live right UNDER the dock, but they don't jump into her hand, even though they do bite dangling toes.

The lake is the best color of the mood rings in the souvenir shop.   The sun is not yet punishing, with its double whammy off the lake and inevitable end with Solarcaine.  Pale children should fish in the wee hours of the morning, before the adults stake their claim on the day.  She will go to church on Sunday for show and tell, but she knows this is also Close to God.

The silence perfectly counter-balances the plunk as the first baited hook drops into the water.  Almost immediately there is a tug, followed by smaller tugs and she pulls in the line.  The sunfish is beautiful, but it's not as big as her hand...so she removes the hook and puts it back in the water.  She decides to make the next dough ball bigger.  She wants it to descend further in the lake before a fish bites.  There is a little lead sinker, but these fish bite fast.

The next one is a keeper.  She breathes relief that there are still some big enough fish left. 

The next hour and a half are hers to harvest the fish dinner.  Later there will be places to go.  


As she sees the lights come on in the house and she detects the coffee smell wafting out the screened-in porch, she takes her fish to the cleaning board and carefully readies them to be frozen.   She takes the bucket of fish parts to the edge of the lake and releases them back where they came from.  The turtle starts and splashes into Lake Thunderbird.

Master Peace - Aug. 2007

• Trapped in the middle

  and living perdition

  of love always attached to condition

  Glinda the good witch

  Where have you got to

  We hurt 'cause we care

  Could the answer be not to

  I've both led the charge

  And quick fled the scene

  And witnessed the battle 

  That stings in between

  I open my window and somebody's fighting

  Drop my hook in the water the bad fish are biting

  Some wade around in emotional sludge

  Licking wounds and deciding to judge

  The judges survive by pointing the finger

  And thinking the hurt they inflict will not linger

  I build a bridge and you burn it down

  So now there's a wall for you to wail on

  The mantle of safety's so easily busted

  And steely resolve is so thoroughly rusted

  The sagest of souls will pour out its cares

  And become a blessed puppet stringed only by prayers

  If baby has armor, baby can fly

  Aloft with the wings of a new lullabye

  I smile and I sleep because you are above me

  And it's in my dreams where you say that you love me

  We hit our stride and get smacked down by strife

  Ten million bucks ain't a prizeworthy life

  Although it can seem that the woes will not cease

  It's your bright still life that's a true masterpiece.

  
  

Largo forte - Sept. 2007

Standing

arms akimbo

the child's smile

happy limbo

Iloveyou Ihateyou Iloveyou Ihateyou

I appreciate you, but have to berate you

The blade

bends

in the wind

It was the sod that sinned

It's hot it's cold it's hot it's cold

Last week's flowers growing mold

Stars dance

Clouds puff by

It's all the apple

Of my eye

Be there stay away be there stay away

I'll put the reunion on layaway

Happy birthday Dawn! This is inspired by Dawn's poem ideas. Nov. 2007

This is inspired by Dawn's poem ideas.

First folio - An Internal Soliloquy

Prop master?  I mean, shoot, they're the ones who cast me in "Happy Birthday" and I didn't even audition.  Doesn't the stage look bare?  Is it too much to ask for some plastic hangers here?  "An oil change, an oil change, my kingdom for an oil change!"  I know, wrong play, it's the director's fault for deciding I should be off book by now.  He looks pissed at me.  I heard he's not getting any, but I'm not one to gossip, so let's keep that between me and me.  If they wanted perfection, they should have snagged Judi Dench.  She has inTEGrity.  I just have a hankering for cheesecake, but I don't hunger for ten more pounds on my frame.  "A Prima Facie Case for Mystikal Cheesecake"...now THERE'S a play I'd try out for.

"All the world's *gesticulate* a STAGE and...All the WORLD'S a *gesticulate* stage and..."  All the world's a stage and I forgot my lines.  I think they're beginning to regret putting me in the role.  The producer has those furrowed brows again.  "Send in the clowns...don't bother they're heeeeeeere..."  This should be a musical, but I suppose they've sunk too much into the production already.  Look at this costume?  Wardrobe!  Seriously, a foundation garment is called for.  If they're gonna be OUT they oughtta be UP don't you think?  Please?  And thank you.  You want me to carry THAT purse?  I don't think my character would tote a bag that cost more than the financial resources she has available IN it.  Says me!  Yes, I realize that this is not a collaboration.  I'll pipe down.

"Chain, chain, chain....chain of foooools".  Wow, I didn't realize that the acoustics were so good in here.  They're testing the footlights.  That always gives me vertigo.  I have to admit, though, that though it's sparse, the set design is appealing.  It's rumored that there are ghosts in the theatre.  Also, according to legend, there's a neverending prop room somewhere behind a door off stage right, but I've never seen it.

Oh merde!  Spotlights!  So bright! "Twenty twenty twenty four hours ago, I wanna be sedated.." I'm treading and dreading these boards.  I wonder who wrote "Happy Birthday"?  I have the script, but it's not attributed.  Will anyone even COME to a play written by no one?  And why am I off-book when they haven't even cast my love interest?  I'm hoping for someone strapping with a sonorous voice.  "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"

The guy who plays my tormentor is too convincing.  He's method.  Straight outta "The Metamorphosis".  I don't look at him when we talk.  We once, however, had a lovely walk in the garden behind the theatre and he admitted that he's agorophobic, and therefore, only comfortable being someone else onstage.  Quite the revelation.  If you're ever playing Hearts online with others, he's "Mephisto74". 

Sometimes I think that if the producer and director really KNEW us actors, they'd rethink the whole darn thing.  If, for instance, they knew that I'm seriously considering learning how to change oil and opening up a lube shop staffed entirely by women, they'd probably shit their pants.  How hard can it be?  "Out with the old oil, in with the NEW oil!  Yay Team!" *wave pompons*

Well, I have to go.  It's my pivotal scene.  Center stage with only the spots.  In the dark and virtually empty theatre where I've rehearsed this scene already 34 times, I prepare myself for no applause.

"Happy brithday to me!  Happy birthday to me!  Happy birthday, dear me.  Happy birthday to me."

Christmas 2007

We ate too much.  I got too many presents.  It really was a nice Christmas, so how about some photos, eh?

We like our black olives.  We encourage bad habits in kids.  Cousin Maggie.

We all enjoy olives.

This IS the preferred way to eat them.

Finally I got to watch the original Grinch cartoon and couldn't have asked for better company.

I am looking at you.

Another reason my grandmother is superb. Feb. 2009

The other night in the car, I powdered my nose.  Grandma was looking at me and said, "I haven't worn any of that stuff in so long."  I said, "I know..."  She said, "I went to my wedding without a lick of makeup on.  I wanted Pa to know what he was getting."

This is what he got.

When my niece was in Afghanistan. She is brave. April 2009

Her room in the hut.  Not the Ritz.  No room service.

Desert camo doesn't do much against a checked floor like that.

I love this picture.  She crossed this bridge when she came to it.

The Red Cross office.  Open 7 days a week every week.  24 hours a day, every day.

She said the mountains were stunning.

Truly stunning with a little sun.

Don't go there.

She did go here.

Praying after rehearsal.

Someone else got off base and took this one and the next.

I wonder how old?  Look at the awesome window.

Only one night spent in the bunker.  But there's hydration.

Winter came.

She told Santa she missed Peeps most of all.

For Christmas, Peeps sent her some fezzers to remember him by.

M.R.E - Meal ready to eat.  And Dew ready to drink.

Beef stew MRE.

Sleeping on the floor of the C-17 on the way home under the booger blanket.

Day of tiny kismets

The errand at the top of my mind today was getting my vision checked.  Once I'd had a bit of caffeine, internettled, and  showered I drove to the eyeglasses place that I always use (fearless creature of habit).  It was 11:30 and they couldn't do the vision check until 3:15.  So I decided I'd fill that time.  I needed some stuff from Target.  I had another errand.  I remembered that I ought to get my oil changed.  (My brother also tells me now that I need to occasionally use my emergency brake in order to realign my rear brakes or something like that and when he told me that yesterday I pounded my fist on the table in frustration.)  I am a girl and I don't want to have to know that stuff.  I explained to him that it was sufficient that I know where my coolant, oil, brake fluid, and (most importantly) windshield washer fluid go and knowing more than this is going to make all my estrogen evaporate...ushering in more unwanted facial hair.  Ok, I didn't tell him the last part, but I did bang my fist on the table and say that I'm a girl and I don't wanna.


In the Target I needed some little books to keep my brain in.  Don't ask.  I got that Garnier rollerball stuff for under the eyes because I've squinted myself some wrinkles.  I'm sure it will be an exercise in futility ... but I'll FEEL like I'm doing something and rolling it on seems kind of whimsical.  I found other sundries and bought the Train CD.  Oh...in the dollar aisle I got a container with a working push pump on top for a couple of things I have that have broken push pumps.  Boy, that's exciting.  I looked for the autumn scented glade plug in oil I reallyreallyreally like and got at the Wal Mart a couple of months ago, but they didn't have it.  They also didn't have Katy Perry's album, so I decided I'd have to hit the Wal Mart as well.


I drove to the oil change place I always go to ... and all three bays were full so I headed to Wal Mart.  Alas, I was SOL on the Katy Perry album and the scented oil and I left Wal Mart with nothing.  That's virtually unheard of.  Then dingdingding...I remembered Best Buy.  I got the CD there and it was only six bucks.


Lunch was Wendy's.  Burger, fries and water.  


Then I decided that I needed some stuff to put in some care packages for people, so I hit Dollar Heaven in the mall.  Got myself a little purse hairbrush and some lipstick and when I paid it came to $20.23.  As I went digging for change... the guy behind the counter said, "It's ok... you can keep the change."  Very nice!


Still I had time to spare, so I went to the Goodwill and picked up a few things.  Finally it was time for the eye appointment.


Glasses. What did I get the LASIK for? Well...I guess so that my eyesight isn't literally like a Monet painting. Bye vanity. Hello vision. Well, kinda vanity, too because the squinties were giving me under eye wrinkles and I bought the groovy rollerball wand to try to get rid of them.  Anyway... I won't need to be GLUED to the glasses like back in the day...and they were reasonable as was the exam...not thousands of dollars like Deepak Chopra's spangly ones. 


I have already shocked myself looking in the mirror.  

Today's discoveries...

I am having some distance vision problems.  I had LASIK in 2003, but I have to squint.  I know I need to see Mr Eye Doc...but I thought maybe I could scrounge up a pair of my old glasses just to see if MAYBE they might suit...it appears, alas, that I gave the old pairs to the Lions' Club old glasses donation point.  That lacked foresight.  Punny.


My houseplants are still alive.  I don't really worry much about them and just water them whenever.  I have a spider plant and a philodendron.  I really am not very good with plants.  After my dad died, we got several potted peace plants and Mom really wanted them to live.  I was attentive to those plants.  I tried everything...less water, more water...I managed to murder them all...another one bites the dust-style.


But my current plants really are okey dokey.  I guess that's a life lesson.  Don't over-tend it.  Water it when it needs it and it'll be alright.

Sucka!

If this worked it would be waaaaay more than 7 bucks on clearance.

Ditto.

No matter where you are, hardware stores always smell the same. - Aug. 2008

Because of the nostalgia of olfactory memory, this is a comfort to me.  I was in the Menard's with my brother the other day and the familiar scents of pesticide, oil and assorted other chemicals got me reminiscing.  I was practically raised in the hardware store that my parents built and ran for ten years of my early youth.  The whole community came by regularly, so I was thoroughly socialized.

I recall, for instance, spending a day of bad flu episode on one of those plastic tubing lawn recliners behind a counter in the back of the store because Mom had to work.  Time off doesn't always coincide with juvenile illness when you own your own business.  I was puking, but people NEEDED hardware.

I remember holidays and evenings interrupted by urgent phone calls from members of the community who had a problem.  "The fence is down and the cattle are out!  Can you open for me?"  The answer was always yes.  It was the same for my grandparents who owned the grocery store across the street.  "I burned the stuffing!  Can you sell me some Stove Top?"

Fencing Materials 20.00$

Stove Top stuffing: 1.99$

A small town store that will let you buy something on Christmas:  Priceless

My father actually had an aviary in the basement of the hardware store where he raised birds for hobby and sale.  There were canaries, parakeets, cockatiels, love birds, ring necks, larger parrots...and stinking finches.  When Dad wasn't there, I had to clean the large pens.  The finches were the worst.  They were noisy, messy and un-tameable.  I don't know how many times I thought about accidentally leaving the finch door open along with a door to the outside.  But I never did.

The basement was also quite splattered, because it was the area that held the sometimes rebellious paint-shaker.  Its capriciousness made it foreboding. At the Menard's I learned that it's done differently now, but back then, you clamped the paint cans into this vice-like apparatus and turned it on to shake them vigorously.  If a lid popped off paint flew everywhere.  If one of the cans came loose, it was a projectile of some considerable bulk.  When I was older, I got to shake the paint, but I still carefully clamped the can in and ran away...

We've had some great parrots as pets, but the one that was mine all mine was a blue-fronted Amazon named Dutch.  I can't explain what bonds a bird to a person, especially when you didn't raise the bird, but Dutch just loved me and I loved Dutch.  He had a formidable beak.  He could have taken a finger off, but his eyes only ever radiated adoration.  I've never known a bird like him since, though Peeps is adorable.

Before I was school age, I had a little baby buggy that I would push around the store with my dollies in it.  Then came Dutch.  Dutch would gladly let me put him on his back and wrap him papoose-style in a baby blanket.  Then, of course, I would put him in my buggy and push him around the store.  There were quite a few shocked customers who stopped to say "hello" to my dolly and were met by a large parrot head poking out of a blanket that said "hello" back.

Good times.