A Voice in the Wind

Five Rooms in a House

2010-04-15T08:41:00.004-05:00

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Do those words put together in list form remind you of anything?

No? Then what about this? Kubler-Ross model.

Some of you may have guessed the reference after two words. (You would have guessed after one word if you had had any inkling of where this post is going.) Others may have had their memory jolted with the name Kubler-Ross. For everyone else, here is the answer:

The Five Stages of Death.

There is a wikipedia link Here. Included in the link is a rebuttal by one George Bonanno^[2], professor of clinical psychology of Columbia University. Professor Bonanno claims that two decades of serious scientific research reveals no basis to support The Five Stages of Death theory.

I don't know. Considering that the only claim is that people suffering catastrophic pain/loss will pass through at least two of these stages - in no particular order - at least once, I find the claim that there is no evidence strange.

For one thing, two of the stages are at odds with each other: denial and acceptance. By definition, if you aren't accepting what has happened/is taking place, then you are denying it. And if you aren't denying it then you must be accepting it. So that means EVERYONE goes through at least one of the stages.

What about the other three? Anger. Bargaining. Depression.

I find it very difficult to believe that less than the majority of people who learn they are dying, or that someone they love is dying, or that someone they love has died, or that their spouse has filed for divorce, or that they've lost their job, or whatever catastrophic event you care to consider, does not at least get depressed about it. The two most common reactions to horrible events are anger and depression.

My personal biggie is depression. According to the Kubler-Ross model, people not only pass through the various stages, skipping some and visiting others, they may actually shift back and forth between a couple of stages.

This means one can be angry on Monday, accepting on Tuesday, angry again on Wednesday, depressed on Thursday, accepting again on Friday, depressed again on Saturday, bargaining on Sunday, and angry again on Monday.

Or some other combination.

Leaving a stage does not mean that stage is over. And entering an accepting stage does not mean it either. It may not last.

And to further complicate the idea that the theory is bogus, the theory clearly states there is no time limit. Moving from one stage to another may take weeks, or months, or even years.

I have experienced all five stages in my life at various times and dealing with various events which, in my opinion - sucked.

Denial is probably the one I understand the least. It tends to be connected to bargaining, I think, and I am a bargainer. If I'm bargaining for some kind of reversal, then I must not believe it's a "done deal". So, I have to plead Guilty to denying the truth when I don't like it at all.

Anger. Well - yeah. Of course. I can remember slamming billiard balls over the pool table. Hitting them so hard with the cue stick they actually flew off the table. Using the cue as a bat and hitting all the balls at once. Yelling at God. (It's always God we blame, isn't it?) Swearing at him. Demanding to know just what in the hell he thought he was doing anyway? Oh, yes. I have become angry when devastation strikes. Then I'm grumpy around those I care about.

Bargaining. I've already admitting to being a bargainer. My problem is I generally never have anything to bargain with. I mean, what can I offer God that he doesn't already have? Myself? He's already got that. Had it for years. I keep worrying he's in the market to trade up and a better model, or just give up and toss this one aside. Fortunately, God is more gracious and has far more patience than I'll ever know. But I still worry about it. I'm a real pain in the spiritual ass.

Depression. Hell, it's not unusual for me to be depressed when nothing has gone wrong. All I have to do is remember some trauma from my past and - whoosh! All the feelings of goodness and contentment are submerged beneath waves of emotional pain and anguish. Yes. I get depressed about catastrophic events.

Acceptance. This is a strange one. It's the one that frustrates me most. Why? Because it doesn't always stick around. I'll get to a place where I have accepted the truth of a matter, feel fine about it, and actually being to move on. Then, without warning, there I am - denying, bargaining, getting angry or depressed. Those four feelings/attitudes never seem to want to leave. But acceptance? It can hardly wait to get away from me. I think acceptance really hates me.

Part of my problem is my sensitivity. Things that other people let slide away like water from a duck's back just crush the hell out of me. It's like we all have this invisible umbrella, and for other people it sheds the water, because they're holding it properly. Somehow, I hold mine upside down, so instead of channeling all of these negative feelings away, I collect them - right on top of myself. For a person with an I.Q. many people would drool over I'm not very smart.

But the core of my problem - I think - is that I appear to define my self worth on people, things and events outside of myself. Instead of looking at myself with my own eyes, I try to see myself as others must see me. And their actions dictate far more to me than their words. So when I talk to someone who tells me I'm wonderful, but then refuses to have anything to do with me, I have to discount the words and assume there is a problem of some kind.

Whatever.

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

I'm not sure which of the five rooms I'm in, but it's quiet. So it must be either depression or acceptance. Certain actions I have taken recently suggest acceptance but, like I said, acceptance doesn't really like me. It might be depression in disguise. We're good friends.

The Bottom's Looking Bigger and Bigger All the Time

2010-04-07T10:20:00.003-05:00

Edited at bottom:

So I just got an appointment to go in to be checked so I can renew my diabetes medicine. Now we're waiting on a call back to tell us how much the whole thing is going to cost us.

That's US, as in WE. NOT U.S. of A.

So far we have been told it will cost $150 to show up and leave. Nothing done. Nothing checked. Just boom! We're out $150 for gracing them with my presence. I knew people didn't like me, but I didn't realize it was going to cost me $150 just to have them look at me.

Once I'm there someone (or more) will take my pulse and blood pressure. This is extra now. Not covered by the $150. And since this is a diabetic appointment someone will need to draw blood from my arm. Someone else will need to test it. And it will need to be reported. Not free either.

As things sit now I would not be surprised if we were told it's going to cost us $300. Or MORE. If we're lucky it will only be about $250.

At $250 my decision becomes difficult. That's a lot of money. With milk at $3 a gallon and bread at $1.25 a loaf and butter at $4 a pound that's still a lot of groceries.

The telephone/internet bill is about $70. That's three months worth. (Why have internet? It's getting so one can hardly live without it. Even son's band practice is done over the internet now. No exceptions.)

So, at $250 I have to choose between medicine and other things - such as food. And what makes that so aggravating is that $150 of that bill is for absolutely NOTHING. Just showing up is worth 50 gallons of milk. I'm not sure that it is.

If the bill turns out to be $300 or more the decision becomes significantly easier. I will cancel the appointment and quit taking diabetic medicine. We can't afford to do anything else.

Can we afford the consequences? Well, let's examine that.

I have no job. Therefore I generate NO INCOME. So my loss represents a no-change status regarding income.

If I am gone there is less food being consumed. Less water being used. Less electricity.

From a strictly financial perspective it actually looks to be a good deal.

But there's more to life than money.

Unless you live in the United States of America. Then that's all there is, I'm beginning to think.

Edited:

Got a call from the clinic. The final guess they're giving is $250. So I will be going to the clinic next week.

I signed off by telling them, "Be sure to send a thank you to the governor". The woman chuckled grimly and assured me the governor's office would be hearing about all of his cuts to healthcare for the poor.

Graveyards are Where We Make Them

2010-04-03T06:50:00.002-05:00

After Daddy died we would visit his grave often. As often as we could. It was nearly 100 miles away.

We would go to the graveyard, tucked away in the trees just outside of a small town, and walk to the grave site and stare down, as if expecting something to happen. Perhaps wishing it was just a bad dream from which we could awaken. Like nightmares, when they are so out of control your brain forces you to wake up.

I often wake up screaming. Scares Spouse nearly to a heart attack.

Daddy used to have dreams like that, too.

I remember a long time ago at Spouse's brother's house. Spouse was talking about my dreams and how I would wake up screaming at least once a month, and sometimes more often. Then Spouse made the comment, "I wish I knew what you were dreaming." To which I replied, "No you don't."

When Lynahr died we did the same thing. Visited every spring. Lynahr was buried beside Daddy. Mother is terrified being buried and so she arranged to have herself cremated instead of buried beside Daddy. (Personally, the idea of being burning - even dead - is terrifying to me.)

Daddy died in '74. Lynarh died on 911.

By the mid-80s I didn't visit Daddy's grave so much. Now we don't visit Lynahr's much either.

I guess it comes down to being used to the idea that someone/something is dead.

For years I would take monthly drives back to the place where I grew up. Then it kind of just - stopped happening. The last time was last year, or the year before, when I brought Son there and took pictures.

It's not the same. It isn't home anymore. Not my home.

Acceptance of unpleasant things comes hard and slow. For some it is very hard and very slow. For others it is like waiting for the next glacial age. But for all of it, it is happening. We may think we have frozen in time, but life does go on. And sometimes I hate life for that very reason. Why does it go on? What right did life have to continue when Daddy died? When Cile died? When Grandma died? When Stephen died? When Lynahr died? But it does. And it asks no questions and seeks no approval for doing so. It just - goes on.

And so when a friendship dies what do we do? Often - but probably not always - we visit the places where that friendship meant the most. And we continue to go there until such time that we accept it has truly died - and life is moving on.

I don't want life to move on anymore. I want it to go backward.

The problem is, if life returns to those happier times in my past, it means I will not have the happier times which took place later. Spouse. Son. My friends here online. And so returning to the past will bring the same result: loss.

Life seems to be one constant lesson about gaining people and things - and then losing them. Not all at once. But eventually.

Life.

I don't always like it.

Heart of a Fool

2010-04-01T12:06:00.003-05:00

So. I'm posting again.

Hadn't meant to.

Didn't think I would again.

Not for a while anyway.

But here I am.

Like the battered woman returning to her abuser I come back for more punishment.

Why do people do the very thing they know is going to cause them grief?

I can't answer that.

I don't know the answer.

But I'm unhappy. In case you hadn't guessed.

Been unhappy for a few weeks now. I lost a friend.

They didn't die.

That almost would have made it easier.

They just don't like me anymore.

REALLY don't like me. And they have made it impossible for me to talk with them ever again. So I'm never going to know the reason why.

Just that it has something to do - with me.

Have you ever had someone turn on you?

Generally, it happens before they are willing to say it out loud. But you can tell. Their manner is different. All wrong. They are stiff. Resistant. Cold.

And what do they do?

They begin to look for reasons why they shouldn't like you. Why they should be angry with you. And every little thing you do and say suddenly becomes something to add to their list of complaints against you.

They blow up violently at you. Even when there's no reason. And when you ask about -

They ignore you.

Until they finally screw up the courage to do what they have wanted to do since their heart turned away - kick you away.

And it's your fault.

It's my fault.

-
-
-

You know. For a person like me, and I wonder how many of us there are, losing a friend is like - dying. Or taking very ill.

When I was younger the pain just found a quiet place and went there. But now that I'm older I seem to be running out of places to hide my sorrow. And I spend the days in tears.

I remember a saying from my youth: Life Sucks, And Then You Die.

Isn't that the truth sometimes?

I shouldn't have posted. Surely there was room for this one to hide, too?

Living Forever in History

2010-03-16T12:59:00.004-05:00

You know, life is full of lessons. Some are fun to learn. Some are dull. Some are painful.

The painful ones are probably the ones we learn best. Or, perhaps I'm better in saying, are more firmly grounded into our hearts. Whether we learned them best or not is a matter for debate.

For instance, why do we return to a painful relationship looking for joy and acceptance when we know it just isn't there? But we do. A lot of us do anyway.

One of the more painful - or at least humbling - lessons we can learn is how little we matter in the Grand Scheme. Assuming there is one. But even if there isn't, the truth is, our importance is fairly relative. Or, should I say, our lack of importance is relative. In other words, none of my relatives are important. haha

But I have been reminded in the past week that before I entered this world people were living lives just fine without me. They had no concept of me. And life was grand. And when I leave this place some day, people are going to continue living their lives just fine without me. Eventually, there will be nothing left to tell people I was ever here. And nobody will care.

I guess that's what makes the present so much better for most people. They weren't there in the past. And they won't be in the future. Their time is now.

For myself, I find I don't think of the future so much - except as an extension of the past. My life takes place within a chapter of a much longer story. Relatively speaking, I guess I'm a paragraph, or a sentence, referring to some obscure character who may, or may not, seem interesting to the reader, but who the reader will never learn more about because the story has moved on - while I have not.

Most of my stories send out tentacles into the past. It's the way I write. WHY is this person like this? How did his come to be? Who are these people? History is such a fascinating thing.

I believe it is possible to traverse time in reverse. Some day, barring the world's destruction, people will find a way to do it physically. For now, memory is the road to the past.

Written accounts are best for going beyond our time. Some times they are needed for our own lifetimes, too. Memory brings us back. The page in the diary. The entry on a blog. A letter written to a friend. Email saved and not destroyed.

The past is the reason we can change. The reason we won't sometimes.

This blog contains memories of people who were most precious to me: Daddy. Stephen. Lynahr. Cile. Grandma. They're all gone now. But part of who they were while they were here is contained in this blog. So others can know they existed. And that they were interesting people. Worthy of being loved by anyone.

I guess that's why I'm finding I can never leave this blog for long anymore. I've tried to quit it. Several times. But if my time is short I want there to be something left that says I was here. I want people to be happy about some of the things I wrote. I would like people to say, "Bevie James seemed like such an interesting person. Wish we had met."

Cyber Vacation

2010-03-15T11:10:00.003-05:00

Hello. I'm back. Been away for awhile. Not physically. But then this isn't a physical place, is it?

No. I've been away in the cyber world. Or, to put it better, I've been to another cyber world. One of those online gaming places. It's the cyber version of these week long camps where people go to dress up like knights, Romans, Klingons, Civil War soldiers, 18th century farmers - or what have you.

I can't do that in real life. Costs real money. A shame. I think it would be a lot of fun.

So I did the next best thing: I went to a cyber camp and have been role playing there. Very addictive.

I won't tell you which one I'm in, although I have tried a few. Just in case we bump into each other. More fun if we stay in character. You know? haha

It's fun to play dress up. Even as an adult. I learned last year that my grandmother did that all the time in the 1930s and 40s. She would get all kinds of people to dress up like 1800s lumberjacks, school marms, and what have you. Then parade all through the countryside on horse drawn wagons. She knew how to have fun.

Most of the games are war related, which I'm not particularly keen on. I prefer the socialization and play-acting. I don't like taking it seriously, like some do. No sense of humor at all.

You tease these guys - and most of them are guys (I think. In play acting one never knows. haha) - and they get angry. As though people never laughed hundreds or thousands of years ago.

I think they've seen too many movies.

But that's where I've been. And that's where I'll be going.

Like I said: it's addictive.

See you later. I've got to get into my cyber costume.

What Makes Us Choose What We Choose

2010-02-26T13:05:00.002-06:00

Priorities. It's how we live our lives, isn't it? In fact, we can't live our lives without them.

Which is more important? Go to the movies? Stay home and save the money? Stay home sick and risk losing one's job because they're not that understanding about such things? Or go to work and risk having it get worse and then you lose even more time?

Some priorities are easy. Some get complicated. To others, our complicated priorities generally aren't complicated at all. For some reason we can all see with perfect vision and clarity when it's somebody else confronted with a dilemma. But seldom when it's ourselves.

I have canceled most of my medical visits over the past eight months. Why? Because we don't have health insurance and we also don't have a lot of money. So I skipped my diabetes doctor. Canceled my heart scan. Canceled my colonoscopy (not a difficult decision). And have skipped going to the dentist.

The result is I now have at least two teeth with fillings falling out. One major. Back to that. A few years ago I went two years with broken teeth until we saved up the money to pay for repairs.

My feet have also swollen. My long, slender toes now look like stubby little sausages. The skin is stretched to where it actually hurts. The feet feel both warm and cold at the same time.

Now. Priorities.

Getting these things taken care of is important to me. PAYING somebody to help me deal with it is important to somebody. I have been in debt to medical facilities before. The only creditors worse are banks and the government. So, the choice: Go to the doctor when I know I can't pay for it and will then get phone call after phone call every night of the week for the rest of my life demanding payment; Or not go to the doctor and know that I am slowly but surely killing myself?

I have chosen the second of those two choices.

But that doesn't amaze me. For me, the choice was obvious and hardly worth debating. What amazes me is what took place this week.

Spouse and I stopped at the vet to get Firestar more food. He was out. And after he nearly died he's been on a special diet food only available at the vet. It's expensive, but it lasts a long time. Only it's prescription. So in order for us to continue to purchase it, we had to bring Firestar in to be examined.

So I did.

I spent $66 so Firestar could eat special food which prevents him from getting sick and dying. But I won't go myself.

Priorities.

I based this one on the truth that Firestar's condition is not of his doing. At all. All of my problems are my own fault.

Firestar has no choice in his life. His health is in my hands, not his paws.

I am responsible now for both of our lives. But it's easier to let mine slip than his.

Why is that? He's just a cat.

Except - he isn't. Is he?

Things He Did

2010-02-24T18:06:00.002-06:00

I only knew my daddy for seventeen years. And of those years I only remember a dozen. Not a long time to get to know somebody.

What I most remember of him is his laughter. Daddy was a knee slapper. He When he laughed it was loud and hard. He put all himself into his laughter.

After he was gone I learned more things. Things that took place before I was born. Some of what I learned surprised me.

I knew Daddy had wanted to fly airplanes. For a short time he actually had a pilot's license. That was before I was born. By the time his second child was born he had lost it. To keep a license one must fly so many hours at month or something. That costs money. After he got married Daddy never had much of that.

All of that I knew. How Daddy had taken his mother, his step-father, and Ranlen up to fly. Ranlen was about two. He was sitting on grandma's lap, having a great time. And then grandma told him to look out the window. Up to that moment Ranlen had thought they were on the ground. Once he realized he was in the sky he threw up. All over grandma.

The piece of information I found most amazing I only learned last year. Daddy had wanted to go gold mining in Alaska. Mother didn't even try to stop him. "Go ahead. Go." That was her response. He was packed and ready to go. Then, the night before he was to leave, he changed his mind.

Now I know where I inherited my fear of trying something new comes from.

The Times They Are A-Changing

2010-02-20T20:03:00.003-06:00

Those of you with grown children will know all about this from your memory. Those of you with teenagers are living it now. Those of you with younger children may have an inkling. And those of you without children haven't got a clue.

Son is a teenager. That says a lot. And yet it doesn't really say anything. Teenagers are as different from each other as one tree from another. No two oaks are the same. No two ash. No two beach. No two any trees are the same. And yet all oak trees share common traits. Same with teenagers.

Today we were out. Shopping. A rare occurrence as we seldom have money. But our federal taxes arrived on Friday and we had money in our pockets. Enough to actually eat at an Old Country Buffet restaurant. For those of you who do not know, OCB is an all you can eat establishment. It's a favorite with the very old and the very young. And the poor.

Son used to love going there.

Actually, there was a time when Son always wanted to go with us. It didn't matter where we were going. He wanted to come along.

That was then. This is now.

If it were possible, he would have us go without him even when his presence was required.

The days of not minding being seen with us in public are over. At least for a few years. No longer are we brilliant. We haven't a clue. Our behavior is no longer eccentric. It's embarassing.

But I'm not being fair. The truth is, whatever he feels inside, he is nothing but manners on the outside. I'm only guessing at the clueless and embarassing. He's never said a word. Never acted different.

Except he hates going with us when we leave.

It's his independence coming to the surface. Very necessary, but also lonely.

I appreciate him growing up. Hopefully, he will do better with his life than we have done with ours.

But sometimes I miss the boy.

He used to want to go places with me.

Sigh.

Who is That in the Mirror Anyway

2010-02-14T09:35:00.003-06:00

I'm a suspicious kind of person, I guess. Have been for a very long time. And the tendency has only gotten worse as I have gotten older. Don't really much like it. But it's a matter of self-preservation, you know.

The sad thing is that despite all of my suspicions and doubts about virtually everything, I have not been immune to playing the fool. Which only makes me more suspicious.

I suppose my family taught me to be that way first. They who loved the practical joke. Anything to make someone look and feel foolish. When you played the fool in my family you got no sympathy anyone. Even Daddy and Mother laughed. In fact, often it was Daddy or Mother who put you in position to be the fool.

It was meant in fun, but it didn't always go over well. And the absence of the reverse - positive reinforcement - only made it worse.

As a child I learned a big lesson: Don't trust a good thing. It's a trick. You will look foolish.

I have also had my share of people who have feigned friendship with me in order to use me, get something from me, or just make me look stupid. Men aren't the only ones with "one thing on their minds", and women aren't the only ones hurt when the truth comes out.

The result, of course, is that I have some incredibly wonderful people in my life who I don't entirely trust. Not because of them. But because of a past filled with people who weren't so incredibly wonderful.

Not trusting others, fearing them even, means not being involved when fun things are happening. I rarely attended parties or things of that nature. And when I did I usually sat alone and watched. Still do that at family functions. I'm an observer. Not a participant.

A few times I have joined in, and usually I have had a good time. But for whatever reason, these memories are not enough to inspire frequent attempts to repeat.

I have also been victim of more than one financial scam. When I was doing well, had a job that paid very nicely, money in the bank, etc., I laughed at the scammers and shook my head at those who got scammed. How could they be so stupid? Well, now I know. It isn't so much stupidity as it is desperation. To use sports terminology, it is the Hail Mary pass at the end of the game. It's throwing the basketball (as opposed to shooting it) from 80 feet away.

Yes, playing the fool does make us wary the next time. But it also makes us wary of a good thing and good people when they come along. And if we're too wary they just keep going.

I don't particularly like being afraid and mistrustful. At the same time I don't particularly like being a fool. But my real concern is this: What is that is exactly what I am?

If

2010-02-10T10:06:00.003-06:00

Have you ever noticed how some people just can't sit still? Not ever. Not even after a long and difficult day at a regular job. They return from work and immediately start finding things to do around the house/apartment. They can't sit still. Not even when sitting still is exactly the correct thing to do.

Spouse is like that. After thirty years of marriage we have NEVER sat down and watched a movie, or even a television, show straight through. There is always something that needs to be putzed with. (Putz is my word for activities which don't need to be done and don't really serve much of a purpose at the time.) The result of this is that Spouse never knows what's going on in a movie or television show. And during those rare moments when Spouse returns to watch there is a constant barrage of questions about what's going on which would have easily been answered had Spouse just relaxed and sat still to watch.

After thirty years I'm at the point where if it doesn't interfere with my relaxing I don't really care. It drives Son nuts. He's entering the stage of annoyed replies to questions about the show. Or sullen silence. Teenagers have their own ways of communicating dissatisfaction.

I suppose people like me drive the active people insane, making them think I must be out of my mind (or a completely lazy slob) for being able to sit down and not move from my place for extended periods of time - such as fifteen minutes or more.

Remember Rudyard Kipling's, "If" poem? There have been a variety of comic takes on it over the years. My favorite came from the Flintstones, the stone age cartoon created by Hanna-Barbara back in the 1960s. Fred was going to umpire little league. In the rule book he reads the If poem - as it related to umpiring. It concluded with, "If you can do all of this then, and only then, are you read to be an umpire. You bum."

Whenever I'm around people being active and I'm being calm, I find myself thinking of the If poem and wonder if they're thinking something along this line.

If you can remain calm when this entire mess is your fault,
If you can sit there calmly while there is a floor that could be vacuumed,
or a bed that could be made,
If you can type on that keyboard when there are things that could be rearranged,
furniture that could be moved,
Then just what in the h*ll is the matter with you? Get off your a*s and do something! Anything. Just quit sitting there like that. You're driving me nuts!

Ceste la vie. Right?

Fuzzy Icicles

2010-02-08T11:04:00.005-06:00

We've had light rain for the past week. Other parts of the area got bonified rain and snow. We didn't. But we still got icicles hanging from the roof around us. Being on third floor gives us a closer view of these things.

Today we have light snow. It's supposed to keep getting worse and worse. Nothing like the east coast just got, but snow nonetheless. It's a dry snow, and it's sticking to the icicles. While waiting for our tax guy to arrive I chanced to look out through the deck and saw them. So I took some pictures.

This was the first thing I saw.

And I did a close up.

The snow keeps falling off the top, but the stiles got their share of now.

Our third floor neighbor never uses his deck.

Our second floor neighbors had a nice Christmas scene.

And on the other side it looks like an avalanche under construction.

Fortuna's Wheel

2010-02-05T15:35:00.003-06:00

Time is something we humans have been fascinated with for a long, long time. Even as individuals many of us think about going backward, or forward, in time. Backward to relive old experiences and possibly correct some errors in judgment we made. Forward to see what life will be like. We hate unpleasant surprises.

Not everyone is afflicted with this condition. Many people are quite content to live life in the moment. They could care less what happened in the past, or what is in store in the future. Now is the moment, and now is where they live.

I'm not one of those people. I'm a past person. I see past joys and wonder why they had to end. I see past sorrows and wonder if I would have averted them - if I had only known then what I know now.

But were past joys more joyful than current joys? Or is it simply that now that I can see them with a beginning, middle, and end, I recognize them as joys, whereas now I'm never quite sure what I have until it's done. I suppose that's the advantage of living in the now. Every moment is its own beginning, middle, and end.

There's an addage (I don't know exactly how it goes) that says we can only know the heights of joy by knowing the depths of sorrow. And vice versus, too. In essence, if I understand this aright, one cannot be any happier than they have been sad. Neither can they be any sadder than they were happy. Sounds safe enough. Also sounds dull. Almost robotic. I don't live that way. I don't want to. I'll take my great sorrows, because I know that coming my way is great joy.

Meanwhile, once again I haven't got anything intelligent to say.

Similar Parents

2010-02-03T17:32:00.003-06:00

Stephen's relationship with his parents was what I considered to be - odd. It certainly was not like mine with my own parents. Although his mother was constantly yelling at him. But she didn't call him names and say she hated him. She just yelled at him all the time. In fact, everyone in his family yelled at everyone else. I think it was how they communicated.

But his parents could be so capricious. Without warning they would turn from yelling and screaming to complete and utter generosity. Or the reverse.

Every so often his dad would try to join some of the things we did: billiards, basketball, football, fishing, movies. He was better than average at billiards. He completely sucked at the rest.

I remember one time Stephen calling me up on a Saturday to ask if I wanted to go out that night. I said sure. He said he would be right over. I went outside to wait for him. It was a nice day.

Since Stephen only lived about five miles away it didn't take long for him to show up. Our house was on a corner and I saw him driving to the stop. Right behind him was his dad, laying on the horn. Stephen stopped and got out and he and his dad engaged in a loud exchange. I was too far away to make out the exact words, but the end result was both cars turned around and drove back to Stephen's house. I went inside to wait for the phone call.

I could hear the yelling in the background. It still wasn't clear what the problem was, but Stephen wasn't going to be able to use the car that night. I would have to drive to him. So I got permission to use the car and went to his house. He was eager to leave. The yelling continued until we were both in my car and driving away.

What had happened was this. Stephen's dad had decided to clock Stephen's speed. But he didn't want Stephen to know it, so he waited until Stephen was well away before getting in the other car and following. But to clock Stephen's speed he had to speed to catch up. When he found himself going 70 m.p.h. to catch Stephen he concluded that Stephen was going 70 m.p.h. Stephen, of course, argued that if he had been going that fast then his dad would have had to have gone even faster to catch up. The argument fell on deaf ears. All his dad knew was how fast he was going. Therefore, Stephen had to have been going that fast, too.

Now that I think of it, Stephen's parents were a lot like mine. They didn't make any sense at all.

What We're Comfortable With

2010-02-01T10:15:00.003-06:00

Life is a series of milestones. Most of then quite insignificant. For instance, just a few seconds ago I won my 930th consecutive game of Reversi. You know the game. It comes free with most computers. Basically, it's Othello. I bought Othello back in 1977, I think. That was when I was living alone in a one room flat near the Har Mar Mall. It was also the place where I was unknowingly on display for the world every night. But if you're interested in that you'll need to look at post history. (See What to Watch When the Television is on the Fritz - 1970s Style)

I spent a couple of days getting the hang of the game before Stephen showed up. We played a few games - which he lost every time. Then Randy came over and I beat him. Eventually, Randy would take computer programming in college and he wanted to write an Othello computer game. He was always so frustrated because his program never beat me. He would ask me my strategies and I would tell him. No sense lying. All he had to do was watch me play anyway. So he would go back to the college and input all of the new facts. Then he would invite me in and I would play. And win. And I did it by not following my own strategy. When he asked me why I changed my strategy I replied, "Because what I wanted to do wasn't going to work." That was the element he could never program. The ability to completely toss out one strategy and adopt an entirely new on on the spur of the moment.

There was a time I was very into strategy games. Not all strategy games. For some reason I found (and still find) checkers boring and chess annoying. And I didn't like Go. But games out of the ordinary often fascinated me. Othello, Twixt, and number of others I can't recall the names of.

My sister-in-law had a game we used to play almost daily. I forget the name. I always won. Every time. And for a long time that didn't bother her. Then she decided that it wasn't good for me to win every time. And she decided to quit taking it easy on me.

I suspected she had been. She was (is) hardly a dummy. Her high intelligence and wild sense of humor was what kept us friends. So she decided she would win. She actually gave every move considerable thought. And suddenly, I found myself on the defensive.

It didn't stay that way. The game went back and forth. She had the advantage. I had the advantage. Stalemate. Repeat the cycle. There were only a few pieces left to each of us. It was a game in which you would jump opponent pieces and remove them from the board. Similar to checkers, but with a LOT more twists, from having different kinds of pieces making different kinds of jumps to a diamond board instead of a square. But the game had reached the point where neither of us was allowed any more mistakes. The next mistake, or miscalculation, would result in defeat.

To be honest, the strain was awful. It was so tempting to just give up. But I was convinced I had two things going for me that would result in my winning: my pride in having never lost would keep me going; she didn't believe she would win.

I don't mean she didn't believe she couldn't win. Of course she could win. She had proven that over and over again. But she didn't believe it. It wasn't in her heart. But she had already achieved her goal. Her goal was to prove to me that she could beat me. She had done that - even without winning. My goal was to never lose. Ever. And she knew that.

What I was counting on was her not wanting me to fail. In her heart she didn't. And so it was she who made the fatal mistake which allowed me to win. She didn't let me win. Not consciously. The move I made to claim victory came as a complete surprise to her, and I had to step through it again (slowly) so she could see its legitimacy. But I believe(d) she wanted me to win.

Stephen and I were like that. Stephen NEVER beat me at tennis. I NEVER beat Stephen at basketball or pool.

I NEVER beat my brother at much of anything. Even when I'm clearly better.

We all have relationships like that. There are people who will always win over. There are also people we will never defeat. It has nothing to do with ability. It's something in the heart. Something which tells us that if an alternate result were to occur, not only would life not be the same anymore, neither would it be as good.

My sister-in-law put the game away after that match and we never played it again. I don't think it was so much that I couldn't lose. After that match winning no longer mattered. But we had moved the game from something fun to do together to something which pitted us against each other. And we didn't want that. And so the game wasn't fun anymore.

In the years since I have lost that drive within that tells me to never lose. I hardly try in games anymore, and often lose when I could have - and should have - won. But it doesn't bother me. I find a peace in defeat which I never found in any of my past victories. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, it isn't about winning anymore. It's just about playing.

Unfortunately, I seem to have taken the same attitude toward life in general.

Willard Slough

2010-01-27T08:55:00.001-06:00

Willard was an oddly sort and that was putting it nice
He never washed his hands just once he had to wash them twice

When Willard walked about the town he brought with him a sack
And when he put his smock coat on the front was in the back

One shoe was red, one shoe was blue, the other shoe was green
And Willard walking through the town was something to be seen

He wore pink gloves with the fingers out and carried a candy cane
Which he used to bonk folk on the head when they dared call him insane

One day I chanced to see the man he was in a backward run
I followed him so quickly then to see how this was done

It’s the eyes in back of my head, you see, was Willard’s quick retort
Then off in a flash he was gone again to seal up his fort

I miss the days of Willard Slough, running through the town
For when Willard Slough was with us then, who had a need for clowns

Happy Rabbit Hole Day!

What Happened Then

2010-01-26T14:14:00.003-06:00

Here's a question for you: Do you ever dream about being in school again? Not as an adult returning, but at the same age you were 'way back when'. I do.

Actually, I also dream about returning to school as an adult. What's interesting about these dreams is that they do NOT take place at my old schools. The school are larger, more modern, and filled with new technology.

But when I dream I am young and back in school all is as it was. Kind of like Ebenezer Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Past.

For years I even remembered the combination on my lockers. Now I only remember a ten and thirteen. But I don't think they went with the same locker.

Memory is an odd thing. Back in the 1980s I worked at a small town newspaper. It was a rewarding job, albeit not with money. I earned $10,400 a year. Before taxes. Spouse worked three jobs and earned another $10,000. We paid roughly $6,000 together in state and federal taxes, as well as FICA. And, thanks to the Reagan Administration, had to pay an addition $1,600 at tax time. Apparently the 30% we had already paid wasn't enough. (The reason I remember this so well is that I was talking with a city administrator who was earning $70,000 that year. When he did his taxes he got a return of $7,000. Life is just so fair.)

Anyway.

While working at the newspaper I got wind through a school contact of a man who was celebrating his 105th birthday. I went out to interview him and take pictures. Not being the best photographer, my editor-owner sent the other reporter along to do the pictures.

He was a frail old thing, but still sharp as a tack. He had these tiny vials of brandy, and every night he would set one on his night stand. In the morning, the first thing he did was drink the whole thing.

He had served in World War I and remembered World War II. He grew up without electricity or automobiles or telephones. He told a lot about his life, but mostly he concentrated on the late 1800s and very early 1900s. And at one point he made a curious statement which I can now relate to much better (being about half his age now).

I find now that it is easier for me to remember something that happened back when I was five years old than it is for me to remember what happened yesterday.

Memory is kind of selective, isn't it? And not entirely reliable. I don't think I make too many mistakes with mine yet. But I have known several people who don't do well at all. And they're still quite young!

There is a theory - I don't know who's it is - that stored inside our heads is a record of everything we have done, seen, heard, felt, spoken and even thought. It's all there. Everything. Only the chemical pathways which allow us access aren't all connected for us anymore. But I remember reading some scientist's theory that there was a place in the brain which, if found and activated, would replay our lives for us in detail. Some think that is exactly what is going to happen when we stand before God for judgment. It's all going to play back for us. An irrefutable record of who we have been. For real.

Sometimes memory seeks to hide things from us. I remember a guy I worked with. He had been bicycling through Anoka when he crossed an intersection. He had the green light so he didn't think about traffic. Mistake. A woman ran the red light and struck him. According to witnesses, he never lost consciousness. He even spoke. Amazingly, he had no broken bones or other internal injuries. But he couldn't remember what happened. Everything from the moment he was struck until he left the hospital was gone from his conscious recall. Three years later it was still gone. I don't know if it ever came back to him.

Every so often I find myself wondering if I have any blank outs like that. Considering some of the things I do remember, if I do, whatever it was I'm not remembering must have been quite traumatic. Good thing I don't remember then. Right?

Memory. It plays such a critical part in how we get through each day. Without it we would have no hope of survival.

But that's just my opinion.

The Horses are Gone. Who Gives a Damn About the Gate.

2010-01-22T07:43:00.002-06:00

So, we've lost the house, right? That happened a few months ago. But what do we get in the mail yesterday but a letter from the bank informing us that we now qualify for a vast reduction in interest rate. Just over two percent! (We were paying over five.) This "offer" lasts until the end of February. It reduces the monthly house payment by $800. Pretty fantastic.

Where were they two years ago when we begged them to cooperate with us and they refused? That extra $800 a month could have made the difference between us keeping the house or not. Now the house sits empty. Deteriorating.

When we left the roof leaked over the dining room and the foyer. The siding was damaged on the north and west sides. There was no siding on the west side of the garage. The carpeting was all original from the year 2000. (We were only in it two years when our income dropped from $95,000 a year to $30,000 a year. And since then it has dropped to about $15,000.) The walls in the major rooms need to be repainted. Some of the sinks were beginning to leak and a couple of the bathroom fixtures needed replacement. The house sits in a low area (weren't we brilliant to build there) and so the sump pump runs almost constantly. Year round. We actually went through one and had to replace it.

Sitting empty the ceiling will continue to leak. The already worn and dirty carpeting will not be vacuumed. Condensation around the windows (a problem in this house) will not be mopped up, thereby collecting and becoming a breeding place for mold. Should the sump pump quit running for any reason the lowest level will flood. And for whatever reason there is, houses simply tend to break down when nobody is living in them. I don't know why, but they do.

Spouse believes the bank has the house up for sale at the low price of $169,000. That's about $100,000 less than what we owed, and $80,000 less than it would be worth were it in good repair. My estimate is that it is going to take upwards of $100,000 to restore it to excellent condition again. The roof and siding will take up at least $30,000 alone. But most of the double glazing has popped and the windows should really be replaced. Lets' see: 10 windows on the south side alone; 2 more on the west; 7 on the north; and 2 more on the east. That's 21 windows. Windows aren't cheap. Neither is carpeting. Living room. Family room. Study. Three bedrooms. The vinyl flooring in the kitchen and foyer should be replaced. And since one is at it, might as well replace the vinyl in three bathrooms (the downstairs one is unfinished anyway).

I'm sure the letter we received was some kind of form letter, for it makes no mention of the fact that it's been more than a year since we made a house payment. The thing is, now that our income has dropped to where it is, even at an $800 a month discount we couldn't afford it. What a pity. What a waste.

It Sounds Easy

2010-01-21T06:51:00.003-06:00

Faith in oneself. Believing in oneself. This makes an excellent foundation for achievement and success. How man times (as an adult) have I been told to "just believe" in myself, as though this were such a simple thing to do.

I expect that for people who grew up being told, shown, and supported in doing this it IS an easy thing to do. Something that comes as naturally as breathing. And these people are completely confused, frustrated, and sometimes even disgusted, by those who "won't" do it.

What these people fail to understand is that believing in oneself begins young, not old. Not that it can't begin when one is older. It's just that it's a h*ll of a lot harder.

As adults we either use what we learned as young people to help us continue to grow, or we have to overcome what we learned as young people to grow. The child who is told by parents (especially), teachers (also important), family and friends that they are special, gifted, intelligent, entertaining, athletic, creative, stupid, useless, unloved, unwanted, is going to become an adult who believes these things deeply in their heart. And what we believe deeply in our hearts will greatly affect how we live our lives.

One of the reasons my family has been 'unhappy' with me is because I kept my son from them. We seldom visited, and only once left Son in the care of any of them. My reason (and it was my reason)? I did not want my family to do to my son what it had done to me - and itself. What I saw it do to nieces and (especially) nephews. Disguised as humor, the constant barrage of harassment would have destroyed Son. He's a gentle sort. I didn't believe in my own ability to successfully combat the environment. So I kept Son out of it. The price I paid is that I went lower and lower in the eyes of my family. A price well worth the reward.

You see, Son has something I do not. Son believes in himself.

I know I have a high I.Q. I know I have ability in this and in that. And yet I find myself held back by a very strong conviction in my soul that none of that matters. I still can't do it.

Losing a negative self-esteem is a lot like losing weight. Those not suffering have a difficult time understanding why it's so hard to change. But it is. A good many of us never do.

What's the solution?

I have only one thought. Stop looking at fat people as "fat" people. Look at them as individual people. You might find they're worthy of your friendship after all. And the same goes for the broken down. What often happens is that "fat" people don't eat so poorly when they're around people who just accept them for who they are. And the same goes for the insecure. It has been true for me anyway. When I'm talking with my friends (all online right now) I find I'm not thinking about snacking, drinking pop or second helpings. And I find myself inspired to try again after my latest failure. When I'm with people reminding me of my weight and my failures all I want to do is find a place to hide and eat a bowl of chips with a liter of Pepsi.

My friends have not made me thin (yet). Nor am I a stalwart of confidence. But I do like my friends. They make me happy. Which is something I relish far more than success.

We Are Often Our Own Worst Enemies

2010-01-17T06:36:00.003-06:00

There is something about losing a job which leaves a brand upon a person. Or so I think anyway. So it has been with me. I think.

It's funny, too, how using a different word to describe a thing can totally change the meaning of what has happened in the minds of many. For instance, when I lost my very nice paying job seven and a half years ago I told people I was "fired". My sister Judayl would become almost livid with me for saying this. "You were not fired! Stop saying that. You were laid off. They eliminated your position. Didn't they give you a letter stating your termination had nothing to do with you?"

My termination. Officially, it means something has come to an end. But it has a sense of death about it.

Yes, it is true I got a letter stating the reason I lost my job had nothing to do with me. All of us who were "terminated" at that time got the same letter. Except RT, who argued and fought for a better letter and got it.

But in my mind I was told they didn't want me and that I should not come back. That's as good as fired in my book. Six of one. A half dozen of the other.

And to say my being chosen to be in the department half which was "let go" had nothing to do with me cannot be entirely truthful. There were several reasons, I'm sure, which had very much to do with me, which explain why I was chosen. Four of those reasons stick out in my mind.

A major factor, and one which the company went to great lengths to hide, was my age. Of the sixteen people let go that day, twelve of us were over forty. Three of the four younger employees let go that day were chosen simply to lower the average age. Being over forty I was given a sheet (without names) indicating the ages of all the people being let go and the average age of those people. The average age was 39.8. Only two people over forty were kept. And they were the only two people who knew how to do their jobs.

A second factor, but not nearly so formidable as the first, was my salary. I had been with the company fourteen years. While not the highest paid in my department I still was making a comfortable wage. More money was going to be saved by dumping me than by dumping someone at half my salary. And it wasn't like I couldn't be replaced. I had just written a piece of software which made it possible for anyone in the department to replace me. Wasn't that brilliant of me? [haha]

Formidable as the first factor was, I think the next two were what really sealed the deal against me.

The manager was newly appointed from the ranks. To be honest, he had been promoted too soon and wasn't really ready to take on the position. But the other manager saw an opportunity for his own promotion and took it, leaving his position open. The new manager's insecurities made him paranoid. And he quickly latched onto a Yes Man. The yes man was, of course, the most incompetent person in the department - if not, in fact, the entire company. In fact, he was being fired from the company by another department when my manager took him on. (The yes man had seen the writing on the wall and had maneuvered his way over.) Despite warnings from other managers, he brought the yes man on board. And the yes man immediately became a problem for the department. But nobody could touch him with any piece of evidence. He told the manager everything the manager wanted to hear. And the manager wouldn't listen to anything against him.

Which brings me to reason number three.

I can generally tolerate a lot. And if someone else is incompetent at their job I don't usually care. Until such time that they decide to have me blamed for their mistakes. I refuse credit when it isn't mine, and I simply will not take blame for the same reason. The yes man had been deflecting all of his mistakes at a couple of others (who, by the way, were also cut in the big employee reduction plan). I, and a couple of others, tried to help the innocent, but not being fully versed in that portion of the department were not much help at all. And then the yes man included me.

The argument was short. But loud. And when about a dozen requests to be left alone went unheeded I finally said what I was feeling. "You f*cking a*shole! Get the h*ll away from me!"

Needless to say, that did not go over well with the manager. I found myself in a private meeting - outside the building - in which the manager very nicely explained to me that yes man was really a great employee and I should become friends with him. He also told me something else - which is reason number four of why I was picked to be let go.

I replied that yes man was an effing backside and there was no way I was going to be friends with him. However, in the interest of department health, I would not argue with him again - if he would agree to the same.

As to the manager's other comment, I made no reply. But I really didn't have to.

In a nutshell, the manager's other comment was this: as he saw it, my job was to make him look good to his boss. If I could do that then I was fulfilling my job. If not, I was not. Yes man, by virtue of constantly speaking well of manager when CEO was around, was doing that. I never did anything like that. I needed to start.

To h*ll with that. That wasn't what I was being paid to do. Not in my mind anyway. While I never spoke ill of manager (while I worked there), I wasn't going to play politics. Especially if it meant lying. So I didn't do it.

So, when the big day came and half the department was let go, most of us shared an age over forty. Our salaries were widely ranged. But none of us got alone with yes man, and none of us went out of our way to make manager look good.

I know how to play the workplace game. But if a game isn't fun I just can't bring myself to play it. Not then. Certainly not now. It cost me then and it's costing me now. But as expensive as not playing the game is to me, playing it would cost me so much more. I would cease to be me, and I couldn't live with myself. I know. Because there was a time when I did play the game. And I hated myself so much - and the company which insisted I play - that I actually refused a raise two years in a row. And believe it or not, that did not go over well either.

Recharging the Spirit

2010-01-14T12:42:00.004-06:00

Been sitting here sifting through what I've actually written (on the computer) thus far this year. Nearly finished compiling the list. If you're interested, I'm up to fifteen separate pieces, but only around 6,000-words. I've been writing in short bursts. Poetry. Posts. Things like that.

I had Playlist going and along comes a song I haven't heard in a long time. Amazing Grace. This was an instrumental, done with bag pipes. This song, perhaps more than any other I have ever heard in my life, speaks to me.

This is what I got from Wikpedia: ""Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn written by English poet and clergyman John Newton (1725–1807) and published in 1779."

Newton had been a slave trader.

Generally, I prefer the song in bag pipes, with perhaps an orchestra background. But there are lyrics, and it is the lyrics which make the haunting bag pipe sound so real. If you do not know them, here they are:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

At various time in my life I have become quite "full of myself", and ultimately something will occur to bring me back down to reality. This song is one of those things which can do it very quickly. When I hear the music I think of the lyrics. And the lyrics remind me to consider myself in comparison with the beauty of others, and the idea. I do not measure up well to either. And I am gratefully humbled.

When I was younger I didn't particularly care to think of others as better at anything. Not acts of physical ability, and certainly not in intelligence. I knew I wasn't beautiful, but I liked to believe I was. (This is why I do not keep mirrors about my place.)

I am older now. To children, I am practically ancient. To retirees I am still a "kid". No matter. One thing I have learned in my years is that I don't have to be "the best" anymore. It's enough to be who I am - and that is a learning process only recently begun.

Many, I suppose, look at the lyrics of Amazing Grace and see depression and self-abasement. That is certainly there, but it isn't what draws me. What draws me is the forgiveness. The love. I am fast discovering that that is all that matters to me anymore. To be forgiven - by God and by people - for the mistakes I make, which are many. To be loved - by God and by people - for just being who I am, even while I am still learning myself who that is.

It is a beautiful song and it always makes me cry. At least on the inside, if I manage to keep my tears in check.

The song tells me there is a future. And I should embrace it. It's like - coming home after a long and disastrous journey and finding open arms accepting me back. Everything is going to be all right. That's what's amazing. It is.

I hope you are having a good day.

Here is a YouTube link to Judy Collins singing Amazing Grace with a background choir. Probably the only acapella song I can honestly say reaches me.

A Frightening Bit of Legislation

2010-01-13T22:18:00.005-06:00

It is only now that I am so much older than I was that I realize how naive and stupid I truly am.

Growing up I was taught about slavery, and how it is bad. I was taught about intolerance, and how it is bad. I was taught about murder, torture, harassment, and all kinds of things like that. And I was told those things were bad.

To me, it seemed as though this must have been new information for us all. For most of the adults I knew were very prejudiced against black people. They did not go by the name African-American at that time. Black Power was just coming on the scene.

There was tremendous intolerance for gay people. They were called "queers" when I was young. Faggot was a term used for guys, and Dyke was for gals. Not exactly endearing terms, were they?

I was guilty of using all the nasty words. Everybody was using them, so it only seemed right. Everybody, that is, except the people on the receiving end of those insults.

Suffering from my own persecutions, and even at times having the queer terms used toward me, I came to realize it was all wrong. I have always had gay and lesbian friends. I didn't always know it, despite everyone else seemingly aware. But you see I don't really care about that aspect of my friends' lives. They're my friends. What else do they need to be?

But I believed that people were finally "getting it", and that all of this hatred was fading away. Mine would be the generation to finally end racial hatred. Sexual inequality. Social casting. And so forth.

As it turns out my generation is more guilty of the crimes than any generation which has gone before. I say this because my generation has had all of the previous generations to look at and learn from. But we learned the wrong lessons.

I have seen prime examples within arm's reach of racial hatred. Gender hatred. Hatred against class. Hatred against gays and lesbians. I have seen all of these things which before, in my state of premeditated blindness, I failed to see.

It is exhausting to realize how many people just plain hate people who are different. This is whether the difference is skin color, faith, gender, sexual preference, class, and country. But we can't give up trying to put a stop to the hatred.

Thanks to Fairyhedgehog, I am now aware of something happening in Uganda. Granted, since I don't live in Uganda I have no real right to tell them what they should and shouldn't do. But what they are planning on doing is frightening. Basically, they are considering passing a law which implements the death penalty for gay and lesbian people. You can read Fairyhedghog's post here, and the New York Times article here.

I made my own post, speaking to the Christian community, on Faith in Forgiveness. That's another of my blogs. Not one which receives a lot of visits. Guess I'm not much of a Christian. Fortunately for me, God bases Christianity on forgiveness and not the opinions of others. I'm mostly a powerless person, but I speak when and how I can.

I wish we would all just stop hating each other. So many (most) of the world's problems would just go away if we did.

What We Say and What We Do

2010-01-12T08:10:00.002-06:00

I just saw another PSA about getting flu vaccinations. I'm old enough now to remember when vaccinations were given free to everyone in school. There were no fees based on ability to pay or inability to pay. One day the students would show up to school and find it was vaccination day. Polio was the biggie back then, but I think there were others, too.

How times have changed. There are places where the poorest of the poor can go to get free vaccinations, but even the regular poor have to pay now. Spouse and Son got vaccinated last fall. I skipped it. But between the two of them it cost us about fifty dollars.

Money has certainly become the driving factor in our society. It crushes all other considerations - at least, in the minds of many. There was a time in this country when doing what was right was important enough to spend the money. But the conservative elements of our society have become incredibly powerful. And learned. They know exactly how to bog down any kind of legislation which might actually help people. Like trial lawyers who muddy up the truth with a barrage of irrelevant facts which confuse the jury.

As a country we say getting these vaccinations are important. But not so important to do what was done in the past: provide them free of charge to every student in school. Is this expensive? Of course it is. Very expensive. But so is having unvaccinated children all over the country. So are the two wars we are in - without any clear plan of ending. (Without an idea of what constitutes victory or defeat how can it end?)

We say it's important for everyone to have health coverage. But we won't spend the money to make it happen.

We say it's important people don't use cell phones and/or computers while they're driving. And yet we find no problem with new cars entering the market with built-in dashboard computers, telephones, and even television sets.

We Americans are probably the largest group of hypocrites the earth has ever seen.

Sorry. But these commercials annoy me. And I'm sick of winter. And I'm broke.

Have a good day.

The Everlasting Connection

2010-01-11T10:36:00.002-06:00

Most people do not have to live very long before they know of death. For people living in very difficult places, such as war zones, high crime zones, or very unsanitary zones, death seems to be at their elbow constantly.

For those of us living in modern western society death seems more removed. But really, it isn't. It's just more invisible to us as we don't see it quite so often.

But grandparents pass on. Aunts. Uncles. Eventually, parents. And of course we all know those who died before their time. Died young. Accidents. Disease.

It is when a young person dies that we struggle the most with death, I think. Although if we have been especially close to the the older person who has died it really isn't any easier when it happens. But there is a wave of emotion which sweeps over us when we learn of the death of children. It's like we feel they were somehow cheated, and it wasn't fair.

True, they have been cheated. But cheated of what?

What is it about living here that makes not experiencing it so horrible?

There was a time when I had quite a list to answer that question. But as I have aged I have pared off more and more line items. And as I have come to feel my faith in God and an afterlife grow into something more real to me I have come to pare off even more.

I have had my share of people I care about die. Not as many as some, I know. In that I have been far luckier than them. But I know the pain of loss. Daddy. Stephen. Lynahr. Grandma. Cile. There have been babies, teenagers, young mothers. It hurts. It always does.

But I have come to realize that those who die and move on to whatever it is in the afterlife are only cheated of one thing that really matters: us.

If the afterlife is all we like to believe, then why feel sorry for someone who gets to live it? The baby didn't get to grow up? And experience what? Racial, sexual, religious, caste, financial bigotry? There are things that are good in this life, but there are a hell of a lot of things that really suck. Illness. Injury. War.

If heaven is what we believe it to be - and yes, I do believe it is, and more - then even a baby missing out on this life has to be happy.

It's like when Jesus was going to cross to die. He told the weeping women to stop weeping for him. His time of suffering was about over. Life was about to get very good for him. "Weep for yourselves," he said. Why? Because they would be without him.

And that's the real reason we weep when someone dies. We are less concerned with what they will miss out from not being here than with us being without them. That's the real pain of death. Losing someone and not being able to find them again. You see, we all know the rule: we're not supposed to seek out death. We're to let him find us when it's time. To encourage us to obey we have all been given a sense of self-preservation. Otherwise, when someone especially loved died, those who especially loved them would simply follow.

The worst thing about babies, children, and young people in general dying is that we miss out on seeing them grow up. We miss out on experiencing their joys with them. We miss out on showing them love and comfort when things go badly for them. We don't get to share their lives. And that is true of older people who die, too. We want them around to share our lives with us. We want them to see our laughter, heal our hurts and wipe our tears. We don't have that when they die. And it hurts.

We get angry at God and say he was cruel to them to let them die. But the truth is, we are angry because he was cruel to us. He took someone we loved. And now we feel so alone.

I do not believe there is any scripture to support it, but I personally believe that God acts as a mediator between those of us who remain here and those who have gone to be with him. I don't think they can see or talk with us directly, but I do think God keeps them informed of what's going on in our lives. And I believe there is scripture to support their talking to God on our behalf.

The love which connected us when we were all here together remains. And I believe it still connects us. Why/how else is it that people can really feel the presence (sometimes) of those who have died? I think it's love. Like water seeping through the soil, love will ultimately find a way to bridge the distances. Until such time that we go to be with them again. And then others will wail and moan about how cruel God was to take us. And then we will seek to use our love to keep us connected with those who we left.

Probably not scriptural at all. But somehow I don't think I'm that far from the truth.

Three in One

2010-01-07T18:14:00.002-06:00

While we (Spouse, Son and myself) have not had to endure great quantities of snow thus far, portions of Minnesota have been deluged. What we have had around here is ice. Lots of it. Thick. And slippery. Just the other day I went down like a sack of potatoes. In front of witnesses. No real harm done. A bit of a bruise on my knee and hand. Could have been worse. Much worse.

It got me to thinking. I remember when I was seventeen and driving on ice to school.

It was after The Old House had burned. In fact, it was the winter Daddy died. Not long after, in fact.

I was staying with my older sister who lived in Coon Rapids. That was about ten to twenty miles away from my high school. Since I was a senior I opted to continue at my regular school rather than finish up at at new school. So I would drive every morning and afternoon.

Now this particular morning I got up to find a freezing rain falling. I was going to be late. Nothing to do about it. I would have to drive slow.

Only driving slow didn't help me this particular morning. The ice was wet and so particularly slippery. I discovered exactly how slippery as I crested a hill and began a long descent to a low place which crossed a small creek. To my horror the back of the car began to pass the front. I steered toward the slide, but the car refused to straighten out.

Now I did not go off the road and into the creek. Fortunately, someone of clever thinking and foresight had installed posts alongside the rode to prevent this very occurrence. So when the car reach the first post the back end struck it, causing the car to swing around the other way. Now I frantically steered the other way. Of course there was an oncoming vehicle.

How we missed I'm not sure, but my car struck a post on the opposite side of the road and swung back to the original. I think it was at this time the two vehicles passed each other. I hit another post, but now I had reached the bottom and was now on my way back up. This allowed me to regain control of my car and straighten it out.

I pulled over to the side and used a tow chain to pull the fender away from the tire. Then I got back in and started off again.

Just a few miles down the road I came to a "T" intersection. My road was heading slightly downhill, and as I pumped the brakes I realized I was not going to stop. My only hope was that there was no cross traffic. There wasn't, but I slide right across the road and into a shallow ditch which made up the front yard of a one of my classmates. Since it was shallow I just floored it and got out.

All was fine from then on until I got one block away from school, at which time I hit another untenable patch and found myself on a church lawn.

Off the road three times in one trip. It remains my personal record to this day. Fortunately, but the time school was out the sun had managed to melt off the ice and I had no trouble getting back to my sisters.

Gotta be careful with ice.

A New Year and a New Chance

2010-01-04T06:45:00.002-06:00

The holidays are over for this year. Back to the grind.

That's how Son feels about it. Boring as it is living in an apartment filled with boxes packed with things we're rapidly forgetting are there, returning to school is hardly the compensation he was looking forward to for his stoic patience in being cooped up here with me.

We have spent the past ten or so days alternating time on the computer, although of late he has rediscovered his Wii and GameCube. Also, Spouse had the day off yesterday and the two of them played Sarge's War. The game does allow up to four players, but only two can comfortably get in front of the television right now.

Last week I actually got myself signed up for a job. Turned out I fell for a scam. Now, today, I have to set about getting myself extracted from it before they start charging our bank account $100 each month.

I know. I know. I'm supposed to be smarter than that, and I really am. Usually. But things are tight here (and I don't mean drunk), and Spouse is all panicky, and so in desperation I leaped where I should have turned around and walked away. What galls me is that I really did know better. But it was just easier to go along than stand firm. Most of Spouse's ideas for me to work are fairly - crazy, to put it mildly - and I know how it must sound when I explain I simply do not have the health to do some of the things suggested, or the skills to do others. So I gave in. It may cost us. We'll see.

Other than that I did actually visit my mother. Twice. The first was the Christmas get together she had at her place. The second was New Year's Day. She took Son and me out for an afternoon lunch at Old Country Buffet, an all you can eat buffet. The food is pretty good. And after eating the same three things over and over again it was actually quite good as a change of pace.

I am setting goals for myself to write. A lot. We'll see how it goes. This is not a resolution. Resolutions are like promises, and I won't make a promise I cannot promise I can keep. Goals are desires. They are things we can work toward. We don't know if we'll make them, but we can try. That is how I intend to approach it. My goal is to write a million words in 2010. This will mean a lot of writing. Even more than 2009, when I came a few thousand words short. But I still think it's reasonable to believe I can make it.

It's going to be odd, I think, not having Son about today. I expect Firestar to cry a lot. He's not real keen on changes. He freaked out for two days when Son didn't go to school. Now he's going to freak out again because Son is. Silly cat.

But I know how he feels.

A Year of Blessings

2009-12-31T13:51:00.003-06:00

Another calendar year has come to an end. I preface year with calendar because every moment of every day is the end of another year (you really think about it).

We say it's year 2009 (for a few more hours) because we are basing our calculation upon a fixed point in time. (An incorrect fixed point in time, by the way.) It turns out whoever set up our calendar originally got the start point wrong by up to three years. And then, nobody took into account the fact that a year isn't exactly 365-days until over a thousand years had passed. So it's all guesswork.

But other calendars use different fixed points in time and so come up with other years. Isn't there one calendar in the 20,000s now?

My point is that all year ends are artificial, created by one or more people establishing a fixed point in time. Most people in the world are now using the same calendar and so the year is 2009 - ending. And for several hundred years that has worked well enough.

You know, though, I don't believe I've ever read anything in which the people preceding the beginning of our calendar ever referred to a year as a number. They seemed to think about years with regard to a significant event. The Year of the Great Flood. The Year of the Locusts (hey, that would make a good book, I bet [smiles]). The Year of the Drought. And so on. People didn't seem to count years beyond knowing how old they were.

Personally, I am ending 2009 a bit worse off than I ended 2008. That has been the pattern for several years now. Perhaps it has been the pattern all my life, but when I was so much better off I never noticed it. Now, any adjustment, good or bad, is keenly felt.

Despite this "lowering of station" I have experienced (and Spouse and Son, too, by reason of their affiliation with me), I must say that 2009 was mostly a happy year in my memory.

Surprised I wrote that? Yes, I know. I write a lot of self-pitiful stuff. And I whine more than most about my situation. But that's just my way of expressing an emotion out of my system. And when I speak sarcastically about myself, I really am laughing at myself, despite what you may think. I DO laugh a lot more than my writing would imply.

Early in the year I got the feeling that something significant would happen at summer's end. I was convinced this "something significant" was something of great benefit. If it happened then the benefit has eluded me. The most significant thing that happened at summer's end was we lost the house. But that was followed immediately by me writing three novels in less than 90 days. I don't know that either of those things qualify as a fulfillment of my feeling. Maybe something happened I'm unaware of.

But this year has been especially good to me while attempting to bring me low. What am I thankful for?

My best friend. Without a doubt this has been my most precious gift of 2009. I have not had a best friend since Stephen died. Many are the days I am nearly brought to tears with the joy of knowing my friend is there. Still. And on top of that, I have made other friends this year, too. They can't all be best. How did the song go? If everybody's somebody - then no one's anybody.
A new creative outlet for my writing. I found myself writing more about women this year, and I have enjoyed it beyond explaining. I have truly opened a part of myself I never knew was there. And I like what I'm finding.
I have enjoyed my most prolific year ever in writing. Just a few thousand words short of 1,000,000-words. I started and finished five (5) novels. In fact, I wrote a complete novel in September, October, and again in November (after I abandoned NaNoWriMo).
While not at all healthy, I am still here with my family.
I have discovered there are certain family members who's proclamations of love go far beyond words.
I have discovered I care a LOT more about people than I do about rules. I realize this puts me at odds with a lot of other Christians, but I am not firmly convinced I understand what God meant when he told us through the Apostle Peter, "Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8 Revised Standard Version
While I can't do it right now, I know what I want to do with my life. It's just a matter of finding and recognizing the opportunity when it comes. (Tied with that is the understanding of how to create the opportunity to find.)
Son has discovered his first best talent is in music. He now owns his own saxophone. Whatever it cost us to get it, it was worth it.

Certainly, I could go on. And on. And on. Despite losing the house. Despite poor health. Despite the stresses we have faced in our home. I think it has been a good year. And I am truly grateful.

I am also grateful to those of you who come to read what I write. I realize the posts on this blog are hardly informative or inspirational, but you come anyway. Thank you.

I hope your year has ended well for you.

God bless.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T21:48:00.001-06:00

Have a a very Merry Christmas.

Tis the Season

2009-12-22T14:32:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I did attend an extended family function on Sunday. My mother hosted a Christmas get together at her place. She lives in a 3-floor retirement community. She was able to reserve the common room for about three hours.

Spouse had to work, but Son and I attended. For the most part it was all right. Spent a lot of time sitting with nothing to do and no one to talk with. I'm just not aggressive that way. The older I get the less I figure anyone wants to talk with me, so I virtually never interject myself, other than to say hello. Especially with people I have not seen in a long time.

My aunt and uncle I have not seen since last winter, when mother had cancer surgery. My one niece I saw last spring, and I saw my sister just a week ago. Other than that it's been years. Some of the young ones I have never seen.

My nephew's wife came up to Son and me and told Son she didn't think he remembered her. She could have said that about me, too. I hadn't a clue who she was until she told Son.

When we left Son made an interesting comment.

"Why is everyone in our family fat? Including the children?"

Well, everyone is a bit of an exaggeration. I did a tally. Only two out of three. My younger sister's family are all acceptably thin, and my brother's youngest son is downright skinny. So those seven were not fat. And Son is not fat. And there was another little boy who was not fat. But the rest of us? Yeah, I'm afraid so.

It wasn't that way forty years ago. Then, the ratio was at least reversed. It may even have been greater in favor of thin and skinny. Times have changed. So have lifestyles.

But now it is time for our Christmas season. Son gets off school in a few minutes and does not have to return until January. He's looking forward to that. I have mixed feelings about it. His being around means a lot less time on the computer for me, and even less writing.

Oh, well. I like having Son about. Mostly.

Morticia is Gone

2009-12-17T15:58:00.003-06:00

There are two main downers to getting older. One is one's own health. It is inevitable that one's body deteriorates as one ages. Arthritis. Muscle aches. Stomach issues. More weight and less hair.

The other downer is the disappearance of familiar faces.

We like to watch old movies and old television shows. Right now we're watching Hogan's Heroes. At least four of the main characters are dead: Hogan, Schultz, Klink and Burkholder. I think there are others gone, too.

One of my favorite shows was Addams Family. Morticia, Lurch, Uncle Fester and Grandmama are all gone.

We recently had some Gilligan's Island episodes from the library. The Howell's are gone. So are Skipper and Gilligan.

There aren't many entertainers left from the 60s and 70s, and fewer still are actively entertaining. It makes one feel old.

Tree Farming

2009-12-16T10:38:00.001-06:00

My first job away from home was working at a tree farm. I got the job through a classmate, who told me they would hire anybody. Not sure what I was being told beyond an available job, but I went and worked.

Back at that time places like tree farms often hired what was known as ‘casual labor’. All you needed to work was a social security number so they could send in the FICA taxes. There were no interviews. Everyone who showed up by seven o’clock got to work. Show up late and you probably wouldn’t, as all of the crews would have already left.

Pay Day was whenever you wanted it. Some worked all day and took their pay upon leaving. Others took their pay once or twice a week, as they needed the money. Perhaps there were a few who delayed more than a week, but these would be rare.

There were two groups of people who worked this particular tree farm. The one group consisted of school age workers from high school or college, collecting money over the summer holiday, or on weekends during the school year. The other group consisted of middle aged men. Many of these looked like men who were solely interested in acquiring enough money for another bottle of wine, or whatever.

If I remember correctly, the pay was $1.50 per hour. You had your crew foreman fill out your hours at the end of the day and then turned in the card, stating whether you wished to be paid or wait.

There were several types of crews, but I was only ever assigned to two. One truly s*cked. That consisted of standing out in the hot sun hoeing and plucking weeds from around small seedlings. We were put on a large wagon and towed out to the fields and dropped off at various places in twos and fours. Even for me, who prefers hot and humid days to any other, standing in a field without any shade was wearing. The only drink was what one had in their thermos. Bathrooms were the hedge rows, kept to prevent wind and rain erosion. The second crew shift was better in most ways, but it was also a bit more dangerous. It was the Pole Plant.

The Pole Plant was where they took trees which had grown too thick to sell anymore, stripped them of their branches, and then ran them through a de-barker to create fence posts. There were various stations here, including removing the branches, hauling trees to be de-branched, de-barking trees, and hauling posts. The hauling jobs required knowledge of construction equipment. I never got to do that. Neither did I get to do de-branching. I worked in the de-barking area.

This was nice in that it was under a roof, allowing the work to continue in rain and snow. It was not nice in that it was an assembly line which never stopped until lunch and the end of the day. There were four positions, and only the two end got to rotate. Position One was the machine operator. Position Two worked at helping the machine operator feed the tree trunk into the lathe type thing. Position Three kept the tree trunk straight and went around to collect the post and toss it on the completed pile. The final position, Position Four, grabbed the next tree trunk and put it on the conveyor belt and made sure the end didn’t swing about and kill someone. It wasn’t easy and required a strong hand. Being the largest person on the line meant I usually got this job.

The job was not entirely safe. Relax your hold on the end and it just might swing up and cave in your head. I found that out early on, being fortunate enough to only get smacked in the chest. An advantage of being tall I guess. Still, it hurt, and the line had to be shut down until I was able to get back on my feet. Nobody felt sorry for me, though. They were angry with me for risking their lives by being stupid.

There was a second danger to this position which I had not been warned about. Not having a lot of money I was not able to afford the nice leather gloves that everyone else had. So I had thick, woolen, gloves such as farmers used to use. After only two hours of holding trunks being spun down the conveyor belt the gloves began wearing through. They had holes in them. And every so often they would catch on a knot, or piece of bark. This was not a really big deal until one glove got caught especially tight. My entire arm was being pulled over and down as the trunk spun in a circle. I shouted, but the machine made more noise than a classroom filled with kindergartners. No one heard me. I had only a few seconds before my arm was bent in a manner not meant by nature. I pulled with all my strength.

It’s a scary thing, being pitted in a battle of strength with a mindless machine operating with endless power. I sometimes find myself wondering what would have happened had I been a smaller person. But although I wasn’t fat yet, I was very large. And very strong. For just a brief moment I managed to stop the turning. But whereas the machine could exert constant pressure, I could not. And when I was forced to relax the turning began again. So I pulled in a jerk motion and my hand came free. Without the glove. That went around and I managed to pluck it off when it came back.

I had to spend the rest of the day doing my job with one glove with holes in it. Within the next hour I had no gloves. I finished the day with blistered hands. I didn’t go back.

I think about that job now and realize that I now belong to the wino group, despite the fact I cannot imbibe alcohol. It’s work I couldn’t do anymore. Not that it matters. That tree farm hasn’t existed for a good many years.

Christmas Countdown

2009-12-15T08:14:00.002-06:00

Time again for shameless self-promotion. I realize it’s in bad form, but I figure, what the h*ll. It’s my blog. If I’m not going to promote myself then why have it?

Christmas is a time for nostalgic thinking and feelings. We remember what it was like to be young and sitting before the tree waiting for the go-ahead to begin presents.

In our house Daddy handed out presents. Nobody else. After a few years, when I was older (and so was Daddy) I helped by crawling under the tree to get the hard to reach presents. Also, Daddy would hand me the presents to hand to those who weren’t sitting within easy reach. That way he didn’t have to crawl all over the floor. When Helvie got older she helped, too. I didn’t like that. I liked it when it was just Daddy and me.

We were poor, but things cost pennies in those days. For $5 my parents could buy six presents for every child (there were seven of us, and although Ranlen was up north he still had presents under the tree). Every year one child would be picked to get a special Christmas. Their presents cost a bit more than the others, but they didn’t get so many either. But we often had both sets of grandparents and Aunt Cile with us. And sometimes another aunt and/or uncle. We could have as many as fifteen or twenty people there. And with each person getting at least five presents, that meant a lot of presents under the tree. But think of this: seventy presents for less than $200. That’s what we were able to do back in the 60s.

So what has all of that to do with shameless self-promotion? Uh, nothing. I got off on a tangent. I think I’ll stay here and save the self-promotion for another post. You don’t mind. Right?

In The Old House, we had that giant living room (25’ x 15’) with the 12’ ceilings. This meant we could have very large trees – which we did. They cost nothing, so why not? While hunting up north Daddy and Alfred would go out into the forest, find a tall white pine, cut it off at eight to ten feet off the ground, and that would be our Christmas tree. They only guessed at the height, and twice we had to shorten it to fit in the living room. But they were wide. Quite able to hold all of the presents beneath.

We had blinking lights, but they didn’t flash on and off. When I say ‘blinking lights’ I mean blinking lights. As in, why don’t the d*mn things work this year? Now we have to find the one bulb that is keeping the others from lighting.

There was nothing more magical to me than to sit before a 12’ decorated Christmas tree with a monstrous pile of presents beneath. Never mind that only a handful were for me. Never mind that nearly every present I got cost less than a dollar. Maybe two. Except, every so often, when it was my turn to get the special Christmas.

I realize that Christmas, as a concept, is about the birth of Jesus, but let’s be real. It’s one thing to know that (we all do, right), but it’s quite another to see it as the primary focus of the season. Christmas is for children. Even Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” There is nothing wrong with Christmas being a season for children. Personally, I think it far better to keep Christmas for children (and we all have a child in us some place, right?) and the entire year for God, rather than the other way around. I am aware that Christmas is the time when we acknowledge the birth of Jesus. But even as a Christian, I have to admit, when I think of Christmas I think of children sitting before a decorated tree with presents beneath. It’s a magical time. Anything could be in those packages. Even when you knew it couldn’t. But it is a wonderful time for believing. And speaking for myself, I need that more than anything.

There. That was much better than what I was going to talk about.

Christmas Season

2009-12-13T15:11:00.007-06:00

2nd UPDATE: I deleted the original post. It's what I wanted to say, but not the way I wanted to say it. So I'll just leave the first update.

UPDATE: I just thought of something my sister told me. My niece is now a proud mother of two bright and wonderful children. Her daughter, a second grader, was with her in the car listening to Christmas music when the verse, "It's the most wonderful time of the year" came caroling through the car. With complete innocence my great-niece asked her mother, "Mommy, is Christmas really the most wonderful time of the year?" In true fashion, proving she is indeed descended from my parents, my niece replied, "No, dear. That's just a song. The most wonderful time of the year is summer."

Are You Ready For Winter

2009-12-10T08:28:00.003-06:00

My family has a history of having a wild, and often times extreme, sense of humor. In recent years I have tended to fade away from some of the more extreme amusements, although I am still a fair hand at one-liner responses to straight lines.

But I was never a master at practical jokes and things like that. That honor goes to my brother Mickey and sister Judayl. They loved (and still do) to make elaborate plans for the sole purpose of making someone look foolish. Sometimes they have been the butt of these things, but it's not easy to get a master. Which is why I feel especially proud of having achieved the greatest family joke against Judayl. But that's a different story. In fact, I think I've already posted it. Can't remember.

Anyway, practical jokes are one way my family tells people they are accepted. Generally we do not joke people we don't care about. Those people we merely insult. Unfortunately, sometimes it's difficult to distinguish insults from jokes. That's just the way it is.

A good number of years ago now Judayl was working in an office. It was fall. October or November. A new employee had just arrived from Southern California, where he had spent his entire life up to then. Living in the hot, dry, desert he had no concept of Minnesota's trees, lakes, and weather. But he had heard things. So he questioned Judayl and her co-workers.

What he was interested in was his car. He had heard rumors that Minnesotans did things to their cars before winter. What did they do? Why? It was Friday and he hoped to resolve this over the weekend.

So Judayl very calmly, rationally, and without so much as a grin, explained to him that winter air is different than summer air, and that Minnesotans bring their cars in to have the air in their tires changed around October or November. This will prevent flat tires when it gets very cold. All he had to do was go to any garage and tell the mechanic he needed to have winter air put into his tires. It wasn't expensive and didn't take long.

On Monday morning Judayl and her comrades felt bad about the joke. Yes, it was funny, but the truth is there ARE things that Minnesotans do to their cars in October and November, and they HAVE to be done. They decided they had best let him know what those were so his car didn't get damaged.

He came in sullen and didn't say hello to anyone. Judayl and the other went to him and apologized about the air in the tires thing (yes, he had gone to a garage and asked for winter air), but they were ready to give him truth now. What he had to do was bring his car to any garage and have them change the oil from summer weight oil to winter weight oil. Also, he needed to make sure his radiator had fresh antifreeze in it.

It was a case of Fool Me Once, Shame On You. He got very angry with them and told them he wasn't going to fall for the same joke twice.

At first Judayl and the others continued to feel bad. Then, of course, they found it extremely funny.

I don't know if the man got his car winterized in time or not. I suspect he did. Hope so.

But that is the kind of humor my family likes to enjoy.

Out of the Way!

2009-12-09T08:30:00.002-06:00

There are roughly 72-units in the apartment complex we live in. Mostly 2-bedroom units, but a few one and three bedrooms, too.

Every month there seems to be a big turnaround with units. People come. People go. Some very quickly.

Recently, someone moved in who is quite noisy. We became alerted to their presence by the sound of running feet down the hallway. The complex is shaped like an "L" and we live on the top floor of the inner corner, so we could hear the running the full length of both lines. Our assumption was at least three, maybe as many as five, children. The other day I learned for certain.

I was climbing the stairs to third floor. This is a process for me. As I neared the top I could hear the stampede coming down the hallway. The entire clan was on its way. I hurried to reach the top so I would not be bowled over and sent down the stairs again. Not only would this likely result in injury, but I would still have to make the interminable climb again. I made it just as the source of the noise swept around the corner to go down the stairs.

Was it a pack of teenagers? No.

A gaggle of rambunctious boys? No.

A girl scout troop? No.

To my utter amazement a single little elf child swept around the corner and nearly bowled me over. Panting heavily, she only gave me a glance as she hurried down the stairs to seek out the candy machines on first floor. The noise followed her.

She couldn't have been older than five or six. Three feet tall and maybe thirty or forty pounds. Her entire person didn't seem much larger than the palm of my hand. But she could really make the noise.

The energy of youth, I guess. But now when I hear the stampede echoing down the hallway my mind envisions this tiny little elf child stomping with glee, completely oblivious to the meaning of living in this place. Ignorance really is bliss. I'm glad someone around here is having fun.

Combining Highs

2009-12-07T13:49:00.002-06:00

So I was talking with Son last night while we tried watching Polar Express. I say tried watching because we have this wonderful television-dvd combo that we got a number of years ago and the d*mn thing works like cr*p. Nearly every movie freezes up on us before we can get all the way through. I know it isn't the discs because those work on the computer. But the computer monitor is older than the television and night scenes are like - black.

But anyway, for some reason I was reminded of going to a cartoon festival way back in the 70s. Chris invited me, which I found odd at the time as Chris never struck me as a cartoon kind of guy.

We arrived early in Chris's new car. It was one of the earliest models to have automatic shut off of head lamps. Chris took special pains to leave his lights on. Then, while we stood in line, he waited for someone to notice. I was amazed at how long it took for anyone to notice. That is, until I realized that nearly everyone in line was a dead head drug user. Not the heavy duty stuff. I don't think. Not that night anyway. But a LOT of marijuana.

Time is running out. Chris is calculating there are only a few seconds left. Finally some guy sees the car and starts trying to get everyone's attention. But by the time he can, the automatic shut off has kicked in and the lights are off. He does one of the biggest double takes I have ever seen. Might have swore off the drugs after that. Probably not.

I remember a lot of what we saw, but only one title. What sticks out most vividly in my mind is that that night was the first time I ever smelled marijuana. We were sitting down near the front. I had the aisle seat. That way Chris had to sit next to the high guy. All of a sudden there is this - smell. Chris leans over to me.

Chris: Smell that?

Me: Yeah. What is that? Smells like someone lit the diaper pale on fire.

Chris: That's marijuna.

Me: You're kidding!

Chris: No. That's what it is.

Me: And people want to smoke that stuff? Why not just buy dirty diapers?

The auditorium was boisterous. That is putting it mildly. I was sitting there and wondering what I had gotten myself into. Then the first film began. LOW volume.

There were cries of "turn it up", but soon those were being replaced with "shut up, man". By the time the first cartoon was over it was quiet. At this point in time the projectionist turned up the volume. I was impressed.

The first film was simply a cartoon of some guy dancing across shapes and colors. Cool music. Bouncy. Then, at the end, the guy kind of fell off the world and floated. At this point someone from the middle of the auditorium calls out, "He's high, man!"

I enjoyed most of what we saw. There was the one with claymation. A couple of folk guitarists were in the mountains. Then, they began to transform into a rock band, playing psychadelic music. That one ended with the mountains turning into volcanoes.

Mostly the films were quite colorful. Chris explained to me that people on drugs really got into the bright colors and things. Helped them hallucinate or something. (I suppose you can tell I have never indulged. Too afraid of dying, or losing my brains. I had more than one friend die because of drugs.)

The only film title I remember is available on YouTube. It's a short, 1:30, animation. It's a classic. I called it up and showed Son, who knew of it, but had never seen it. Here it is. The one and only original:

And afterward we went and had pizza.

We Had Fun

2009-12-06T16:16:00.003-06:00

Stephen and I were born at the wrong time, I think. I should have been born a long time before. Perhaps several hundred years. Stephen should have been born later. Today's technology would suit him well.

Stephen wanted to make movies. He made a couple, but only one was any good. That was Fate. I worked with him on one real movie and two other films. But I was not able to corral Stephen's need to "just do it". When Stephen made Fate he was not officially in command. Aaron, who was already making some very good films with his brother, had been brought in to help, and Aaron kept the crew focused. Aaron made Stephen work with a script that actually had a plot.

I was only able to get Stephen to compromise when we made Falcon Man. We had a script. And we had a plot. But it didn't work well.

I think Stephen would love how easy it is for amateurs to make movies now. Video cameras are reasonably inexpensive and digital film means instant knowledge of whether a scene worked or not.

The year after we graduated from high school Stephen was at my apartment and saw one of those shields with the crossed swords behind it hanging on my wall. Being Stephen, he couldn't just leave it alone and he discovered one of the swords actually came out easily. Within minutes both swords came out. Now he wanted to make a film.

We dressed in some of our more rustic clothes and headed to the local dam. It was a small thing, spanning a small river. Still dangerous if one got too close, but we went to the low water side where Stephen knew of a wooded area. Randy was the camera man. That was what Randy liked doing best.

The idea was that Stephen and I would be medieval warriors engaged in a duel to the death.

We waded across the river, the water came up to Stephen's neck but only my chest. Randy had to walk holding the camera above his head.

Once on the island we did some choreography and rehearsals. Now we were ready. Randy started filming. Stephen came at me. He swung his sword and I blocked it. Now I swung mine and he raised his sword to block it. His sword broke in half. That thin aluminum just wasn't meant for stuff like this.

So much for our film.

I wonder what kind of films we would be making today were Stephen still here. With our track record I have to believe they wouldn't make it to either Cannes or Sundance. But we would have fun.

Consequtive Defeats

2009-12-04T15:42:00.000-06:00

Being poor in America is an interesting experience. Did you know you can't file bankruptcy unless you have money? And if you don't file bankruptcy you can have your wages garnished. And if you have your wages garnished you don't have enough money to pay rent. And if you don't have enough money to pay rent you get kicked out of your place.

I have said for a long time that if there is a stupid decision to make regarding money, ask me what I choose to do and you'll know what it is. Four years ago, three years ago, two and even one year ago we had the money to file bankruptcy. But we didn't. I was of the mind that we should keep trying to pay down the bills. Be honorable. You know. But the plan failed and we ran out of money and now we don't have the money to pay our bills. Unfortunately, the banks don't give a rat's ass. Acknowledging that we never missed payments on anything for thirty years they conclude that because we have now we have suddenly decided to be dishonest.

So, what we SHOULD have done was take the money we used to pay down loans which ultimate never got paid off, and filed bankruptcy so we wouldn't have to pay off the loans and wouldn't have to worry about garnishment.

The trouble with us is that we always believe better times are coming. Even now. But we keep losing.

Remember the dead car battery? It won't hold a charge anymore. That's another $100. Only this time we don't have it. So the little car is just going to have to sit and wait for better times.

Better times are coming. Some are already experiencing them. The rest of us just have to wait a little longer. Just a little longer and everything will be all right.

It will.

When You Wish Upon a Star

2009-12-03T05:28:00.002-06:00

Do you know what I wish? If you do then there's no point in me going on. However, since there is no way for you to let me know at this moment in time I will assume you don't know what I wish and actually go forward with this post. But if you do know, then you need not read any further as you already know what this is about. Which is more than I know. I'm winging it.

Actually, I've been observing my teeter totter brain with all of its emotional influences. One moment I'm thinking about shutting down all of my blogs and quietly fading away into the oblivion from which I came. The next I have about a dozen ideas for new blogs. Left to itself I am not sure the brain can be trusted.

Do you know that I have ten blogs and five blogger accounts?

One of the blogger accounts doesn't actually have any blogs, and another has a blog, but I never post on it. A third account exists, but I seldom sign in, and the fourth is of a like kind.

Generally, when I blog, it is with this account: the Bevie account.

Which brings me to what I wish.

What I wish was that I could be logged into more than one account at the same time in Firefox, instead of having to open a session of Explorer (which often causes my computer to crash). I suppose I could achieve my goal by simply having multiple computers. Yeah, right. I don't even get that lucky in my dreams.

All of these blogs I have. So much to say. But nothing really worthwhile. Still, isn't that what blogs are for? They're a kind of public diary.

There are those who claim writers in particular should be careful about what they post. Writers are supposed to create an image through their blog which will inspire people to not only read their blog, but greatly desire to read their work. This will help them get published.

I don't do that. I don't try to cultivate any particular image for myself. Too neurotic for that. But I have to confess that, after reading about five or six of these articles and posts, I find myself thinking I mucked up in creating all of my blogs and posting as I have. But I can't be anything other than what I am, and if that means self-destruction then so be it. I don't necessarily like that, but I will accept it.

Some have told me that is one of my 'big' problems. I accept too much. Particularly the negative. Maybe so. Maybe so. But I have to say this in all honesty: When I see people behaving the way I am told I should behave I am not very impressed. There is a price to pay for what these people have, and it's more than I care to spend. There are things that matter to me, and I don't want to give them up just so other people can look at me and be impressed. The truth is, that's not going to happen anyway.

So, I return to my wish. Wouldn't it be great if I could log in to all five accounts at the same time, on the same computer? Probably not a good idea. God knows how many accounts and blogs I would have then. And none of them would be saying anything.

I Don't Always Bring My Mind Along When I Go Places

2009-12-02T09:53:00.003-06:00

I did something particularly brilliant last Saturday. Son and I went to St. Cloud in the morning, and when we returned I neglected to shut the door on the car. So what? you say. Well, the car was in a garage and I shut it in with the door open. So? I had no cause to drive that car until yesterday afternoon. Oh.

So, one minute before I am supposed to leave to bring Son home from school I have no vehicle. Not that it would be the end of the world if he had to walk back to the apartment, but he's expecting me to be at the school when he steps outside at 3:11 p.m. It is now 2:50 p.m.

There is really only one quick solution and I take it. I walk the one mile to the Outlet Mall where Spouse has parked the other car. I get in and drive to the school. I am only five minutes late. Reason? I always plan on arriving ten minutes early.

Upon returning to the apartment I used the working vehicle to jump start the other. Then Son and I brought the car back to the Outlet Mall and walked to the apartment from there. Not brilliant. What we should have done was wait until Spouse was off work and just drove there at that time. Wasn't thinking.

My legs still hurt from the short two mile walk. I know many of you walk further than that every day. I don't walk half that distance any day. My ankles hurt, especially in the front.

Today I tested the Eclipse again. No go. I didn't let the car run long enough and so the battery failed to charge.

I don't particularly enjoy being stupid. For one thing, having an exceptionally high I.Q. I find I am quite intolerant of myself when I am. And yet it seems I do more stupid things than people with half my I.Q. Why is that, I wonder? Clearly, I.Q. has nothing to do with being smart. I've said that all along. All I.Q. does is indicate the speed at which one learns. But if one fails to learn then I.Q. isn't worth diddly.

The good news is that it wasn't that long ago that I left the car lights on for an hour or two. The battery went dead after that, too. Batteries don't like it when people do these things to them. It doesn't take many times before they just decide to quit and not hold a charge at all. Then it's $100+ to buy a new one.

I don't really need that. But stupid does as stupid is.

What to Do When Times are Rough

2009-11-30T09:49:00.003-06:00

Sitting here eating a plate of pretzels and the remains of a bag of ripple potato chips. Got an extra large bottle of refrigerated, filtered, water, too. Breakfast.

The chips are leftover from Son's snack time last night. The pretzels are leftovers from Spouse's work on Thanksgiving to the next day. Spouse worked from 9 p.m. Thursday until 5 a.m. Friday. All employees were told to bring in some sort of snack to see the staff through the night. (Interestingly, when Spouse worked at Old Navy the store supplied the food.) Anyway, there was so much food that only half the bag of pretzels was eaten. So Spouse brought the rest back here.

They're holiday pretzels, shaped like Christmas trees, bells and stars. Or maybe they're snowflakes. Kind of cute. I'm eating all of the broken pieces first. I like to do that. Eat the damaged pieces first and leave the whole pieces for last. That way it's not so depressing when the bowl, plate, bag, is nearly empty. Same for chips, although finding whole chips in a bag is not easy.

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me potato chips used to be larger. I suppose that's a sign of age. Everything was better in the 'olden days'. When I was very young it never occurred to me that I was living in the 'olden days'.

Spoke with my mother over the weekend. Couldn't reach her on Thanksgiving Day. Either she was taking a nap or was down in the community room. But she mentioned how my sister, Judayl, had called and they were talking about life in The Old House. Judayl said it wasn't all bad. She remembered lots of good times. Times we laughed anyway.

That's true. Everyone in my family can complain with the best of 'em. Or worst, depending on one's point of view. But we can laugh at pretty much anything, too. Even while we're complaining. I guess we just accept the the old adage: Life Sucks - And Then You Die.

My first job was at a pizza restaurant. The owner's son and I were good friends. He liked to pull out a bowl of lemons from the refrigerator and walk around the place saying, "Life is just a bowl of lemons."

The thing is, it is so true. Life really does suck. And then we die. But that doesn't mean we can't have laughs along the way. It's the lack of laughs, I think, that really makes people unpleasant. And I don't mean just laughing when things are going well. Any slob can do that. It's laughing when life really sucks. If you can do that you can survive to find the next good time island in the sea of disasters. It's what I find most wrong about Spouse's family. They cannot laugh at bad things. Bad things are serious, and they have to be treated serious. Both of those positions are true, but they leave out the fact that there is still humor. Grandma Amy was telling jokes while laying on her deathbed in immense pain. She referenced her last husband, who had died a few years earlier at the ate of ninety-something. She and the young nurse attending her got to talking about marriage relations for some reason and Grandma said of step-grandpa, "He still had a wiggle to his waggle." When the nurse told us what Grandma had said I saw Grandma smile. Twenty-four hours later Grandma would be gone.

It's okay to laugh and make fun of oneself when things are bad. Sometimes it's the only way to survive.

That, and a plate of Christmas pretzels, a leftover bag of ripple potato chips, and a bottle of filtered water. Maybe I'll open my last bottle of pop and really splurge. Son's been teasing me because the pop has been sitting in the back of the refrigerator for about a month or two. I told him I would drink it. When?

Soon.

Home is Where the Heart Is

2009-11-29T18:11:00.004-06:00

We do what we want to do and we find reasons why we have to do those things.

We avoid what we don't want to do and we find reasons why we can't do them.

What's funny is that the only people we fool are ourselves. I generally can see through the rationalizations of others fairly easily. And they seem to have no problem recognizing mine. And we call each other on it, pointing out the silliness of the rationalized argument.

In the minds of others our arguments are merely excuses. In my mind the arguments of others often fall into the same bag.

The problem, as I see it - and remember, I wear trifocals, so my vision can be quite blurry at times - is that we are taught that what we really want is never important, worthwhile, or something to be grasped at. Only evil and greedy people seek their selfish desires. Good and decent people only seek to satisfy others.

Bullsh*t!

It's all lies. Why don't we just say what we want? Probably because we will be criticized for wanting it, and we can't stand that. Or, we fear we will be criticized.

I suppose that is part of the dissatisfaction so many bear toward me. The older I get the less disposed I am to hide what I want. When I am asked to come visit and say no, the only reason I give is that I don't want to come. I'm not supposed to say that. I'm supposed to say that I can't come. Of course the others will see right through my pitiful reason for not being able to come, but at least I didn't confront them with the truth that I just don't feel like it.

When I tell people I prefer to stay home now I am reprimanded for my selfishness. I should be thinking of others. Well, you know what? For nearly fifty years I did that. I always went when I wanted to stay home. I never pushed my desires ahead of others. They had a party, or get together, and I went. But when I had one, they stayed away in droves.

So as far as I'm concerned I paid the dues and got nothing in return. I was not happy for being at a place I did not want to be at. I got no reward for, being there, I as often as not wound up sitting alone, or merely observing. H*ll, I can do that at home.

Funny story (to me). And I swear that it's true.

When I went in for outpatient surgery on my arm (had lumps removed), while waiting for the surgeon I was listening to the snores of a man two stations down. A woman sat patiently at his bedside. Suddenly, with a snort, he woke up. Grumpy. He asked where his doctor was. She didn't know. He got up and began pacing and complaining. Finally, he said - and this is what I so love about the memory - "I didn't come to the hospital to be ignored. If I wanted to be ignored I could have stayed home." And with that he marched away.

Five minutes later a surgeon showed up and looked around. "Where's my patient?" "He left. Said he couldn't wait." And with that the surgeon took off screaming at the local nurses.

I know how that man felt. This holiday season I am not planning on doing any visiting. I don't want to.

Of course, that doesn't mean I won't. I talk big. H*ll, I am big. But as Carol used to say about me: You're just a big pussycat.

Sometimes cats will scratch. Usually when they're afraid.

I've Been Chicken Most of My Life

2009-11-28T08:57:00.001-06:00

I grew up in rural Minnesota. Our place was the original homestead of what had once been a large and thriving farm. By the time we got there the farm had long since ceased to be farmed. The property had been divided and sold off. And the original owners were dead. My parents had five acres – three which stood dormant most of the time.

We inherited half of the out buildings. The people my parents had purchased (were purchasing) the property from had built next door and had the cow barn and the horse barn. We had the machine shed, the milk shed, and the root cellar. And the original house.

Being so far from town (ten miles to what could be the closest ‘city’) allowed us certain freedoms people in the city did not enjoy. One of these freedoms was the right – and ability – to raise chickens.

One spring my mother ordered one hundred little chickens. Alive. We originally put them in the porch area because they arrived before the snows had melted. Eventually, we would fix up the milk shed for them. Ultimately, those which were not killed by other means would become supper.

There were four “other means” for our chickens to die. One of our dogs liked to kill them. Crazy Charlie, who mother refused to accept as a guilty party until he attacked her. He was her dog and she had defended him mightily. But the day after he tried to bite her he was dead. Don’t piss off my mother.

The second way was wild animals. Mostly hawks and owls. We were rural, but there were enough properties that fox and such stayed away. Too many dogs. But birds didn’t care about dogs. A few learned they should have cared about Crazy Charlie, who had learned how to take a bird down out of the air. I saw it done. Most impressive. Especially when you realize he had to teach himself the trick.

The third way was the neighbor boys. Three of them. They sat in a treehouse with B-B- guns and shot about fifteen before my sister Gayanne caught them. That became a messy scene with the police and everything.

And then there was the fourth way. A most unexpected way to die, I thought. At least, I thought so at first. By the time the chickens were all gone I had learned something about chickens. And about people, I think.

You see, the chickens would find the current weakest chicken in the flock – and peck the poor thing until it died. It would have few tail feathers because the stronger chickens had pulled them all off. It would be weak because whenever it tried to eat or drink the other chickens would come and harass it. I attempted to intervene on behalf of these poor creatures, but one can only be with a flock of chickens so long. When I wasn’t there it was constant harassment. Until it died. And then the hunt was on to discover the next in line.

The hawks and owls may have taken three. The dog got six. The neighbor boys got eight. The chickens themselves killed at least twenty. Of the one hundred we started with, we were only able to take a little more than 50% for ourselves. Maybe it didn’t matter. They were all doomed to die anyway. I don’t know.

But it has been my observation that people behave very much like chickens. Not each and every individual, but groups of people. And that is something else: A person may act one way when she (he) is by herself (himself). But put that same person in a group and you might see an entirely different behavior. Group mentality is powerful. It’s how riots are formed.

In school, at work, on ball teams, I have observed that there will be a ‘weakest’ member. And that member is going to be made fully aware that they are weakest. Many times this is in ‘good-natured fun’. But sometimes it can be quite cruel. I have seen people driven out of work for it. A friend of mine suffered a nervous breakdown.

It seems to be built into our nature to be a lot like chickens. We see weakness in someone else and we exploit it. We peck at them, keeping the wound open and alive, draining them of their capacity to heal and continue. They grow weaker and weaker and weaker, until they die. Sometimes for real, but always personally.

I thought of this when I read a posting by LaughingWolf. It’s interesting, and I have read and heard of things like this before. To be honest, I have also pulled my share of feathers throughout my life. But that was back when I was on the strong team. Now that my turn has come I am less disposed.

As a people we seem to have a hard time with charity. We can give money, food, and clothing. As we should. But at the same time we will mock and condemn the weak. They can easily become objects of our humor and our disdain.

We are not all that way, to be sure. In fact, not every chicken pecked at the weak. Like people, the chickens seemed to form their own ‘cliques’. That Gang Clique, as I used to think of them, was the one which actively sought out others to harass. Other cliques tended to be more passive, but did strike out should an ‘outsider’ approach. And then there were the loners. Some were tough, and even the Gang Clique left them alone. Most just went along, not bothering if another chicken came close.

I think people are like that. I also think that everything good – and bad – that a person can be and do is inside each of us. Various things in our makeup will cause us to turn one way or the other. Ultimately, we behave without thinking about it. That can be fine and good. But if we’re pulling feathers, perhaps not.

But sometimes it’s just hard to resist. Isn’t it?

Addendum

2009-11-24T18:07:00.003-06:00

Just a couple of follow up points on the local food shelf.

I don't know how many people it serves but, as I wrote yesterday, I was about 100th in line when I arrived ten minutes after it opened. Today we got an inkling of the number when we cashed in the vouchers for a turkey and potatoes.

The potatoes are Minnesota potatoes. Normally, I prefer Idaho potatoes. All for Minnesota in most things, but Idaho produces a very fine potato. Minnesota potatoes are good. Just not as good as Idaho.

However, part of the process of getting the turkey and potatoes was signing something indicating the value. This exposed the food shelf's account balance to us. Spouse was the one who actually saw it, but the total was more than $14,000. Yes, that is a correct figure. Fourteen thousand dollars. I'm not clear is this is how much the food shelf has spent or how much it owes. Hope it's money spent. Otherwise the food shelf is in dire straits.

A manager had to come and show the cashier how to process the vouchers. We were her first customers with them. While we thanked the manager I told her my place in line. She was impressed, but then responded by saying more than one hundred people who signed up for the Thanksgiving meals did not show up. Either they forgot the food shelf was only open on Monday this week, had no transportation, or decided not to avail themselves of the charity after all. If the latter I hope it was because they are going to be with family or friends.

I expect we could go to relatives, but Spouse works Thanksgiving evening and most of the next day. The day of Thanksgiving is one of the two or three heaviest shopping days of the year. Besides, it costs money to travel. And I'm no longer keen on visiting relatives. Few were keen on me before we lost so much. They're even less disposed toward me now and I am not keen on going to their houses.

The Line Goes Ever On

2009-11-23T10:50:00.005-06:00

So I'm just back from the food shelf with most of our Thanksgiving Day meal.

I arrived within ten minutes of when they opened. There could have been as many as 100 people ahead of me in line. I counted more than fifty before the line went around a corner. And within minutes of my arriving there were twenty to thirty behind me.

We came in all sizes, ages, and shapes. Fat. Thin. Tall. Short. Old. Young. Marrieds, Singles. Not sure.

Of course with so many people it was inevitable that we stand and wait. Now for most people that is simply one of life's necessary inconveniences. For me it's a little bit different. Not much. It's just that my body interprets standing as a major exercise. And so within fifteen minutes of arriving people are checking out the windows to see if it's been raining. The good news about this is that people don't tend to crowd too close.

Anyway, the volunteers also came in a variety of sorts. Happy and cheerful. All business. Even grumpy. Not sure what she was doing there if she was in such a bad mood, but I'm glad she was there.

For whatever reason she had Miss Grumpy didn't want to deal with me and sent me across the room. Not sure what that was all about and I don't know that I really care. Let Miss Grumpy deal with someone else. I got the Ladies Helpful. They gave me a filled with stuff and told me to follow the arrows on the floor. As there were no arrows where I was I had to then make a search for them. They weren't far away.

For some reason the arrows bypassed Lady Extremely Friendly and her partner, Smiles Pleasantly. Instead, I found myself at the milk line where I was asked if I wanted one or two cartons of milk. I said I would take two, if that was all right, and I thanked Mr Very Nice, who then added that I could choose one item from the bread table and one item from the sweets table. I took a bag of Harvest Grain bread, cut into 18 nice slices, and a plastic see through container with three frosted long john type rolls.

As I was heading for the exit Lady Extremely Friendly and her partner, Smiles Pleasantly, flagged me down. Would I care for cranberries, pumpkin mix, and condensed milk? I used to like cranberries. They were one of my favorite things on the Thanksgiving table when I was very young. But those were fresh cranberries, soaked the night before. These were from a can and, if memory serves me right, look like jello. Son wouldn't take a taste without being threatened, and Spouse wouldn't at all. So I passed. The pumpkin was tempting, but I haven't ever made pumpkin pie. Unless I did as a kid. Lady Extremely Friendly showed me the recipe on the can and I got a can on pumpkin mix and condensed milk. I guess we'll be having pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Spouse will like that.

So what else did I get?

A box of Swiss Miss hot cocoa mix. Spouse's favorite.
A bag of sage and onion cube stuffing. Don't know how that will work. Spouse makes the greatest dressing from regular bread laid out overnight to get hard.
A can of cut yams in light syrup. I like yams. Oh, these came from Lady Extremely Friendly, too.
Two packets of turkey gravey mix. Not sure what that's about. We've always made our gravy from drippings in the roast pan.
A bag of fat free marshmallows. Fat free. Good for me. Lots of sugar though. Not sure how marshmallows fit in with Thanksgiving.
Two boxes of Jell-O gelatin. Lime and Strawberry.
Two boxes of macaroni and cheese dinners. Spouse likes these.
Two cans of apricot halves
Two cans of whole kernel corn
A box of Crispy Rice cereal, which is a generic version of Rice Krispies, I suppose.
Oh, and vouchers for a 16# turkey and a 10# bag of potatoes

Now true, some of these things are things we would never have purchased on our own. But without them we wouldn't be having much of a Thanksgiving Day meal.

I looked at some of the faces as I stood in line. One tends not to do that a lot. People in give-a-way lines tend to avoid eye contact. For the most part we were a quiet lot. A couple of people knew each other from their neighborhoods. I didn't recognize anyone. But there was one young woman who's face seemed to snap a picture in my mind. I don't know if I can describe why well, but I'll give it a go.

She was young. I'll guess early twenties. She had on a nice leather coat. I happened to be at that place in line where it had bent back to go past the entrance as she arrived. She looked around quickly. It was that look that said "Let me find out where I need to be right away so I can go hide there." And that's what struck me. Everything in her face told me she didn't want to be there. She wanted to be someplace else. Anyplace else. But she had to be here. That was key. She had to. I wonder what my face said. Fortunately, I don't have to look at it, so I don't really know.

I'm guessing she is a recent addition to the needy line. I make this guess not just because her clothes were still very nice, and because she still had a cell phone. But because her face said that facing this kind of humility was a new experience. But she's young, and there is certainly a lot of hope for her. And if her face is any indication of her future, I would also venture to guess that she will do fine. But I hope she never forgets the feelings she has now, nor allows those feelings to make her hard and bitter. What I hope is that she will be filled with gratitude over the people who made this day possible for her and whatever family she has, for me and Spouse and Son, and for the more than one hundred others who were there with us.

The holiday season is upon us now. It is a time when many of us look upon ourselves with a new sense of loathing, disgust, and general shame. At the same time, it is a also a season when we look at others with a newfound sense of gratitude, appreciation, and thankfulness.

Some of you give to food shelves. Sometimes you may wonder if it's worth it. It is. And on behalf of those of us for whom it is worth it, I say Thank You.

A Warm November Evening

2009-11-21T19:19:00.003-06:00

Here's wishing I had something clever and worthwhile to say. Once again, my lack of education and experience leave me a dull write and a even more dull read. Pity.

One of the things about growing up in a small town without cable, cell phones or internet: one can get a completely false idea of just how clever one is. The internet is quite an eye opener. I have only met a few people online, but generally they are quite fantastic people. Well educated. Well skilled in the things I wish I were well skilled in. There are some pretty impressive people on this planet.

Pity I'm not one.

Guess I'm jealous.

Oh Quit Moaning

2009-11-19T09:55:00.000-06:00

So I was at the heart clinic the other day. Wasn’t looking forward to going. Not at all. You see, I was supposed to be tested for sleep apnea in July. That was the month I lost my health insurance. We couldn’t afford to pay for the test, so I canceled it. Then, also in July, I was supposed to return to the regular clinic and have my blood retested for the doctor treating my diabetes. Couldn’t afford that either. Didn’t go. In November I was scheduled to have another echogram on my heart. Well, last year I had insurance – and it refused to pay. Took us ten months to pay it off. That, and the monthly premium for the insurance that wouldn’t cover it, contributed mightily to our losing the house this year. In any case, I canceled the echogram.

I was going to cancel the doctor visit, too, but Spouse insisted. Of course, Spouse insisted I keep the insurance – which paid for some of the cost of prescriptions. But I went.

I didn’t get yelled at like I always do about sleep apnea. It came out early on that we had lost the house and I no longer had insurance. But I felt no better leaving than I did arriving. Actually, I felt a bit worse. You see, he just confirmed what I have always suspected to be true: it’s all my fault.

Why is it all my fault? Because – I’m fat.

All of my problems are a result of being fat. If I wasn’t fat I wouldn’t have lost my job. If I wasn’t fat I could get a new job. If I wasn’t fat I wouldn’t nearly die every time I climb up those effing stairs to get to the apartment. If I wasn’t fat I would fee good about myself. If I wasn’t fat I wouldn’t have lost my house. If I wasn’t fat the weather would be nice. If I wasn’t fat the economy wouldn’t have gone into the toilet. If I wasn’t fat we could have found a cure for diabetes, aides, leukemia, and who knows how many other diseases? If I wasn’t fat there wouldn’t be war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So much misery. Just because I’m fat.

Well, so much for the bad news. I’m fat.

The good news is that I’m intelligent.

Now I didn’t argue this point at the time. What would be the point? But let’s consider the facts as they were presented to me.

1. All of my misery is a direct result of my being fat
2. Only I can change my being fat into my being thin
3. I know, and have known, this for a long time
4. I am still fat, despite knowing all of this

Pardon my wondering, but where is the intelligence in that equation?

You see, there is a fundamental problem with thin people looking at fat people and thinking, “If they really wanted to be thin they could.”

At some level that is absolutely true. But only at some level. There are a host of other levels which come into play and CANNOT be ignored. Self-esteem is major contributor to the equation.

People think fat people are unhappy because they’re fat, and if they would simply stop being fat they would be happy. In some cases that is completely true. But not in every case. Some people are not unhappy because they’re fat. They’re fat because they’re unhappy. And simply changing their weight is NOT going to change their mood. Why? Because their mood is not based on their weight. Their weight is based on their mood.

The reasons why anybody has low self-esteem are complex and varied. To a point everyone has to deal with it. Nobody is liked by everybody, and nobody is great at everything. But some of us happen to be a bit more gullible about some things than others.

To be told by one’s mother that one is hated, useless, disgusting, and never should have been born in the first place, all while being struck with whatever weapon was handy, affects one’s self-esteem. Should one grow up and get over it? Yes. One should. One should do a lot of things. But when such beatings, physical and verbal, occur regularly, and one accepts the truth of the words being inflicted, it’s hard. I’m sorry. It just is.

And when others reinforce the words with words of their own. The boy who was friendly simply to get one in range of the rock he was holding. Would be friends and lovers who saw one had something, and once they had got what they wanted no longer needed one, and so no longer behaved as friends. All of these things make a difference.

Should they? I guess not. And according to what I am told, strong people, smart people, good people, overcome these things.

Well, I guess I am not strong. I am not smart. And I am not good. So what am I?

I am fat.

And until that changes I will be miserable. Never mind that I have been fat for less than half my life. And never mind that I was miserable before I was fat. If I would just lose the weight I need to lose I could return to what I was before I was fat. Miserable.

Where’s my motivation?

Why I Read

2009-11-18T18:21:00.005-06:00

When I was growing up in the 1960s one of the big reading outlets was comic books. Most adults looked on them with disdain, and so-called "true readers" wouldn't have anything to do with them. But the truth was, comic books inspired reading.

I read them voraciously. My sister, Gayane, was a big reader and often got comic books from Mother, Aunt Cile, and Grandma. I didn't get them often. I learned to read, but few seemed to encourage it. My sisters taught me before I was five. And I learned that comic books were a wonderful source reading.

For me, they helped spur imagination because often the writers and the artists worked together. We got to see what the story creators envisioned.

Back in the 60s comic books were featured items at all big grocery stores. They came wrapped three together for a quarter. And some big comics (thick) were fifty cents each. I would save my quarters up and hang out by the magazine rack while Mother shopped for groceries. When she reached the checkout I would have one or two packages of comics. There was little teasing if I was buying Batman or Superman, but anything else brought ridicule. So most of the time when I read the other comics they would be Gayanne's.

But Aunt Cile would buy me Classics Illustrated. I bought the Casper, Spooky, Wendy, and Nightmare comics on my own. When I dared.

I don't see comics around anymore. I think one has to actually go to a comic book store. Even when I've been at Borders or Barnes and Noble I haven't seen them. Guess I don't know where to look. But I think it was a very good idea for grocery stores to carry them. They inspired me to read. And that kept me out of a lot of trouble while filling my head with dreams and imaginations.

Casper was one of my favorites. I liked the Harveytoon Comics. But something about the idea of a friendly ghost appealed to me. I loved the cartoons, too. Those often made me laugh. Hot Stuff was another favorite.

Beetle Bailey comics were usually purchased by Gayanne. These were cute, and good for a quick read.

Sugar and Spike were great, but they weren't easy to find. I have tried finding the cover image for my favorite issue, but no luck.

The Classics Illustrated were fantastic. If it wasn't for Classics Illustrated I never would have read the actual books. But seeing them in comic book form inspired me to grab the books without pictures to read. These included such classics as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, White Fang, The Three Muskateers, Frankenstein, and Jungle Book, to name just a few.

I miss comic books. You know, if I could find Classics Illustrated for some of the current best selling novels I just might be inclined to read the actual books.

Finding Something to Do

2009-11-16T16:15:00.003-06:00

When I was young, grade school kind of young, I developed an interest in schedules and standings. It sprang as an accident when my mother bought me two copies of Baseball Digest. She knew I liked baseball and figured I would like the magazines. To be perfectly honest, there wasn't a whole lot in them I found interesting. But the one edition did have something which I found just fascinating. It was a grid showing all 24 professional teams and the dates when each played where.

About the same time I was given a diary. Not being able to keep the diary up I did the next best thing. I translated the schedule grid into my diary. Now I could jump to any day throughout spring and summer and know which teams were playing where.

But that wasn't enough. I elected to then devise a means by which I could pretend to play every one of those games. That way, the teams I wished were best would be. It would prove to be the beginning of a lifelong interest in pretend leagues.

Using two decks of ordinary playing cards I devised a way to play each game, granting an "edge" to better teams, and "penalties" for weaker teams. And I played the whole thing out. Uh, my team did win the World Series, by the way.

Eventually, I expanded my play to include Hockey and Basketball. And knowing that no two seasons could be the same I began to devise my own schedules. I learned just how complicated that can be. I also learned how to schedule play-off grids, and tournament grids. By the time I was in high school I had become quite good at it, and began to view all tournament grids with a critical eye. It amazed me how people who just had no clue at all were given the task of devising these things.

One thing I always wished for was some way to automatically calculate random events, and to store and calculate season averages. Wasn't I happy when home computers came on the scene? I wrote a strategy baseball program on an Atari 800. Use all by 2 bytes of the available memory. The program was stored on a cassette tape and took five minutes to load. But once loaded it ran very fast. After all, it was a strategy program and had no graphics.

I played nearly two seasons with that program. It actually took longer than a year to play a season because each game took more than an hour to play. At some point in the second season the cassette tape became damaged and I lost the program. My backup didn't work.

I used to think I was unusual in this joy I got from playing make-believe seasons with make-believe players. Then I learned it is actually quite common. Lots of people find living vicariously this way to be a great stress reliever.

Personally, I do not like the video games for playing sports. They all require something which I do not like at all: dexterity with game controls. That's not what interests me at all. Timing when to swing a make-believe bat on a television or computer screen doesn't do it for me. What does do it is being the manager, giving the steal sign to the runner on first, and getting pissed off because he gets thrown out at second. Or putting on the hit-and-run and watching it succeed.

It's kind of like writing a story. Ultimately, I am in control and have the final say on everything. Yet it is interesting to just let the players play sometimes and see how they do.

Not sure what brought this up. Hope you're having a good day.

What do you do to amuse yourself? Anything you made?

What We Should Have Done

2009-11-15T09:06:00.004-06:00

Well, yesterday I showed you one of the things we tried selling through our gift business that nobody (except me) wanted to buy. Today, I thought I would show you what actually is selling.

I hope I don't get sued or anything, but I'm referencing the Collections Etc. catalog we got in the mail the other day. It's got all kinds of cool things in it. "Over 1,500 Items - $14.99 or less!". They've got a website, so you can view all of their stuff.

I enclose a scan of the cover. Love the FREE SHIPPING. We tried that, too. Unfortunately, it didn't help. But maybe we should have tried selling the same kinds of things these guys are selling. Perhaps we would now have a viable business and still be in our house.

You know, if I thought I could look like this woman I would wear pajamas. I would love to look like her. Not sure Spouse would be keen on it, though. But the sad truth is I more resemble the snowman on the tricycle.

Oh, if only we had had the good sense to sell this charmer. We'd be rolling in the dough. Or in something.

But, we didn't. So instead of being in front of the feet we're behind them. Get it?

Leftovers

2009-11-14T11:39:00.003-06:00

When I was dumped from my job back in 2002 I didn't try to re-enter the same industry. I was already aware that I was on the 'old' side for it, and getting another position - when I was without a position - would not be easy. Or desirable. I didn't like the work.

Spouse's company was in the process of moving out of state so it was only going to be a matter of another year before we were both out of work.

We opted to start up a gift business. We sold a variety of things, mostly household, but a few tools and toys, and the first year went very well. After expenses we had made roughly $5,000 profit. That became my wages for the year. But of course the economy began collapsing about then. One by one, and then five by five, and finally everybody, began to stop making purchases from us. Our inventory went stagnant. We exhausted my severance pay trying to breathe new life into what was clearly a failing effort. Ultimately, we weren't even able to sell at cost. People just didn't have any money. And that included us.

What we wound up with was a mish mash of inventory. Things that had sold at one time but were now passe. Or had never sold in the first place. More than once I picked the wrong products to push. People don't like the things I like. I discovered to my dismay that white people won't buy porcelain figurines of black people, no matter how attractive they are. I thought they were cool.

When we had our big sale last June we put not only our personal things up for grabs, but also the business inventory. A lot of things sold, but not everything. With the exception of some new toys we had (a retail outlet Spouse worked at had us selling toys out of their store - until they went out of business) when the sale was over I declared the entire inventory as "sold". What this means is that, come January, Spouse and I will have to fork over the sales tax on those items the same as for everything that actually did sell. Basically, Spouse and I bought them.

One of the things we bought from ourselves was this lamp. It's a frosted glass bust of Jesus. Fairly plain looking in the day, but quite fantastic at night. It was in Son's room, but since coming to the apartment he's hardly in his room, so he brought it out. It sits on top of my computer monitor now. I took a picture of it, but the picture didn't come out that well. I had to muck about with the balance in order to see it on my monitor.

I still think it's cool and wonder why nobody would buy it. They bought other lamps from us which weren't half as cool. It isn't actually on a whole lot. The apartment is naturally dark and this lamp is more of a bedroom night light than an illuminating lamp.

But I like it.

The Bear's Breath is Sweet

2009-11-12T10:53:00.002-06:00

Yeah, I know. It's Animal Day. But I stumbled on another stupid test and I just had to take it. I mean, how can you pass over a test with the title, "What kind of Toothpaste are You?"

So I took it.

You Are (I am) Spearmint Flavored Toothpaste

You are thoughtful about most things in life, and you tend to spend a lot of time alone just reflecting.
You are a true introvert. You need your space and privacy to feel recharged. You savor your alone time, even when you're brushing your teeth.

You live a slow pace of life, and you enjoy every moment more than most people. You stop to appreciate what you have.
You are in touch with nature. Nothing makes you feel more at home than being outside without another human in sight.

Spearmint. Hmm. I was hoping for Wintergreen. Love the Certs lozenges of that flavor.

So, what about the results?

I spend a lot of time alone - just reflecting

Well, when one is alone there isn't a whole lot else to do. And if people hate being around one, one is apt to be alone.

I'm a true introvert. I need my space and privacy. Even when brushing my teeth.

What's with this even business? Who brushes their teeth in a crowd? Teeth brushing generally means bathroom time. And unless one happens to be a kinky sort of mood bathroom time is alone time.

I live a slow pace of life and enjoy every moment more than most people.

I've always said people were unhappy. Now I've got proof!

I'm in touch with nature. Nothing makes me feel more at home than being outside without another human being in sight

If things don't improve financially soon that's exactly where I'm going to be. At least I'll be happy.

So, because this is Animal Day, I also took another test: "What's Your Energy Animal". Apparently, there are only four possible results. Don't know what the other three could be, but there was a picture of a tiger. I would love to have been a tiger. Instead,

You're a Big-Hearted Bear

Although one animal is usually dominant, keep in mind that "we all have tendencies of all four animals," says Hadady. Here are the typical characteristics of a Bear:

Face shape: Broad, round or square.

Body type: Often stocky, carry excess weight in the belly. (I think being fat put me in the 'bear' category right off.)

Social style: You love to socialize with friends and family (SO NOT TRUE) and often cook, sing or tell jokes (SO TRUE).

Spirit: You crave the comfort and fulfillment of meaningful relationships, but too often you settle for a pastry instead. (Hey. The poor take what they can get.)

With others you are: Compassionate, warm and patient. (It's easy to be compassionate, warm and patient when one is alone. [see earlier test])

Best traits: Loving and kind. (What can I say? [humble smile])

Worst traits: Unadaptable to change, overly sensitive (Where the hell do they get off saying that? [get it?])

Ideal job: One where you can freely express your words, thoughts and feelings (NICE); one that involves food (VERY NICE). Bears are often writers (COOL), teachers or chefs.

Food cravings: Sweets. Unfortunately, your sweet tooth puts you at risk for abdominal obesity and diabetes. (I'm not at risk. I'm fat beyond description and I do have diabetes.)

Worst eating habit: Turning to food in times of emotional stress. (Only when there's food to be eaten.)

Ideal exercise: Any kind of team sport. (I said swimming. They changed my answer. Are they calling me a liar?)

Weight loss goal: Break your emotional attachment to food and turn to friends, not sweets, in times of stress. (Where in the hell did this come from? I thought I was taking a test about my energy animal and suddenly I'm being lectured by a quiz about how fat I am. Sheesh.)

So. So much for Animal Day, huh?

The Bear has spoken. Now it's time to hunt up something to eat. I'll eat slowly by myself, enjoying my reflective thoughts on my minty fresh breath.

Just makes you wish you could hug me, right? Well, buy yourself the largest stuffed bear you can find and squeeze it tight. The sensation should be about the same.

Deep Water

2009-11-10T07:23:00.002-06:00

I was reminded the other night about how we used to go swimming in the gravel pit.

All over our state there are places where heavy machinery was used to dig out the earth for various purposes. I don't know what they all were, but in some cases I expect they were taking clay to mix with aggregate and stuff for patching/making new roads. When the work was completed the pits were abandoned and the earth left to heal its scars on its own.

In some cases, particularly where there was a lot of clay, water would begin to accumulate. For one thing, the pits were deep, and they would take in a lot of ground water. Then there would be heavy rains, winter snows and such, and the pits would begin to fill with water.

I don't know the average depth of these pits, but I do know it wasn't unusual for them to be more than one hundred feet deep. There was one not far from where I grew up that was purported to be at least that deep. And it had mostly filled with water. Rumor was, someone had used some sort of sonar thing and determined the water level was around ninety feet. It had a kind of shelf around the edge. I suppose the old road used by trucks hauling. Anyway, we used this gravel pit as a swimming hole. Well, once.

Chris was the one who brought Stephen and me to the pit. He had been swimming there with friends all summer and wanted Stephen and I to experience it, too. None of us were good swimmers. In fact, I couldn't really swim at all. Stephen wasn't much better. Neither was Chris, but Chris had no fear about most things.

There was about a twenty foot difference between the top edges of the pit and the water surface below. A kind of cutaway ramp was how we reached the water. Someone had created a pontoon raft out of a pair of old empty oil drums and some wooden planks.

After swimming about for a few minutes Chris then told us how they liked to go up to the top, take a running start, and then jump out into the water. "Better than a diving board," he said. He then showed us how it was done.

He explained that one wanted to make as wide a target (without belly flopping) as possible to slow and reduce the rate of descent. But if one were to drop in straight one could go quite deep.

This is where my curiosity and my stupidity combined against me. I decided I wanted to know how deep I could drop. (As if there would be any way for me to measure it.) So I took an extra long running start (for some reason the amount of space one runs before jumping makes a huge psychological difference) and leaped high and out. As I felt myself beginning to drop I pinned my hands at my sides and came down feet first as straight as I could. (Remember, I couldn't swim, so there was no way I was diving in head first.)

Now I had jumped off diving boards into pools before. But those boards were only a few feet above the water line and the deepest pool I had ever jumped in was twelve feet. In those cases I would feel my feet touch bottom and I would immediately push myself back up to the surface where I would flounder to the pool's edge - and ultimate safety.

This time I was jumping from twenty or more feet above the water. And ninety feet isn't twelve. I went down more than twelve feet.

I have no idea how far down I went. How could I measure it? All I know is that I could feel the water sliding past me and I knew I was still dropping. Fun, fun, fun. Until I felt the need to breathe again. The problem was, I was still going down. I waited a bit longer, assuming I would slow down, stop, and begin to rise again, but I kept going down.

Now my brain finally began to catch up to my actions. The thought occurred to me that if I was already running out of breath, and I was still going downward, getting back to the top before I drowned was becoming more and more problematic. I had just placed myself in a very stupid - and dangerous - position.

Now I have been known to be calm in a crisis. When the house burned down I was the one my parents credited with being rationale and calm. At the same time I can panic with the best of them. I was the first one out of the house when unexplained crash happened and I was certain a ghost was out to get me.

So now I'm still getting into deeper and deeper water, and I'm running out air, and I need to get back to the top. My arms and legs spread out and brought me to a quick stop. Now I'm literally crawling my way back up toward the surface, certain that I'm not going to make it.

Now here is where the laws of physics worked in my favor. I had taken a big breath before jumping, and air is lighter than water. So my body was now in a hurry to get to the top even without my will.

Clearly, I made it to the top. But now I saw the poor choice of having jumped so far away from the cliff. Shore wasn't close. And I couldn't swim. I was still in trouble.

Fortunately, Stephen had been sitting on the makeshift pontoon, and with the pontoon were a couple of canoe paddles. He called to me, and between my thrashing and his rowing I got on board. But I was done swimming for the night. And I never returned to that place.

What We Do to Our Children

2009-11-09T01:16:00.000-06:00

So Son is bored, bored, bored, bored, bored with life in an apartment. In this apartment in particular. He wants to go places and do things. Unfortunately, all of the places he wants to go to, and all of the things he wants to do when he gets there, cost money.

Today he began by suggesting we go to the golf course. It's an excellent idea. It would get us outside and breathing non-cigarette smoked air. But they don't let people play golf for free around here. In fact, it can be quite expensive. At $20 per person for nine holes at the executive course, and another $20 to rent the cart, we would be spending no less than $60 for a short round of golf on an executive course. (There is no way I could walk it. I would have a heart attack and die. Not necessarily a horrible way to go, but the timing would be poor.)

Later, he suggested we drive to Otsego and go to the batting cages. Another not-so-bad idea. But even the batting cages aren't free. Or cheap. I don't recall the exact price, but in order to get a good amount of bat swinging in one has to be get a lot of tokens.

We've had cool fall weather in Minnesota, but the snows which fell earlier have all melted away, and the recent snows and rain which were predicted failed to show up. So I expect the golf courses and batting cages are actually still open despite it being November. But even though we just got a pile of money in the mail, it would be kind of irresponsible to spend that much money on fun when we weren't able to make November rent on time.

So we stayed in the apartment and Son amused himself with his Wii and GameCube, interrupted on occasion with efforts to find other things to do.

I wasted the day. Can't write with a steady stream of interruptions. So I played computer games and interrupted those on occasion by laying on the bed and wishing I was either asleep or had lots of money so we could go golfing or visit the batting cages.

One of the things Son did to try and amuse himself was rummage through boxes. He showed up at the desk holding three of my sports trophies. One was from 1971. It was a second place trophy from the Soderville Athletic Association for playing baseball. We would have won the championship had it not been discovered that our coach was cheating.

The second trophy was from 1979. It was a consolation trophy from hte Mounds View Parks and Recreation Department. That was the year my brother had convinced Stephen, Chris, and me to join him in a a touch football league. We would have won the championship there, too, except I got married on the day the play-offs began and we had to forfeit the first game, which put us in the consolation bracket. No double elimination.

The third trophy is probaby the best of the three. It's from 2006. It didn't come from any league, or association, or anything like that. It came from a group of 11 boys I coached at Willie Mays baseball. It's an open baseball glove on a stand. Both are made of plastic. Resting in the glove is a new baseball, signed by every member of the team. They write, "Thanks Coach for a great year!"

It was, too. It was a difficult year in many ways, but once again our team won the consolation trophy. (As coach I didn't receive anything for that.) We had to win three games in six hours with a heat index of over 100 degrees. Son got sick from the heat. So did players from other teams. I cried when it was over because I had failed to pay close enough attention, believing I would see the signs before it was too late. I was wrong, and it cost Son and other players. When Son got sick I tried to end the game by forfeiting, but the parents, umpires, other team, and league officials wouldn't allow it. We had to finish that consolation champion game. We did, and our team won, but I have been banned from the league for my horrible behavior. (I also tried to end an earlier play-off game when it got dark and began to rain. Once again no one would allow me to forfeit, but I took Son and went home. I - and Son - were punished for this infraction against youth baseball and had to sit out a game.)

Not all parents liked my coaching style. To be honest, few did. And not just in baseball. I also coached several of Son's basketball teams. Until they ran me out of that, too. You see, I don't coach youth teams with idea they are going to win. I coach them so that they learn how to play the game and have fun doing it. This means just getting better, or even just learning how it is done.

To the horror of my assistant coach I actually drafted a girl onto the team on purpose! I had seen there were three girls who had chosen to play youth baseball instead of youth softball. I knew in my heart that unless these girls were very good they would not be given a fair chance. And based on the skills chart only one showed any promise. The next happened to be in the same round as Son's best friend, and I chose him instead of the girl. Son's best friend isn't exactly a sports legend himself. (He had never played baseball before and didn't know how to do anything.) So when the third girl's round came up I had first pick. I picked her. My assistant had argued and argued against it, but I didn't even bother to argue back. I just picked her.

Turned out she didn't know much about baseball either. We played 15 games, and for the first 14 she was a sure out. But then so was Son's best friend. But those two players made me feel a zillions times better than I did when the team won those three game to claim the consolation championship.

Son's best friend became a better than average defensive player. When the season began he couldn't throw the ball ten feet. (Ever see the movie, Sandlot?) By the end he threw out a fast runn from the third base position. It was a great play. And the girl finally got a hit.

To me, that is what youth sports is all about. But when the leagues are playing, I am the ONLY won who coaches that way. The others all shunt aside their 'weak' players and focus on the 'good' ones. When Son's best friend played basketball last year his coach told him to just stand under the basket and collect rebounds. Didn't teach him a thing. Everything I had taught him before was tossed away.

We ruin sports for our children now. Son had no interest in signing up for even basketball this year. And he's good. He has played defense against all of the so-call 'great' players in his class. He shut them all down. They all begged not to have Son play defense against them. They got their wish. He quit. He has no interest in sport politics. He just wanted to have fun, and it isn't anymore.

When I was young, it was.

A Day Off

2009-11-07T19:37:00.003-06:00

Took a lazy day today and didn't do much of anything. According to some that's what I do every day. Won't argue. They just may be right.

Thought a lot about Stephen today. Some of the things I was reading made me think of our friendship. What would life be like if Stephen were with me today? There is no way to know, of course.

That's the problem with aging. People start leaving and not coming back. Some day it will be my turn. There are those who are probably eagerly awaiting the day. Others don't like to think about it. I confess that it isn't something I like to dwell on. But when I think about Stephen, and Daddy, and Lynahr, and others, I find myself being forced to consider it.

If Stephen were alive I wonder if I would play more tennis. We used to play a lot of tennis. We drove around a lot. We didn't actually go anywhere. We just drove around. Went to a lot of movies, too. I liked going to the movies with Stephen. And after the movie we would find one of three pizza restaurants to visit.

Life has not always been hard times. There are a lot of happy memories. Lots of them.

But I do miss Stephen more on some days than others.

Heck of a Week

2009-11-06T17:47:00.003-06:00

This week has gone surprisingly well. Mostly. We did hear that Spouse's niece's son, a five-year-old, took seriously ill. They brought him to the local doctors, who weren't able to diagnose him properly. Neither did they recognize the seriousness of the illness until it had become frightening. The poor little guy developed pneumonia. Fortunately, they were only an hour away from Children's Hospital in St. Paul, which takes all children - even when the parents can't afford health insurance. They had to drain the fluid from his lungs, but we received an email today that the procedure went well and he's recovering nicely. Don't know when he'll be out of the hospital.

Threats to our children. I cannot think of anything which frightens me more than when Son has been sick. When he went to the hospital as an infant I wasn't able to speak. When we had to call 911 because he was coughing so hard he started to bleed, it was all I could do to keep myself from racing in a panic. There is no fear like the fear of losing a child. There just isn't. For those of you without children - you're lucky. And unlucky at the same time. There is also no love like it.

But other than that the week was filled with good news. For one thing, lots of unexpected money came our way.

It began when a friend of ours who had left the state felt led to send us a large sum of money in the mail. She wrote that when she was wiped out someone had taken care of her, and now she wanted to pass on the blessing. She gave us two hundred dollars! I was stunned. Spouse broke down and cried. This was the friend Spouse withdrew from when she announced she was lesbian. But she remained a friend anyway, and eventually Spouse learned to deal with things. I'll say her name is Wealote, because I've never known anyone by that name, but it has the same meaning as the real person. Wealote is probably one of the kindest and most generous people I know. You know, it's funny, but thirty-one years ago Wealote had wanted to marry me, too. Spouse was just more aggressive. (She lost by winning.) Maybe that's Wealote's motivation. It's her way of telling Spouse, "Thank You."

What was interesting about this money was there was a chance we would not get it. Wealote send the money in cash. And the postal delivery person put it in the wrong mailbox. And the people who received it opened it. Had they kept the money we would not have known anything about it until Wealote contacted us again. And we would never know who wound up with the money. But even here amongst the poor there is a code of honor which people follow. The card - with the money - was slipped under our door during the night.

The same day we got Wealote's money we received two other things in the mail. One was from my mother, who sent twenty-five dollars. For a person on a fixed income that is a lot of money.

Still the same day we received a refund check from the heart clinic. Turns out the heart echogram thing that the insurance I still had last year wouldn't cover didn't cost as much as we wound up paying. We got a check for another twenty-five dollars.

And then today we got another refund. This time from the house. Since we lost the house the insurance company refunded us for money we had paid ahead of time for covering it. That was another five hundred and twelve dollars.

So we got a lot of money this week. God does take care of us. But in my mind and heart that means more than money. The love behind the money, and this means Wealote and my mother.

And, to be completely honest, there is also a shame in needing the generosity of others. Maybe it's good to feel the shame and maybe it isn't. I don't know. It is good to feel loved.

That I do know.

Smoke in Your Eyes

2009-11-05T16:04:00.003-06:00

Another day with nothing to post. What an interesting life I live.

You know, one of the good things about living in an apartment with several hundred boxes stacked around the rooms is that there isn't any room to vacuum.

There also isn't a whole lot of room to cook. But that's fine as we only have an electric stove. Can't cook anything decent on an electric stove. Gotta have a real flame.

The disadvantages of the place are a few, but the worst is the cigarette smoke. It's everywhere. Just about everybody around here smokes, and opening a window means letting in the smoke. What a drag.

Officially, this is a smoke free building. But since everyone smokes within arm's reach of the building that's just a joke. All of the hallways smell like a two-bit bar from 1967.

But the people are nice. We're all in the same boat, so to speak. And as regards noise and such, this is probably a better place than any apartment I've ever lived in before.

Just wish they didn't smoke all the time.

But they're honest. I'll take that over liars and thieves who don't smoke any day.

How it Goes One Never Knows

2009-11-04T15:32:00.003-06:00

Tried twice now to write a post on two different subjects. No good on either post. Figured nobody cared and dumped it. So I'm writing this. Nobody cares yet, but I'm not writing anything I think is important, so that's all right.

We were at the food shelf the other day. One of the things they gave us was a bag of malted eggs. You know the kind. They're really popular at Easter. I think that's when these were made. Easter. 1976.

Another thing they gave us was a box of pasta shells with cheese. I had it for lunch. Oh my God! I don't know what the orange stuff was, but it certainly didn't taste like cheese. But, since beggars can't be choosers I ate it - or as much as I could stomach. And now I'm thinking I might be using the bathroom for other reasons than it's original intention.

I realize it's horrible to complain about food when it's free, but the truth is, it wasn't good. Not for me.

Somebody must actually like the shells and cheese stuff or they wouldn't keep making it. Unless it's made exclusively for food shelves. Don't know. If you haven't tried it I don't recommend it.

As to the malted eggs - well. We'll let that rest, too.

Not everything at a food shelf is like that. We got a box of Cremettes Spaghetti noodles. That's a good brand. And we got some canned vegetables, Rice Krispies, Cheerios, and a package of frozen chicken. Some of the brands we get I've never heard of or seen before, but generally the food is good.

I guess my point is this: If you give to a food shelf, Thank You. I know we don't live in the same area, so I'm not getting the actual food you donated, but you, and people like you, mean people like my Son get to eat instead of go hungry. For had we not gone to the food shelf this week Son would not be eating tonight. Once, we gave, too. Now we take. I hope you never have to. It's not a good feeling. Not good at all.

Ice Cream Has No Bones

2009-11-03T18:29:00.002-06:00

So it's been nap time again. Strange how sleep picks odd times to visit now. And sometimes during the night it refuses to come near.

I guess I'm being paid back for my youthful years when I often banished sleep from my presence. I often spent nights awake. My first steady job was at a pizza restaurant. I started work at five-thirty at night and worked until close, which was midnight on Sunday, one o'clock in the morning Mondays through Thursdays, and two o'clock in the morning on Fridays and Saturdays. After work it could be two or three hours before I tried going to bed.

Later, in my college days, I again worked a pizza place, and this time I, certain waitresses and cooks, would gather at an all-night restaurant and talk until dawn.

When I wasn't working I was with Stephen, playing tennis until the lights went out on the courts at midnight or one. Then we would find a pizza place and get something to eat.

And when none of those things was going on I would read. Sometimes all night. Often all night.

So now I'm old. The local pizza places close around ten. Too expensive to stay open, and with internet, cable and movie rentals nobody sits down at a pizza place to eat anymore. Haven't the energy to work them anyway.

Can't play tennis anymore. Even if I could, Stephen is gone. I don't really enjoy it like I did. Neither do I enjoy the pizza hopping late at night without him.

Still read, though. Sometimes all night. Or, I write.

But even those nights when I manage to catch hold of sleep before midnight we tend to wrestle with each other more than relax and rest. And my legs hurt all the time, so I wake a lot.

I used to wonder why "old people" took naps in the day. Now I know. It's the best time to sleep. It's when sleep can most easily be captured and kept.

Well, I'm up now. We'll be eating a late supper. Spaghetti. Almost like the old days at J's Pizza. All I need now are Chris and Stephen. After we had placed our order we would get to talking and then I would say it; the phrase that always made Chris laugh.

Because, as you know, ice cream has no bones.

Time to Vote

2009-11-02T19:50:00.003-06:00

You have UNTIL SATURDAY to visit Writtenwyrdd's blog and vote on the Halloween Contest entries. Follow this Link. A reminder that mine is there some place. But don't worry. You're not likely to vote for mine. There are some pretty good stories there.

Other than that I haven't much to say. The Voice in the Wind has gotten kind of thin. Can't compete with the gale force winds which have been blowing.

Have a good day.

Treat or Tricks

2009-11-01T18:00:00.002-06:00

Well, the entries are all in the voting has begun. You have ONE WEEK to visit Writtenwyrdd's blog and vote on the Halloween Contest entries. Follow this Link.

Mine is there but I'm not going to tell you which one it is. I haven't read them all yet, but I've already found two I like. Won't say if one is mine, but clearly the competition is going to be tough. Some very good writers have made submissions.

Meanwhile, I am not holding my breath about winning.

It was Halloween last night. My costume was to dress up as someone intelligent. Scary, huh?

Actually, we did not celebrate Halloween. Celebrations cost money. We didn't even buy candy to hand out, which is just as well. We got one knock on the door all evening. I guess in a low-rent building parents don't figure they're children are likely to get much. So the children must have wandered the streets of the neighborhood, frequenting the houses. Had we purchased candy we would now be eating it all ourselves. The knock may not even have been a Trick-or-Treater (we didn't answer the door).

I remember Halloweens from when I was young. My costumes were always home made. Sometimes my mother would purchase a plastic mask, but most of the time everything was home made. I went as ghosts, hobos (it wasn't politically incorrect in those days), indians, fat ladies, cats and other things.

Back in the 60s candy was cheap and people would hand out loads of it. Despite living in the country we often made great hauls. Mother would put us in her car and drive us around the area, hitting the four small towns which made up the school district. She may have put fifty miles or more on her vehicle. But gas was only thirty cents a gallon back then.

The best treats were candy bars. Milky Way, Three Muskateers, Snickers, Baby Ruth, and Hersheys were the best. Didn't much care for Butterfingers. Candy corn was another biggie. And home made popcorn balls and red delicious apples. The idea of lunatics putting crud inside treats wasn't known until the end of my run.

Gayanne, Helvie, and I would come home and toss our stuff onto bed sheets. We would sort it all out and make trades. Generally, there wasn't anything left by Thanksgiving.

It's different now. Home made treats are a thing of the past. Nobody wants to be accused of poisoning someone. But those things are most likely to get tossed anyway. Candy must be factory wrapped now.

Sometimes I miss the fun of Halloween. Of discovering where teachers lived (so we could avoid those areas the rest of the year). Of seeing how others didn't have much more than we did, or perhaps had a lot more. It was quite an experience and an education.

It's a thing of the past for me now. Even Son is too old to go out, and we can't even hand out treats. Not that anyone came anyway.

Writing Contest

2009-10-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

Writtenwyrdd has an October contest in honor of Halloween. Write a horror story in 1,000-words or less. The details are here. And here is a picture of the grand prize. I wouldn't mind winning that. So, even though I am not a horror writer, I wrote a horror story and submitted it.

What Can One Expect

2009-10-31T15:05:00.002-05:00

This is my third go at writing a post, so clearly I have nothing to say. Well, not true. What is true is that I have too much to say, but nothing of interest.

That's the problem with maintaining a blog in which one offers nothing to readers. It gets dull in a hurry. My son had a blog, but he quit posting to it three months ago. What's depressing is that I have six blogs and if I add up the visits for all six they fall short of my son's blog - and he isn't even posting anymore.

This blog was started as a place for me to write what I was thinking and feeling. That worked great while I had no followers. Then people began to follow and I suppose that put some kind of pressure on what I would post about. But I don't follow routine very well and I can be all over the place in what I write. But through it all I seldom write anything meaningful. That's just not my style.

In many ways this has been a rough year. No big deal. The past seven have been quite bad. But financially this has been the worst. We lost the house and we only made the rent for November because Son gave us some of his saxophone money. We have no money for food or medicine, which is a shame because I will need to replace my blood pressure medicine in about two or three weeks. It probably isn't going to happen. Had to cancel my echogram for my heart, too. I may even cancel my appointment with the heart doctor. Already canceled the dentist appointment. The missing filling will have to wait.

So, it's been rough. But I know of others who have had it worse and are having it worse. Not that I feel any better about that, but I don't want to give the impression I am unaware that there is plenty of misery to go around.

At the same time this has been the most prolific twelve months of my writing life. I did some investigation and found I have written more than a million words in the past 12 months. If you're interested in the details visit The Great Sea (see sidebar for link).

So with the bad comes the good. But just as I think I'm as tired as I can be, I find that that just isn't true. As low as we fall it still isn't the bottom. Perhaps that should be encouraging, but I must confess that it is not.

Oh, well.

Sleep - My Wayward Friend

2009-10-30T00:07:00.003-05:00

A long time ago, when I was young, Elizabeth dealt me a blow to my heart which I thought would kill me. I vaguely remember running to my car and driving away, hoping that speed would make it all not be true, but knowing the pain was real and it wasn't going to go away.

I didn't know where I was going but I found myself stopped at Stephen's house. I knocked and his mother called for me to come in. I hurried to Stephen's room so she wouldn't see I was crying.

Stephen was listening to Pink Floyd. He was always listening to Pink Floyd. He saw my face and knew where I had been. He wasn't surprised. He had tried to tell me for a long time.

He said nothing. He just indicated the bunk bed and I climbed up top. He switched off Pink Floyd and put on Moody Blues. Threshold of a Dream.

I slept and woke and slept again several times. Every time I woke I looked and saw him at his desk, waiting for me to recover. There was nothing else he could do. When I finally sat up he smiled and asked if I felt better. I said no. Then he told me I was a 'scab picker'. "You are not one to just let things be. You have to keep checking things, reopening the wounds and delaying your healing."

Then he took me to Keno's Pizza and I ate spaghetti. Salve to a wounded heart.

Stephen was right about me. I am a scab picker. It is impossible for me to leave the past behind. Wherever I go I bring it with me, and when the memories rise the same feelings rise with them. The wounds are never healed.

I am becoming so old, and some days the memories get awful heavy. I should have been asleep three hours ago. I may not be asleep for several hours hence. I sure could use that bunk bed now.

Cardinals, Orioles, and Indigo Buntings

2009-10-29T08:55:00.002-05:00

We were watching To the Manor Born this morning and something Audrey fforbes-Hamiliton said made me think of something a manager once told me.

The manager was a strict conservative, meaning he was all in favor of rights, as long as they were for people who looked and thought like himself. It also meant he was very interested in money. How to get it. How to keep it. And how to avoid having to spend it and still reap the benefits of wealth.

He wasn't wealthy when I knew him, but I expect he is now. He strikes me as the type.

He also very much wanted me to be like him, and while we did have a lot in common, I think it was a great disappointment to him to realize I can never side solely with the Conservative point of view any more than I can ever side solely with the Liberal. Both viewpoints have things that appeal to me and both have things I find offensive. And having never been one to believe I have to 'belong' to one side or the other, I don't belong to either. Which is probably why neither the ultra liberals or the ultra conservatives are much impressed with me. (But then is anyone? [smiles])

Anyway, during one his hopeful indoctrination sessions he showed me an advertisement he had received in the mail. It was from some investment firm bragging that for the past 18 months all of their financial predictions had come true. He asked me if I ever got anything like that. It was all I could do not to laugh in his face. Money and I have always maintained a very casual relationship. It shows up in small quantities and then disappears quickly. I've never been any good at investments. Hence my current status.

But RC (I've got to call him something, so I chose RC - Real Conservative) was being indoctrinated by someone who was well-established in the investment world, and that someone told him a trade secret.

The way these investment firms work is this:

They set up a mailing list of 500,000 names (or whatever the number).
They mail out flyers to 250,000 names advising investment in something, and different flyers to the other 250,000 warning against the same investment
Time proves one or the other correct
Now they mail 125,000 flyers to the 250,000 who got the good advice, reminding them how they were 1-for-1 and advise for something else. They send the other 125,000 the opposite advice, but with the same reminder of their success.
Time proves one or the other correct
They keep repeating this process of only sending repeat mailings to those who got the good advice, but splitting them into two groups: advise to do and warn against doing.

And this is how they are able to honestly tell recipients that they haven't been wrong in 18 months. As their 'track record' extends they look more and more credible to their mail recipients who, in turn, begin using their company to make investments.

At some point in time their mailing list becomes too small to generate the kind of income they want and they start all over again.

And people wonder why I'm so mistrustful of the financial world.

Who can you believe?

The Sky is Grey and the Snow is White

2009-10-28T15:35:00.002-05:00

Searched through some online job banks yesterday and today. Examined more than 1,000 listings. Are there jobs to be had? Oh, yes. Plenty of jobs. And not all crummy pay, either. The problem is, out of those 1,000 jobs I found three that I might be able to apply for.

Three out of one thousand. That's a pretty lousy hit rate, I would say. And do you know what my search criteria was? Well, after getting ZERO hits on jobs I might like to apply for, I changed the search criteria to simply be my zip code. Show me ALL the jobs within reasonable distance of my zip code.

It's interesting how search engines interpret that. Got one hit from Houston, Texas. Got another from Michigan and a third from Pennsylvania. The one in Houston was interesting. It was a management position that I'm totally unqualified to apply for. But it pays $70,000 a year. Wonder what the cost of living in Houston is? Is that like poverty row down there? Would be in Los Angeles. It'd be great pay in Duluth. Wish I lived in Duluth. Sometimes. Now when it's cold. Like now.

Over half the jobs offered were in the medical field. I not only do not have any interest in the medical field, I am wholly unqualified to take a job in it. The only thing I have in common with the medical field is that I'm sick. Mostly in body, but I've had people assure me that there's more wrong with my head than outward appearance.

The first job I found looks like a Whack-O outfit. If they were to hire me I would be a "Street Team" member, promoting events as gas stations, retail stores, fairs and outreach events. Duties would include handing out gospel tracts, one on one evangelism, soliciting support, and praying with those in need. I always thought those people were volunteers.

I am a Christian. And I do believe in promoting the Gospel. However, I've never been comfortable with street ministries. A friend of mine brought me along to Como Park one day so we could harass people about God. She thought it was great. All I saw was that we were ruining everyone's day at the park. Getting paid to be a pain in the ass? Guess I'm not a good Christian.

The second job is for seasonal snowplowing. It pays very well, and it's likely to draw in about a zillion applicants. I have a Class A license, but I've never driven a snow plow. Still, it means a lot of money - when it snows. Which hasn't happened that often in Minnesota the past few years. We're in a kind of a drought mode.

The third job is probably the most sensible of the three. It's working in a Blockbuster Video Store. What I find odd is that they're requiring two years experience. How odd. But I'll apply anyway.

We need the money. We may be able to make November rent on time.

Now I'm Pissed

2009-10-27T13:27:00.002-05:00

I got away from posting more than once on the same blog in a day, but I'm annoyed enough now that I'm going to do it anyway. Besides, my other post was more of a driveling mess than this one. In the other I was amused. Now I'm kind of torqued.

Why?

Because I just read another post about how men CAN'T multitask and women can.

What a load of CRAP!

Anyone can multitask. Especially if they're being paid for it.

Cook supper while on the telephone and holding a baby? I've done that. More times than I can remember. When Son was a baby I did most of the cooking, and I shared diaper duty and baby amusement time.

I can work on five stories at the same time. Yes, I know. You don't consider that work, or even tasking. Up yours. I bet you can't do it.

DO men multitask?

Not nearly so often as women. Why not?

Men don't give a rats ass about hardly anything. Unless they're my brother, men could care less about a clean house, dishes in the sink, a dirty floor, an unmade bed, or unwashed clothes. These are things we will do - in time. And if we're feeling ambitious we'll even do them all at the same time. (I have been motivated to do all of those things at the same time. Mother hit much harder than Daddy. And when it was two hours before she got home one learned to multitask in a hurry. Another point of motivation.)

Put a man on a ball field and watch him multitask. Can he watch a ball, swing a bat, and aim for "where they ain't" all at once? Yes, he can. Why? Because it's important - to him.

Pay a man to multitask and he will do it. Tell him to do five things he loves doing and he'll multitask.

Tell him to do one thing he hates doing and you'll be lucky if he ever finishes.

People who test things things are assholes. If they knew Jack Shit (Not a bad fellow. Met him after the news this morning.) they would understand that anybody can multitask at things they consider important, and less so when they consider the things a waste of time.

Spouse can multitask - when she wants to. When the tasks are things she doesn't want to do suddenly she has to do them one at a time. Maybe this indicates women can't multitask? Baloney!

Both Spouse and I have: cooked a meal, done the laundry, talked on the telephone, and played a table game all at the same time. Why? Because we wanted to. But when I don't want to do these things I am very much like Spouse. I do them one at a time. The idea is that, hopefully, something will come up and prevent me from having to do the unfinished tasks.

Sometimes it works.

Remember - You Heard it Here First

2009-10-27T08:27:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I was watching the news this morning before bringing Son to school. No big deal. Most of the time I only half watch it anyway. There just isn't that much going on that I care to hear about.

One of the newsworthy events I have been marginally following has been the incident where a NW Airlines air bus overshot Minneapolis by 150 miles. Although I do not (can't afford it and have no place to go) fly, I found the idea that a commercial airline could miss its destination by 150 miles intriguing. What could cause such a thing? Turns out the pilots were so engaged with their laptop/s they ignored everything else. What a comforting thought!

They were alerted to their error when one of the flight attendants came to inquire about the estimated time of arrival. That was when the pilots realized they were now in Wisconsin air space and took steps to get back to where they belonged.

So the news is on this morning, and one of the anchors announces proudly, "We have an exclusive interview with the flight attendant who brought the mistake to the pilots' attention."

Generally, these kinds of things are pretty pitiful. I mean, don't you just love it when something happens in Japan and the local news people interview someone who knows someone who had a cousin who heard of someone who went to Japan back in 1977? But this, I thought, just might be good. After all, the flight attendant was actually there. She was the one who got the pilots to turn around before they entered Canadian air space and had to be shot down as a terrorist threat. So this is how the interview went. The flight attendant was smiling and nice (that training pays off) as she was entering her house.

Reporter: Did you know what was going up there?

Flight Attendant: No.

Reporter: Did they (pilots) tell you anything?

Flight Attendant: No.

End of interview.

Wow! Had I been watching any other news this morning I would have missed that. I thought it was worth passing on to the world. After all, breaking news like this shouldn't be hidden under a bushel.

Next comes the interview with the woman who's sister's brother-in-law has a friend who visited somebody someplace who actually flew on an airplane back in 1966.

Six Days With the Sun and a Root Beer Float

2009-10-25T10:58:00.002-05:00

Have you ever, or do you now, keep a diary? I've lost count over the years how many times I've tried to maintain one. I guess it's my love of history - true history - that inspires me to keep trying.

One of the things that made Ken Burns' The Cival War so wonderful for me to watch was all of the first-hand documentation from the people who had lived it. At the time what they wrote may not have seemed like much to them, but more than one hundred years later it becomes fascinating reading.

And so I have tried to keep diaries and record things that don't seem like much to me. Unfortunately, they seem like so little I easily forget to write them. And I'm such a perfectionist about those things that if I miss a few days in a row I just give it up.

The exception to this rule is my son's diary, which I have maintained for him every day since the day he was born. There are 4,376 entries now. I'll let you do the math to figure out his age.

I have missed a few days, but with the exception of three days seven years ago, I have always been able to make them up. I suppose it comes down to what is interesting and what is important. Generally, filling in his journal is one of the first things I do every day. You would think I could take that opportunity to write about myself, in my own diary. Tried that. It didn't make my life any more interesting to me.

In a way the blogs I keep kind of serve this purpose. They just aren't daily and they don't always reflect what's actually going on.

Which reminds me. I'm working on creating a new blog. This one will force me to draw upon my programming skills - long dormant. About twenty-five or thirty-years ago I had written a software program for myself. I lost it when the tape it was stored on became corrupted. Almost every year since I have tried to rewrite the thing. Never managed it. Came close the one year when I created a version in Excel. That worked nicely. Until a virus struck my computer and I lost everything. But I'm giving it another go, and I've made it further along than I have since that Excel success of a few years ago. If I ever finish it I will have a new blog. How many will that make?

I guess I just like to write.

Preying on the Poor

2009-10-24T08:11:00.003-05:00

It's amazing what desperation does to a person. Even otherwise intelligent people suddenly become fodder for every scam artist who happens by. And after a few burns the warning flags begin flying high even when no scam is involved.

Got a telephone call last evening. I forget who the guy identified himself as, or his organization. But he said he was calling because we were finalists for a Home Makeover. Had I been thinking clearer I should have kept him on the line and tried to get more information from him, such as how and why we became finalists in something we never signed up for. Instead, I just informed him that we no longer had the house. We lost it about forty days ago. And what a pity, because the house certainly needs a makeover.

He seemed quite depressed and apologetic, and with an apology he said goodbye and I hung up.

Could it have been real? I don't know. I know of the show but I never watch it. Don't find that kind of thing entertaining. But it didn't matter because we no longer have a house.

We've received many calls from people saying they represented organizations which very much wanted to help us. Ultimately, they would ask for money. Now let's examine this rationally. I tell you I have no money. You wish to help. So what do you do? You ask me for money. What's wrong with this picture?

And yet it is hard not to believe these people. Why? Because in a desperate situation one is willing to suspend all disbelief in order to make things better. Rational and logical effort have produced nothing. Why not try the ridiculous? At some point in time you get the feeling you have two chances to die and only one chance to live. And if that one chance is a one-in-a-million chance, so what? What other hope do you have?

Scamming people who are safe and secure (in their own minds and emotions) is difficult. It requires great charisma and quality acting with believable accoutrements. Scamming the poor only requires tapping into their desperation. They know they're being scammed, but they're too desperate to care anymore.

What kind of person does this to the poor? The financial rewards certainly are pitiful, so it has to be something more. Simply proving how foolish people can be. That needs no proof. You might as well try proving the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Politicians use this tact to get elected and reelected. They keep telling us why we need to be afraid of what will happen should they not be elected. That the dire consequences they predict are no more likely to occur than the wonderful promises they offer does not enter most voter's thoughts. They're just desperate not to have things 'go bad'.

We have all been desperate at least a few times in our lives. Some times with high stakes and some times with low. But we all know what it is. And I doubt that any of us like it.

And we're not keen on the predators, either.

The Sound of Words

2009-10-23T12:54:00.004-05:00

Recently, a few email exchanges between myself and a dear friend brought to my attention how often we talk about how a person sounds in their writing when, in fact, whatever sounds we are 'hearing' are solely in our imagination.

Imagination is a powerful thing. We hear sounds that aren't there because we read feeling into words. It's not aways accurate. More than once I have been involved, or witnessed, an email exchange in which one person becomes very angry at an insult the other never intended.

There was a time when letters through the mail were the best way to keep in touch with friends and relatives living at great distances. Then came telephones and letter writing became a thing of the past for many. Now we have email, telephones, twitter, facebook and who knows what else, and we're back to writing.

Except we seldom writing in sentences anymore. Not that I'm the best at sentence structure and spelling, but I remember when I worked in an office and received business correspondence from customers. I was often embarrassed for the people who were sending supposedly professional letters in which spelling errors abounded and sentence structure was non-existent.

The main cause of poor spelling and grammar, I think, is due to the costliness of texting. I have never done texting, but my understanding is that every letter costs something. And so "I Love You" becomes "ILU", and "Talk to you later" becomes "TTYL". You save the cost of seven letters in the first example and 13 in the second. Money becomes the incentive to write poorly. What a shame. And there's nothing to be done about it.

But back to my original thought. Isn't it funny how we just can't read a thing? We have to put sound to words. It comes as naturally as breathing. And when writers talk about their writing, or someone else's, we frequently talk about our "voice". Voice becomes more than just sound. It's also the words we use.

Think About Trees

2009-10-22T10:17:00.001-05:00

Don't normally post a lot of poetry here, but this came to mind just a bit ago.

Do you ever think about trees
Have you ever sat back and just watched them
I remember this big ole tree in our yard when I was young
It stood there proud and strong
Sometimes it looked like it wanted to talk

I think it did – in tree language
They way it moved in the wind
It seemed to whisper thoughts
What it reminded me of was one of J.R.R.Tolkien’s Ents
Especially when it stomped mean ole Jessie T into the dirt

One Plus One Plus Three Minus Four Equals One

2009-10-20T01:33:00.003-05:00

Took another dose of humility yesterday. Went to the food shelf to get our allotment. My first time. And just when I thought I didn't have any pride left. Turns out I do. I know, because it took a hit and I felt it.

We're only allowed to use the shelf once a month. Other food shelves may have different rules. I don't know. I expect it's kind of based on how much food they have and how many people are coming to get it.

Got some bread stuffs, canned vegetables, cereal, meat, milk, and canned juice. I also took an acorn squash. I like acorn squash. Baked with butter.

There was a time, and it doesn't seem that long ago now, that we used to bring food to the shelf. In fact, we brought some with us. Spouse had gone to the store and bought a bag of sugar only to come back to the apartment and discover we didn't need sugar. So we donated it.

Don't much like going to the food shelf. Don't expect many do. That feeling actually contributed to our losing the house. You see, we didn't go, and that meant we were using our money to buy food instead of paying the house payment. But I don't know that it would have made much of a difference anyway. At best it would have delayed the inevitable.

I find it interesting that NONE of the government agencies set up to help the poor and needy have done a single thing for us. Every time we have applied for help we have been turned down. The food shelf is run by a local church. The only thing they check is when you last visited. They don't even care if you need their services. They provide them anyway. I know this because the one man who helped us carry the bags to the car told me so. He told me to 'give myself the pride talk' and come back next month. Probably will. Probably have to.

I expect those government agencies are actually helping someone, but it never ceases to amaze me how people who earn more than we do get all kinds of help while we're turned down time and again. Some people know how to walk the system and others don't.

Regarding the food shelf, we used to donate to it regularly. I remember Spouse didn't want to at first. Didn't see the need. You have to excuse the attitude, though. Spouse grew up in a tightly conservative environment and lived for years under the delusion that people suffered because it was their own fault, so let them suffer. I grew up in a different environment that said not everyone who suffers is suffering because of themselves. But even if they are, you help them if you can. That's how poor people get along. They help each other. Which is why I have also found it interesting that until Spouse sent letters off to the family, the only people trying to help were people from my environment who were pretty much in the same fix we're in.

Life is odd. If I could step back from it and observe it better perhaps I might be able to figure it out one day. For now, I'm just trying to survive. If that means letting the ego take another beating, so be it. Son has to eat.

Doing Nothing Takes a Long Time

2009-10-18T17:00:00.002-05:00

Just been listening to music today. Listening to music and wasting time. I've done some reading, but no writing. Worked a bit on something I created for my own amusement with my old computer. But that computer died of a virus and took my creation with it. Remaking it is such a drag I have never got around to doing it. Tried a few times. Trying again lately.

Wasted days seem like such a waste. It's like, why can't I save these off and use the time when I need it? When I've got six things I want to get done and only time for one. Wouldn't it be great to be able to go, Hey, you know what? I had that Sunday back in October which wasn't good for anything. I'll just take that out and use it as a leftover.

Doesn't work that way.

Manna spoils with the dawn.

Living With What I Am

2009-10-17T11:40:00.003-05:00

What is it about pain that makes it stick around years, even decades, after the cause has left?

I am, of course, talking about the injuries we suffer within. But maybe not only.

In my life I have broken several bones. On cold days I have two fingers and a thumb which will throb. My knees hurt. My shoulder recalls healing from when it was separated.

The pain is there. All of these injuries took place thirty years ago. Or more. When I was young. Thin. Strong. Filled with endurance. I went to battle on athletic fields, tested myself climbing trees and rocks, and blazed through the obstacle course faster than anyone else because I faced it with reckless abandon. And now, decades after those events have become nothing more than faint memories the pain returns to haunt me.

Still, sometimes I would that pain is nothing compared to the pain I have taken inside.

But what kind of failing is it to suffer years afterward over rejections which no longer matter? Why should it matter now, thirty years after the fact, that I never told VB how I felt until the day we said goodbye? Or that EL basically told me F--- off? Or LB had me convinced we were to be married, only to learn I was something to be played with? Or BN that I mattered, only to learn I was just a possession?

Why doesn't the reality of what I have wash away the pain of what I lost, or never had?

Probably it has something to do with why my fingers and knees ache over failed efforts from just as long ago. Why my skin remains a discolored reminder of my encounter with the sharp object and the searing oven.

Pain is always with us, isn't it? The hurts of arthritis, twisting on our joints. The loneliness of rejection. And something as simple as weather can bring it all alive again.

How strange. But I think it might make me a better writer. I think so. Don't know.

I'm just feeling lonely today.

Peabo Bryson: If Ever Your In My Arms Again

Another First For Me - Life's Minor Triumphs

2009-10-15T08:51:00.004-05:00

I don't normally do memes. For one thing, I'm not entirely sure I understand what a meme is. Apparently it is a series of unasked questions to be answered in sequence on a blog. Kind of like a chain letter. (I don't get into those either.)

But Writtenwyrdd has one on her site which she got from Charles Gramlich who's been seeing it on other blogs. This one is interesting to me because it is exclusively devoted to books and reading. So, I thought I would give it a go.

So, my first meme. Questions in red italics, answers in blue.

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack:
My favorite place to read is in bed, which means snacks and a soda are right at hand. Snacks are anything which can be eaten with one hand. The most common snacks are chips and popcorn, but chocolate, apples, peanuts, and even hot dish qualify.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
Writing in a book makes my skin crawl. For the longest time I couldn't even write in a blank book. Eventually, I got so I could hi-lite and underline passages in my bible, and write personal thoughts on what I had read, but now when I read it I find myself wishing I hadn't done that.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
When I was very young I folded the corners. Then I realized the fold marks never went away. So I began laying the books flat open. But then I found the spines would break. So now I use bookmarks. I'm constantly having to buy more because they get all bent and floppy. I prefer stiff bookmarks. (Although the one I'm using now is made of cloth.)

Fiction, nonfiction, or both?
Mostly fiction and mostly fantasy. However, I also enjoy nature stories. And over the years I have found reading documentary and biographical stories enjoyable. And reading about the stars, the planets, and earth history and science is always fascinating.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?
During a first read I prefer to finish reading sessions between chapters. In subsequent reads I can stop wherever.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
It depends. If the book is exceptionally captivating I won't interrupt the flow with a word search. I try to evaluate the meaning based on context. For not so captivating work, or during subsequent reads, I will look up the word.

What are you currently reading?
Lord of the Rings. For about the 250th time. I'm also picking up a Tanya Huff book at the library this afternoon: Sing the Four Quarters. I've not ready anything from her before, but she comes highly recommended.

What is the last book you bought?
The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron. That's been a while now. Ran out of money you know.

Are you the type of person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?
I can read more than book at a time, and I have. But generally, I read so fast that I usually finish a book in one sitting, so I don't give myself the opportunity. I have been known to stay up until dawn reading.

Do you have a favorite time/place to read?
My favorite place to read is in bed. My favorite time is when I'm going to be left alone. I don't like being interrupted in my reading any more than I do in my writing. But I'm usually nice when I am. [smiles]

Do you prefer series books or stand alones?
I don't know that I have a real preference on this. It kind of depends on the story. While I wish there was more with Lord of the Rings and Well-Favored Man (Elizebeth Willey), I'm content that Higher Power of Lucky is stand alone.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?
Very seldom do I ever recommend books. I just tell people I liked them and leave it for them to decide on their own if they're interested. Further, I have a difficult time remembering author names. I've always been horrible at remembering names.

How do you organize your books?(by genre, title, author’s last name, etc.)
Ideally, I keep my books by author within genre. There are exceptions. I have some Star Trek books written by different authors. I keep these together because they still form a set of sorts. But I keep my Warriors (Erin Hunter) in order by chronological sequence and not title.

So, there you have it. My first meme. Not too difficult. Could have said a lot more. I'm surprised I didn't.

Simplicity is Not all it's Cracked Up to Be

2009-10-14T13:27:00.003-05:00

Daddy didn't push us hard to get top grades. His attitude was that kids should be kids. We only get to be kids once without being put away for it. For that reason, none of us were advanced ahead of our grade and none of us were put into special schools for 'smart' kids.

At the same time Daddy did insist we get good grades. Failing grades - in anything - was not acceptable. "We didn't have any stupid kids," he used to say.

Well, I'm not so sure the jury is unanimous on that opinion, but as that is a different topic I will let it be for now.

Because (not supposed to begin a sentence with 'because') Daddy had this attitude, and for other reasons, he was usually fun to have around. When he was around. Most of my growing up years he was an over-the-road truck driver, meaning he would be gone for a day or two at a time. And when he wasn't over-the-road he was over-at-the-bar. Then he wasn't fun to have around. Especially in the later years. He became an angry drunk. He wasn't violent. Not physically. But he would get so - angry.

But even sober there were times when Daddy wasn't that much fun. These times usually began with the same question:

So, what do you think?

I got so I hated that question. On the surface it seemed fair and legitimate. What do you think? Gee, someone's interested in my opinion. But it wouldn't stop there. Once you said what you thought you were required to defend the position. And we learned early on it didn't help to say we thought what we already knew Daddy thought. Although just as guilty of making foolish mistakes as anyone else, Daddy wasn't stupid. Even if you agreed with his position he made you defend it. And he was a master at shooting down your arguments.

The only one who ever won out on one of these What Do You Think sessions was Lynahr. That was when Daddy woke up all of the eldest children (Helvie and I were spared) in the middle of the night to confront them about Mickey's having (several times) slept overnight at his girlfriend's apartment. Nobody dared say they thought it was 'good', but only Lynahr, the shyest member of the family, dared say what she thought.

I don't care!

I don't care is not really a position that needs defending. You don't need a reason. Your reason is in your answer. I don't care.

It can be quite a conversation stopper, and it stopped Daddy that night. He dismissed the family and everyone returned to bed.

What a pity I didn't learn about it until afterward, for Helvie's and my turns were the following morning. We were watching Saturday morning cartoons. Daddy came in and turned off the television. The older siblings (except for Mickey, who had left in the middle of the night) were all gathered around to witness Helvie's and my responses.

Helvie was never a good one for expressing herself in those days, so she wasn't always required to defend her position. Not only that, but Judayl had coached her. Nobody had coached me, so when Daddy asked me what I thought about it I responded honestly.

What are you talking about?

Daddy didn't like that answer. He knew we all knew what Mickey was doing at that apartment. Except, this time, Daddy was wrong. I vaguely remembered being told some time that Mickey had been sleeping over there, but so what? What was wrong with sleeping?

That was not acceptable to Daddy. He couldn't accept that I didn't understand when my younger sister understood completely. So he grilled me, using words which conveyed nothing to me. Daddy didn't use profanity. Even in extreme anger and drunkeness the worse word I ever heard him use was 'bunk'. "That's a lot of bunk." So, without being explicit, he tried to corner me into revealing my attitude on the whole thing. Only to discover through my sincere frustration that I hadn't a clue what he was talking about. He got up and drove to the bar.

Daddy was disappointed in me. He was often disappointed in me. He felt I should understand things that I just did not understand. Sexual things tended to top that list. But you know, he never volunteered any information, and God forbid that I should ask an adult anything about sex. And so I was left ignorant. In fact, to paraphrase M, who was jealous because L was getting all of the attention from D at our college lunch, "You could fill a library with what I didn't know." M was specifically referring to theatre, but it was really a sparring match between two girls hot for the same guy. By college, even I could recognize jealousy.

You know, I still think I'm fairly ignorant about things. That isn't necessarily bad, but it does leave me confused an awful lot.

Whoo-Whoo

2009-10-13T12:05:00.003-05:00

Tuesday is Writing Assignment Day. Current projects and the like. I think I need to change my schedule. Not only do I not follow it, but I'm mostly doing my posts on writing over on The Great Sea and Tales From The Great Sea.

So what to write about here?

What about model trains?

I like model trains. Way back when I had a Lionel. That one I didn't much care for. Too big, I guess. But it was really when we visited my uncle's house and I saw he had an entire corner of his basement devoted to a model train layout. I was fascinated.

There were tunnels and mountains and trees and buildings. Everything constructed with his imagination. I wanted to have a my own.

A number of years later I did get a set. It was HO gauge, which I still found to be too big. It needed so much space. I never did anything with the set, though. Model railroading is not exactly cheap, and my parents were exactly swimming in the dough.

Later, after I was married, Spouse bought me an N scale set. This was wonderful! The right size. I bought a piece of 4'-8' plywood, a package of Mountains in Minutes, and proceeded to build my railroad community. Not having much of a grasp in how electricity works, I designed an unworkable layout. You see, electricity flows through wire very similar to how water flows through a pipe. You can't turn it back on itself or the whole thing comes to a halt. The only thing I have left from that set are a few cars. Once Spouse realized that model railroading consists of constantly spending more money support for this hobby came to an abrupt halt.

One of the greatest things I saw was when I worked for a small town newspaper. My editor knew of some retired guys who had converted an old pig barn into a model railroading club and sent me there to do a story on it. It was a really cool setup. One guy had even spent something like three months building a monstrous trestle bridge. The building was about sixty feet long and thirty wide. Or something like that. Very rectangular. The far back wall was mountains. The long left wall was countryside with a small village. The long right wall was city and train yard. The close end was where they had set up the control booth.

The men took turns operating the trains. They had a schedule in which certain cars needed to be delivered to certain places at certain times. They kept written records of what they did when they were in charge. At the beginning they had to manually unhitch cars. Now they were in the process of wiring in automatic de-couplers. It looked like so much fun.

Some day, if money ever decides to live with me again, I may just set up another train layout. I'll work off a schedule, too. But if it goes anything like this blog, I'm going to be off schedule in short order.

Young and Childish Humor

2009-10-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

We're watching Young Frankenstein as I write this post. It's a wonderfully funny movie I first started watching back in the fall of 1975 at the Varsity Theatre on the UofM Campus. The theatre is still there, but it looks like it's live shows now, instead of films. Back in the 1970s it was a dollar theatre. Saw lots of good movies there. I didn't actually attend the University, except to go to movies and eat pizza at the Green Mill in Dinkytown. Great pizza, but always busy.

Anyway, there is the scene very early in the film where Gene Wilder, in a fit of emotional frustration, stabs his leg with a scalpal. It reminded me of something Stephen did shortly after we graduated from high school.

Stephen was an artist. Mainly, he painted with oils, and he often purchased his supplies in bulk. It was ultimately cheaper and he spent less time running to the art stores. One of the things he purchased in bulk was paint. They came in soft plastic bags, like plasma.

Stephen had recently been hired at a leather and luggage retail outlet. Life was dull there. Everyone was so serious. He decided what they needed was a bit of humor to lighten things up. So, he tied a bag of red paint to his thigh, inside his pants. Then he went to work.

While at lunch a female co-worker sat down beside him. The lunchroom was small and there was only the one table. Stephen very casually withdrew a large syringe from his lunch box. He then proceded to stab his thigh and withdraw a full supply of red liquid. The girl screamed and ran out.

Stephen was fired on the spot.

I laughed when he told me and I laugh every time I think about it. Stephen probably suspected he might get into some trouble, but I doubt he realized he would be fired. Stephen often had trouble envisioning the consequences of his humor.

Once he nearly got us both arrested as pedaphiliacs. I was driving and he was sitting with his window down, bored to death. There was this young girl sitting at the curbside. Don't know what she was doing, but she was minding her own business. Stephen sees her and tells me to slow down. Dumb old me hasn't figured out what's about to happen and so I do. As we near the poor little girl Stephen sticks his head out the window and, in his best (worst) Peter Lorre voice says, "Want to go camping?"

He thought it would be funny to scare her. She was scared. She was also bright enough to get up and run into the house. Needless to say I not only burned all othe rubber off my tires getting away from there, but Stephen had to listen to my anger for the next two hours. When I got too tired to yell at him anymore I drove us to Chris's house and told him. Chris could stay angry at Stephen much longer than I could. And he was much better at yelling.

Poor Stephen. He just couldn't understand that some things just aren't funny.

But in my book, the paint and syringe thing was funny. I wouldn't have fired him.

When the Snow Melts and the Sun Won't Shine

2009-10-11T11:20:00.003-05:00

Just finished playing Texas Hold 'Em with Son. He learned to play it at school last year and so we got him a version for home play. The three of us played a lot at first, and then it was just Spouse and Son. I'm not that keen on card games. Generally, they aren't kind to me. I just don't get what I want. This includes games like, Go Fish, Old Maid, Rummy, and Hearts.

Actually, the card games I've been most successful at have been poker. But I've never gone up against anyone really good. Most of the time I've managed to come away with more than I went in with, but not always. Last night Son hammered me. He was doing so again today when my luck suddenly shifted. I went all-in three times in a row and he came just short three times in a row. He had a pair of aces. I had three tens. He had two pair. I had a straight. He had a pair of kings. I had a straight. It can change quickly.

We weren't playing for money. I don't like playing cards for money, and neither of us has any anyway.

A long time ago I remember playing cards for money at Chris's house. It was Chris and Stephen and I. We were playing "guts".

Guts was a pretty simple game. At least the way we played it. An ante was put into the pot. Two cards were dealt to each player, and to "the hole". Beginning at the dealer's left, players announced whether they would 'stay' or 'fold'. Staying meant you either won the pot or had to put as much in as was already there. To win, you had to stay and have the best hand. With only two cards dealt to everyone a pair of anything was considered an excellent hand. Ace high and king high were good, too.

We had an added dilemma. If no one else 'stayed', the dealer was required to stay. And since "the hole" was part of the game, it was possible for everyone to stay and nobody win.

This happened continually that day when Chris, Stephen and I were playing. We kept dealing pairs to The Hole. Six hands in a row! And on the one hand, it was amazing, all three of us had a pair. Chris's pair beat Stephen's and mine, but The Hole had a pair of aces. Eventually, we had run out of pennies and were tossing in I.O.U.s. Finally, Chris won. I not only had lost all of my money, but I owed another twenty dollars. Stephen owed about thirty-five. Not much in today's thinking, but back then I suppose it was like two hundred and three hundred dollars. A fair amount of money for three people working part-time minimum wage (about two dollars an hour).

To pay off my debt I was forced to hand Chris my penny collection. He let me keep my two silver quarters. The rest all went to him.

Since then I have been leery about playing cards for money. I certainly won't borrow to gamble, like I did then. How stupid can one get? No matter what hand we were dealt it was a possible losing hand. Even a pair of aces. For we did not acknowledge suits, and ties went in favor of The Hole.

But it's fun to do something different. Life in an apartment can be pretty dull at times.

What Would You Have to Say, Stephen

2009-10-10T08:45:00.002-05:00

Just an update regarding my last post. I did finish The Sweet Girl (but not until this morning), but it did NOT surpass Shadow People in word count. Came about two hundred words short.

My friend Stephen was an artist. He could draw, he could paint, he could sculpt. What he wasn't good at was telling stories. Not on paper anyway. Just to sit and talk he did fine. He had a wonderfully vivid imagination.

Stephen was a gentle sort. I cannot remember a single instance where Stephen was ever cruel, or deliberately hurt anyone. His humor could be acerbic, and sometimes people did feel bad. But when Stephen realized he had hurt feelings he would take steps to undo the damage he had caused.

He was an honest person. Gentle. Honest. Kind. What wonderful attributes to possess.

And so it was with great surprise when one day he shows up at my house all depressed. Turns out he had gone to a local Target store with Chris, and Chris had convinced Stephen to do something Stephen had never done before in his life: steal.

I forget what it was he stole. I think it was a piece of fishing tackle. Anyway, it had taken Chris an inordinate amount of time and effort to convince Stephen to take the thing. All of this back and forth debate had attracted the attention of the store's security. So of course when Chris and Stephen left the store they were caught, apprehended, and brought to the local police station where they were booked.

The incident left a lasting impression of Stephen, and it showed in some of his ad-lib comments. He had a great gift for exaggeration and sarcasm. He liked to tell stories of the poor slob who stole a pack of gum and ran out of the store, only to be gunned down by a 37-member S.W.A.T. force. Then he would pose as the dead criminal, laying spread out and holding the cheap piece of swag, and say, "Was it worth it?"

It probably isn't funny at all to read, but when I see and hear him in my mind I can't help but laugh out loud.

And do you know the funny thing about it? That was the only time Stephen ever shop-lifted. His younger brother did it all the time. And never got caught. The truth is, I always felt Stephen was lucky because he was caught, and I often told him so.

Exaggeration and sarcasm was how Stephen dealt with all of his disappointments.

He rode motorcycles. Harley-Davidson models. Back in the 70s Harley-Davidson wasn't doing so well. There weren't many shops around. Here in Minnesota the only shop Stephen knew of was thirty miles away.

One summer in June, Stephen was driven off the road by a jerk in a pickup truck. Stephen always referred to drivers of pickup trucks as "hockey pucks". It was a term he picked up from his motorcycle driving instructor. But in driving off the road Stephen's motorcycle was damaged. Two of the spokes on his front wheel snapped. Now he probably could have continued to ride his bike with the missing spokes, but he felt it was too dangerous to risk. So he called the Harley-Davidson shop and ordered the spokes. (They didn't have any in stock at the time.) He waited the stated four weeks and borrowed his father's car to pick up his spokes. They weren't there.

Two weeks later he asked me to drive him. I agreed.

He was depressed the entire way there. Calling the store didn't seem to work as they seldom answered the telephone. (He may have actually gone to the store and placed his order in the first place.) When we reached the store he had to wait about fifteen minutes before anyone would treat with him. When they did they informed him the spokes still had not arrived I thought Stephen was going to break down and cry. Then he got angry. Angrier than I had ever seen him.

When we got back home he wanted to do an audio skit. These were all ad-lib so I had no idea what was on his mind. He began by pretending he had come in to the Harley-Davidson shop. I was to be the clerk.

ME: May I help you?

STEPHEN: Yes. I was here about - three years ago to order a spokes for a motorcycle wheel.

That was Stephen. I still smile to think about him. He made me laugh. Often when I desperately needed to find humor in my life.

I would like to believe that, were he alive and with me now, he would be pleased with the writing I have been accomplishing. He wouldn't read any of it, but he would be pleased. I know I am.

Expanding, or Just Blowing Up

2009-10-09T15:30:00.004-05:00

I've been productive with my writing over the past six weeks. More than 138,000-words written in five stories, one poem, and one Evil Editor exercise (see September 20, Pirate Speak Exercise). The shortest piece was the poem, 192-words. The longest was a novel, Shadow People, 64,664-words. My current work, The Sweet Girl, has a slight chance of passing Shadow People. It's currently at 60,099-words. I'm finishing it up tonight or tomorrow.

Been thinking of trying my hand at something else: drawing. It's something I have thought about often over the years. I really wish I could draw as well as I desire. The problem I have had is that to draw as well as I desire requires years of practice. (How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. Practice.) In order to achieve my goal I have to accept my first efforts will hardly resemble what I ultimately want. I have the same problem with my bass. Damn, I wish I could play it, and play it like a pro. But that requires practice. And that means time.

I suppose it comes from being older, but lacking the wisdom of real age.

But I have this artist's sketchpad. Bought it years ago with a book on how to draw cartoon figures. Actually filled in a page before I became disgusted with my efforts and set it aside. Too impatient. The four drawings of men are supposed to be the same man, and the four drawings of women are supposed to be the same woman. The woman wasn't supposed to look like some ditz, either.

So I'm tempted to give drawing another go, despite the fact that my handsome men and beautiful women are going to look like the images above. But if I could only draw, even to the point where I could actually repeat an image so that it was clear it was the same person, I could generate my comic strips: Decca the Brave, about a fat and lazy horse (based on horses Spouse and I used to own); Hotshot Reporter, about an idiot small town newspaper reporter who was so tall you never got to see his head (based on my time as such). I also might be able to draw images for my Hero stories.

The problem with trying to draw, or play the bass, is that it has to take time away from my writing, and that is going so well right now I hate to do anything to jeopardizing it. Still, I'm feeling creative. Maybe now is another good time to at least think about it. I'm great at thinking about things. I do it better than anyone. Pity I can't get paid for that.

A Cold Wind is Blowing

2009-10-08T07:25:00.002-05:00

There's a new lock on our door. Kind of symbolic.

The wind has changed. During August and September the wind would not come into the apartment, even with both windows and the sliding door open. Now, for the past week, the wind has been coming from the southwest and blowing directly inside. And, because it's been raining and cold, the smokers aren't out to force us to close those windows and the sliding door.

I'm not a cold weather person, despite living in Minnesota. However, it has been several years since we've had what I would call a "normal" Minnesota winter. When I was young we often had nasty cold snaps strike around Christmas and last about a month. Then we would get a "thaw" in January followed by several weeks of extreme cold. In the last ten years I think we've actually had a couple of winters in which nature was not able to maintain a snow cover through the winter.

But it's cold now. For me. Once it falls below sixty I think it's cold, and we haven't had sixty degrees in quite a while.

I'm not looking forward to this winter. If it's this cold already in September and October, then perhaps we are in store for a "normal" winter this year. Cold. Snow. Ice. Yuck.

2009-10-07T06:40:00.004-05:00

Had a couple of interesting events yesterday. One was kind of disturbing and the other just kind of interesting.

It was mid-afternoon. I was soon to head over to the school to bring Son back to the apartment. About a half hour before I was to leave I lay down on the bed. The cat jumped up on my chest to take a nap. That was interrupted be the telephone. Another computer calling me up and telling me to "Please hold". How rude! Call someone up and immediately put them on hold? What kind if crap is that? If you're going to put me on hold - even for five seconds - don't bother calling me because I'm going to hang up. I don't care who you are.

Another set of computer calls goes this way, "This is something insurance companies don't want you to know!" I always respond the same: "Well, I guess I'd better not listen then." And I hang up. What a pity it's wasted humor. Computers don't give a damn if you hang up on them.

I hate those commercials. You know them. "Doctors don't want you to know this." Of course not. They want you to stay sick. According to advertising, nobody wants you to know anything. Bullsh*t. Nobody gives a damn what you know. Why? Because Americans are too lazy to use the information anyway. They'll continue to go to the doctor (when they can afford it) and buy the pre-packaged stuff and whatever. That's what we do. It's easy. Someone went to a lot of work to make life easier for us. Why not take advantage of it?

Anyway, I lay back on the bed and start to doze. I'm waking myself up every minute or so because it's less than twenty minutes before I have to leave. Then I hear the noise. Sounds like the door. I open my eyes. The cat has his head up and is staring toward the door. His eyes are wide. I'm assuming Spouse has come back early. Then I hear someone say "whoah", or something to that effect. Didn't sound like Spouse.

Now I'm uneasy. I get up and walk to the bedroom door and look down the hall toward the ktichen. I don't get a good view because of the clever wall which serves no real purpose. I wait. Spouse should be heading to the bedroom to make sure I haven't fallen asleep. No Spouse. So I walk down the hall to the main living area. Still no Spouse. I look at the door. It's locked. I check the entire apartment. Nobody but Cat and me. I leave the light on and start up some music when I leave.

On the way back with Son I asked if he wanted to check on the house we just lost. It's been raining steady for about four days now and I wanted to see if the dining room ceiling had completely fallen down and if the basement had flooded. The last time I was there plaster from the ceiling was all over the dining room floor from a leak in the roof.

We get there and the keypad doesn't open the garage. Maybe they've shut off the electricity. If so, it's a safe bet the basement is flooded. The sump pump ran almost constantly in that house all twelve months of the year. We got to the front door and I see remnants of the door handle laying on the step. The door has a new handle with a security lock. BUT - the door is open. We push it wide and go in. There is a sign posed in the foyer stating the house has been winterized and no water should be run. That would be a good trick anyway as we had it shut off back in August.

But now I'm thinking I may have just broken the law. If my key no longer fits the locks in this place then I probably don't have any business there any longer. So I tell Son that it seems someone else is looking after the place - and doing a right lousy job of it, too - and so we are leaving.

Didn't see if the ceiling had collapsed or if the basement was flooded.

I guess it doesn't matter.

Oh. I called the apartment office and they're having our locks changed today some time.

Electric Meals

2009-10-03T13:27:00.002-05:00

So, my mother purchased an electric skillet for us, and then sent money so we could buy meat to cook in it. All because I happened to mention I cannot cook worth a damn on an electric stove. I need flames. Flames of inspiration for my writing. Flames of passion for my love life. And flames of fire for cooking. But Mother assured me that electric skillets aren't far from a gas stove in that they distribute the heat evenly.

I gave it a go. Cooked two meals of chicken quarters. Bought a package of six quarters (that doesn't make sense, does it) and cooked three at a shot. The skillet does have a nice temperature setting and I had no alternative but to trust it. But the meat did cook all the way through. Covered the quarters with spices and cooked, turning them every couple of minutes because Spouse kept telling me the way I was doing it was wrong and that the meat was going to stick. (I didn't use oil. We didn't have any. Don't like cooking in it anyway.) The meat didn't stick, and I added two cans of cream of mushroom soup. (Minnesota's #1 spice.) Then Spouse peeled some potatoes, cut them into small pieces and dumped them in, too.

Came out well. I liked it anyway. So I made it again last night. Went to the meat market today and spent the rest of the money Mother sent on a good-sized sirloin steak. Going to make steak pizzaiola. I like it and so does Son. Spouse thinks it's okay. Basically, the meat is cut into pieces, about a quarter pound each. They are hammered kind of flat and then covered with a flour and spice mixture. Cook them in the skillet until they are brown through and through and then add tomato sauce with garlic, oregeno and few other things. Serve over choice of pasta. I didn't buy pasta, but we have one small box left, so I win. We can get one, maybe two meals out of that box yet.

I like cooking. I'd do it all the time if we could afford it. And if I wouldn't be the only one eating what I made most of the time. Spouse only tolerates my cooking. I use too much garlic, marjoram, and fennel to suit her. Son is only now beginning to tolerate meat. He eats chicken nuggets, steak on the grill (we won't be having that for a while), and now steak pizzaiola. He doesn't like mushrooms, though.

So while I make a fantastic lasagne (people have raved to me about it, seeking second and third helpings - and even asking the recipe), great roast, pasta fajioli, shrimp florentine (Spouse likes this one, but shrimp doesn't come cheap), chicken wild rice soup, chili, goulash (tomato or mushroom soup variety), and even pizza, I don't do a lot of cooking. Virtually none since I lost my gas stove. If it can't heat up in a microwave, stuff it.

Well, I have this electric skillet now. Used it twice now and I've been happy. But I'm missing my kitchen with the center island and all the counter space and cupboards. And one of my favorite pans was ruined by that blasted electric stove. Burned a grid mark right into the bottom. That's happening to my pasta boiler, too. Yeah, I know. If we could afford real pots and pans that wouldn't happen. But one real pot or pan cost more than my entire cookware. With the exception of my lasagne pan. Got that a long time ago. It's great. It's huge. I never use it anymore. But I refused to let Spouse sell it at the garage sale. It costs enough that we'll never get another one if we sell it.

Anyway, it's probably going to be a bit before I post again. I just - don't anymore. I haven't the emotional energy to keep up anymore. If you are feeling especially incoherent, you can check out The Great Sea. Whenever I post here I've also posted there. I would like to post to the other four: Cat in the Buff, Legion of On-Line Super Heroes, Tales From The Great Sea, Faith in Forgiveness. The problem is, whenever I think about it for more than a minute or two I start to break down and cry. Just not ready yet. It takes enough out of me just to post one a week on two.

Don't know when I'll post again.

Here, There and Everywhere

2009-09-23T09:45:00.002-05:00

So, we did pay the electric bill after all. That and October rent. Nothing else, though. We need the money for transportation, food and medicine.

There is the food shelf, but we're only allowed to go once a month. Actually, Spouse has been the one to go. She told them I wouldn't be showing up and so I'm not on the card to collect anything. That's fine with Spouse. I'm less inclined to come home with things we would not have purchased on our own. Spouse's attitude is those things are there for us to take. I don't suppose there is anything wrong with either of our approaches. But they are different, and we have discussed the matter. Which is why, I think, Spouse didn't include me on the list of people allowed to collect food for our household.

But we never bought dinner rolls, so why should we bring dinner rolls home from the food shelf? Why not leave them there for people who actually used to buy dinner rolls but no longer can? Same with pudding mixes. We hardly ever had pudding. Why should we be taking it just because it's free? I don't even do that in the grocery store when they are giving out free samples. If it isn't something I would normally buy I don't take it. (Although taking a sample does not mean I am going to buy that trip.)

It's a bit of a moral dilemma for me. After all, Son has to eat. I don't really have to eat anymore. All that weight I lost? It's back again. All of it, I think. Haven't stepped on the scale since early August. It still amazes me how fat poor people can get. When I had money I wasn't fat. The less money I've had the fatter I've become. The only exception to this rule was when I used to eat out at the Chinese buffet three times a week. Good food. Lots of weight.

But when I had money I ate more often, and weighed less. That's part of the equation. By eating more frequently one is less hungry when one eats and so one takes smaller portions. Only eating once or twice a day means one is quite ravenous and eats everything they can stuff in their mouth.

Another part of the equation is that a bag of chips lasts longer than an apple and costs about a quarter less. So, for less than the price of two apples, which would leave me hungry, I can eat two bags of chips, which leaves me filled - with garbage food and guilt. Probably not a good trade, but one I've been making on a regular basis.

Medicine wise I'm not sure what's going to happen. We're still buying my medicines, but the prescriptions for at least two of them are running out, and I can't afford to go back to the doctors for a checkup in order to get them renewed. One of those is for my heart and the other is for blood pressure. My diabetic medicine lasts a bit longer, but I can't afford to see the doctor, much less have more blood work done. (I was supposed to go in two months ago, but the money just isn't there to spend.) It still annoys me when I hear politicians cry that my NOT going to the doctor is costing THEM money. How? "Well, you're just getting sicker. And then you'll go to the doctor and can't pay." No, I won't. I don't live that way. If I can't pay for insurance and I can't pay for the doctor/dentist, I don't go. Lost a filling two weeks ago. God knows when I'll be able to afford to get it fixed. Once went two years with broken teeth before I could afford to get them fixed. If I can't pay for the medical help then I am content to die. It's just the way it is.

I have applied for work. Didn't get a job though. The jobs I've applied for are like being served lima beans for supper. It is possible to swallow them without vomiting, but it takes a lot of willpower. And lima beans are better than starvation. I think.

I remember watching this show on television a year ago. Don't remember the name. It was on public television (we don't have cable or dish). The show was put on by retired people for retired people. They would have famous/successful people over the age of seventy come and talk about what life was like now that they were senior citizens. Ed Asner was on once, but it was a woman (who's name I have forgotten) who left the impression on me. She was an author, apparently famous. (My not knowing her means nothing. I would be hard pressed to name ten authors.) She was talking about the physical problems which often come with being older and how she was discussing this topic with a man about her age. The man had made a very well-known jest: "Being old sucks, but just think of the alternative." And then she said something I cannot forget. "But what no one likes to admit out loud is this: There are days, like today, when the alternative doesn't seem so bad."

I was fascinated by her comment because it went against everything we're told to believe and feel. To be accepted we must "feel certain ways about certain things", and get joy out of the things we're supposed to get joy out of. Admitting to misery is a BIG no-no. No one is supposed to be miserable, even though it seems to me that so many are. Even those who still have money.

But misery is like a blemish on our skin. We can cover it up with makeup, hiding it from the world around us, but we know it's there. It's part of us, and we can't really escape it. One needn't "show it off" like a prize, which it seems I tend to do. But I think we need to admit it when we're unhappy about things. And I mean really unhappy and not just joking about how the kids, co-workers, spouse are driving us nuts. That's not misery. That's being annoyed.

Some things we're unhappy about are quite temporary. They are soon replaced by a joy which washes away the bad feelings. Other things last longer. Months, or even years. And still other things are permanent.

These things are part of all of our lives, and admitting them doesn't mean that's all our lives are about, even if that's all we seem to talk/write about.

I don't like it where I am, but mostly my circumstances can be directly attributed to decisions I have made myself. Cause and effect, you know? Sowing and reaping. I don't like it that I'm in an apartment instead of my house/home. I don't like it that I can't open the sliding door without letting in a fog of cigarette smoke from the neighbors who ALL smoke heavily. I don't like not being able to buy the food I want to eat. I don't like not being able to repair/replace the things I own. (My favorite pair of outside shorts got so threadbare they tore across the legs when I tugged them up from my knees. Probably just as well. If they were that threadbare they were probably not covering as well as they should. Not a pretty picture, I'm sure.)

But my life is more than that.

True, I can't get anyone to pay me so much as a nickel for anything I write, but I'm still writing. And I enjoy the stories, even when I'm struggling to get them out. Son is still able to play his music. (I am not. My bass is upset the people downstairs and so I have to quit.) I have online friends - some who visit this blog - who are so precious to me I could almost burst. Face-to-face, maybe they would all avoid me, but online we get along great, and I'm still searching for a way to use words in order to give hugs filled with love.

I am alive, which means I still have a purpose. Unfortunately, I don't know what that purpose is. I've tried and failed at so many things these past seven years I can honestly say without reservation that I'm tired of trying.

But it isn't all misery, even if I'm mostly unhappy right now. Things change, albeit sometimes with incredible slowness.

If I could have my way I would make others happy without bringing suffering to myself. I just don't seem to be very good at that right now.

No matter.

Hot and Muggy After a Cold Summer

2009-09-17T11:58:00.003-05:00

In keeping with my emotional need to post here whenever I post on The Great Sea I am posting today because I actually did post on The Great Sea. How's that for babbling? I'm not as good at it as some, but I'm certainly no novice.

Well, we won't be paying any bills now except for rent, transportation, and food. A pity. When the electricity is cut off so will be my computer time. That not only means internet access, which I'm using to help write my new book, but it means a lot of other things as well.

Got a couple of leads on ways to generate income, but I'm not hopeful. Nothing much works out anymore and I'm pretty much just biding my time now until I learn exactly what's at the bottom anyway. I still find it amusing (used to find it amazing) that with our income down to only 15% of what it once was, we still can't get any assistance from anyone. Excel Energy says they won't work with us until we miss a payment (at which time they will threaten to shut the power off). Well, that's now, so I guess we'll see how that plays out. Same with the other utilities. County help? State help? Forget it. Good ole Governor Pawlenty has cut funds for all social services to the point I'm surprised anyone gets anything. Right now he's running around the country trying to convince Republicans everywhere that he would make a great president. He will - if what you want is a yes man who does everything in his power to undo all progress this country has made in the past 200+ years. I wouldn't be surprised if he makes it. He's a horrible choice and the Republicans seem to have turned in that direction of late.

Anyway, I'm sorry to report there isn't a lot of good news to report. Son is still proceeding with his saxophone lessons. There was short, and unfortunate, disagreement about that, but previous promises were brought to recollection and the money which was earmarked for Son remains so. For now. As the financial threat levels increase so does the pressure to abandon old promises.

Could go silent again. If I do it's likely because we don't have electricity to run the computer. I must be nuts, because I still believe things are going to get better. Not just for the country, but for us, too. We'll see. I'll keep you posted if I can.

The Elastic is Gone From My Waistband

2009-09-12T05:50:00.003-05:00

Posted on The Great Sea so I thought I should post here, too.

I've nothing to say, actually. Except, perhaps, that I never should have let myself expect anything. That was my mistake. I knew better. After all these years of living and feeling and experiencing, I knew better than to have expectations. But I did it anyway. And once again, my own expectations have cheated me.

It gets to be tiring. Not just reading more of my self-pitying crap, but never getting what I expect - unless it is crap. And as intelligent as I'm supposed to be, why is it I always fall back and believe that things are going to improve - when they never do. Never. Not ever. Not really.

I remember Betty telling me something way back in the 1970s. That's more than thirty years ago now. We (the cooks and waitresses at a then popular Italian restaurant) were trying to come up with one-word descriptions of each staff member. For most it was fairly easy - and comical. We were pretty much friends, and friends can pretty much say anything about and to each other. Real friends can, anyway. What I've seen of late is that people are no longer allowed this freedom and right. Say anything unflattering and you're blasted.

Anyway, no one could come up with a word for me. My suspicion - then and now - is that the words which came to mine were so unflattering they feared to speak them. Even then. But Betty told me she would give it serious thought, and by the end of the night she had a word she felt happy with: Perseverance. Even at the time I didn't feel especially flattered by it. I had been hoping for something like, Funny, Comical, Friendly. Instead, I got, Perseverance.

Well, maybe she was right. I mean, I'm still here, aren't I? Nobody's laughing, but I'm still here.

It's become a weary burden, though. There must be a reason to go on to the next thing, else why go? Why drive to the next town if there's nothing there? If one has no route, then who cares? If you don't know where you're going then why go anywhere? Here's as good as anyplace.

Only the decision isn't all mine. I'm being dragged to places I don't want to go and being forced to stay in places I don't want to be. I know there are others in and heading to worse places. Unfortunately, it doesn't make my life any happier. And that's the simple truth.

Told you I didn't have anything to say.

Is the Loch Ness Monster for Real

2009-09-03T01:44:00.003-05:00

Not sure why I'm posting because I haven't anything I feel like writing here.

I guess I just hate to post some place else and leave this blog untouched. It was my first, you know. So if I'm going to write poetry I must also find something to post here. I'll make it up. No matter, right?

Six hundred years ago I used to post more often. A thousand years ago I posted every day. Now I'm just ancient, and can think of nothing to say.

There is a story in the works. I will not say more here. Just to let you know I'm not dead as some might fear.

I seldom visit other blogs anymore, although I do check my reading list often. Interesting how I'm not the only one not posting much. I guess it's contagious.

Hope you all are well.

Still Alive

2009-08-23T16:04:00.003-05:00

One trip remaining to empty the house of things we wish to keep with us. There will still be a few items remaining after this next trip: empty boxes, mucky throw rugs, an old car seat, a few mops, and the garage door openers.

Not a lot of room here. Especially in the shower. Just measured it. It's 2-1/2' square. I'm not square (haven't been called that in years) but I do measure two feet from shoulder to shoulder. So I shower in the bathtub, where the faucet comes out at about chest high. Makes washing my face and hair a bit of a challenge.

Son has done a check and determined we are probably the only people around here over the age of twelve who do not smoke. But the people are friendly enough.

Stairs are a nightmare. No air in the hallway. Not to breathe anyway. I nearly faint going up one flight of seventeen steps. Then I have to make another flight and I nearly die.

We can afford to be here until maybe Christmas. Then we don't even have this.

Sometimes that's just how it goes. You know it's true - there are still people in this world who would trade places with us in a trice.

Damn Technology - Nothing to Do But Wait

2009-08-19T04:36:00.004-05:00

Back in the Sixties someone came up with a bumper sticker which read: Life Sucks. And then you die.

Sometimes I think they weren't half wrong.

Once again I was temporarily without my email account. Sometimes I think technology was invented to drive me nuts. It certainly has speeded things up. A long time ago it would have taken a lot longer for me to get this close to the bottom.

Fortunately, my email is working again and so I am not cut off from sanity and joy. I don't talk with people face-to-face much anymore. Haven't for years. So having online people to talk with is my only real interaction with the world at large.

Listening to Richard Harris singing MacArthur Park. What a beautiful song. Wish I could sing that. Sing it well, I mean.

Anyway, I'm not dead. Not yet. Plenty of time for that. Meanwhile, I'm kind of in limbo. I'm here where I have to be because there is no place I want to be that I can be. Did you follow that? Being a person of inspiration I am waiting. Halfheartedly, I attempt various things, but in truth I am waiting for the sign, the indicator, of what to do next. Until then I am frozen in a prison of my own making, waiting for the Keymaster to present me with instructions on what to do, where to go, and how to achieve. Better people keep moving. But I am not better. I am waiting, and like the obedient child I once was I look for what I do not know.

Perfect song. Aerosmith's, Dream On, just began. Catch you later.

Sheltered and Homeless

2009-08-16T09:56:00.004-05:00

So I have internet access again.

Actually, I was only without it for less than a day. I just stayed away because - because.

I just deleted what I originally intended to post. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I may very likely remain away. Because - because.

Shut Down

2009-08-09T06:37:00.003-05:00

So, it has come to what may be the final post for this blog. If you've been trying to keep track, officially this is the 282nd post since 10-21-2008. Didn't make it that long, did I? Only been online just over a year, and only been blogging just under a year. Not that this is my first time being online. I've tried the internet, off and on, for around twenty years or so. I remember being on Compuserve. I don't even know if that exists anymore. That was in the days of Prodigy, which I never used.

Yesterday I was offline because my current service provider crashed. Don't know if it was the storms which passed through or if they got hit with some cyber attack. When I called their technical support line I got a recorded message which simply stated that "High speed internet users in Minnesota may not have access to the internet today. We apologize for the inconvenience and our technicians are doing all they can to correct the problem."

High speed? I didn't know. Wow! How disappointing. I was hoping I could get high speed if/when I reconnect. Now it turns out I've been using it. I guess that's good. Else this round of internet access would have gone the way of the others: I get p*ssed off because everything takes so frikkin' long and I cancel the service.

When I started this blog last October I didn't know why. There were things I wanted to say, but not only was I not sure what they were, but I didn't even know to whom I wanted to say them. I guess I hinted at it in my fourth post, titled, "A Wound That Will Not Heal". That post was about Daddy, and how I had deliberately hurt him.

I have talked about Daddy a lot in this blog. It's been twenty-five years since he went away and I still miss him. How would my life be different had he stayed? He would not be happy with me, I think. I've lived life longer than he did when he was here, but I have achieved nothing and have nothing to show for it. What a waste.

Another of my favorite topics is Stephen. Dear Stephen. Taken even earlier than Daddy. Daddy made it to fifty. Stephen barely passed forty. It has been fun recapturing some of the good times (and bad) I shared with both Daddy and Stephen. On a couple of occasions we shared them together, but mostly Stephen and Daddy didn't meet up.

The third topic which dominated this blog was The Old House, and what it was like growing up there. As miserable as living there was, I find myself wistfully returning to it time and again in thought and heart. I guess that is where I want to be after all. I know I'm not all that keen on the present.

Daddy was a hurting and lonely man. Born a b*stard child in a time when such people were not viewed as people, he lived a tortured life. He married when he didn't want to marry because my mother was pregnant with Ranlen and Daddy felt an obligation about that. He had wanted to travel. Be an airplane pilot. He had a license for a time, but was forced to let it lapse due to money constraints. He eventually got his traveling in by virtue of his job, which was regional truck driving in the midwest.

Stephen was an artist who had trouble dealing with many of life's unpleasant realities. His hero was Vincent Van Gough, who he said killed himself. Stephen had a frightful interest in suicide, and I have more than once wondered about the accident which killed him. How accidental was it? Daddy once recorded a musical story in which he very strongly intimated that his drinking and smoking were deliberate efforts to leave this life early. His words, "There are many ways to kill oneself", still haunt me.

But Stephen was especially close to his mother, and when he learned the reason his family had moved to the country (where he met me) was because his mother had been having an affair it hit him hard. I suppose there are things children just don't need to know about their parents.

The Old House kind of suffered, too. By the time we moved in it was quite delapidated, both in structure and in other ways. Once it had been the proud center of a huge farm. Now it stood in the corner of a five-acre lot with two outbuildings. Everything else had been sectioned off and sold as part of other property. It's walls were buckling and it's roof was leaking. Perhaps the fire which brought it down was self-induced? It seems a shame that it's gone. What a waste.

Will that be my legacy, too? "What a waste?" Sometimes I think so.

I have called this blog "A Voice in the Wind" because I tend to ramble. It's hard for me to keep focus because so many different ideas capture my attention. But I liked to tell myself I had important things to say. Turns out I was wrong. What a pity.

There have been several times when I thought about just shutting down the blogs. Now that it will happen I feel sad about it. Yes, if I want to spend the money I am sure I can be blogging again in no time. But there isn't a lot of money to spend. We are scheduled to reconnect to the internet some time this week, but as I wrote at the top of this post, the service provider is having their own set of problems.

We'll see. So, on the chance that I am unable or unwilling to come back, I will leave you with one of my favorite songs. I've posted it before. It's a friendship song. In fact, it's called "Friends". Do play it. And when you do, think of me.

Have a good one.

I hope the day will be a lighter highway
For friends are found on every road
Can you ever think of any better way
For the lost and weary travellers to go

Making friends for the world to see
Let the people know you got what you need
With a friend at hand you will see the light
If your friends are there then everything's all right

It seems to me a crime that we should age
These fragile times should never slip us by
A time you never can or shall erase
As friends together watch their childhood fly

Making friends for the world to see
Let the people know you got what you need
With a friend at hand you will see the light
If your friends are there then everything's all right

It Really was Soft Wood

2009-08-07T07:31:00.003-05:00

I wanted to write something funny today. My efforts have not met with success. (So what else is new?) Guess I'm not feeling so silly as I am feeling the need to be silly.

Every get like that? It's like a burp that won't come out. And even when you manage to produce anything it's hardly worth being called a burp. And completely unsatisfying.

Back when I was a child (what do you mean back?) my sister, Helvie, and I would occasionally have days in which we spent an inordinate amount of time saying,

What do you want to do?

I don't know. What do you want to do?

I don't know. What do you want to do?

It drove Mother nuts, and perhaps that made it all worthwhile. Even the getting slapped and being told if we couldn't find anything to do she would find something for us. Inevitably that meant doing something without any redeeming merit whatsoever. Parents just didn't have any imagination back then.

Well, that isn't entirely so.

I don't recall the year, but one winter Mother came up with something to amuse the entire family. It was quite an achievement for her as she was not generally one to participate in games and things like that. Daddy did. Daddy loved table games and teasing and things like that. No so Mother.

But this one year she wrote a series of stories. I don't recall what any of them were. Probably because Mother deliberately left out a whole slew of nouns. Then she cut up about four dozen little rectangle pieces of paper, wrote the name of a noun on each, and shuffled them up. After supper, we sat around the table and she dealt out an equal number of pieces of paper to each. You see, our television was on the blink. Maybe the electricity was even out again. Don't remember. Just remember sitting around the table. Mother, Daddy, Mickey, Lynahr, Judayl, Gayanne, Helvie, and me. Ranell was up north.

Then Mother began reading her story. When she got to a missing noun she turned to the first person to her left. They flipped over their piece of paper and read the noun. It made for some interesting reading. This was especially so when someone flipped over the piece of paper and read, "Sour Owl Sh*t". Mother could be quite earthy.

Finding something to do back then always seemed to be an exercise in creative thinking. Living in the country it was really impossible to get anywhere. I mean anywhere different. I would hop on my bicycle and go ten miles and not see anything I couldn't see from own back yard. I used to do that, too. I'd get on my bike and go, not caring so much about where I was going, just that I was going. It wasn't the destination that mattered. It wasn't even the journey. It was just the feeling I was moving. Oh. How interesting a choice of word. Moving.

That's exactly how I feel at the moment: like I'm moving. But then I am - whether I want to or not. (I don't, by the way.) But this is the wrong kind of moving. Feels more like falling. Like when I was about forty or fifty feet up in that willow tree. I heard the snap and remember wondering about it as I fell. I turned (like a cat) as I dropped and so I saw the arms stretched out to catch me. I landed in them softly, and my weight brought both them and me down to the water's edge (the willow was growing in a swamp). There was a moment's pause before I was lifted back up to the arms' normal posture. I don't remember if that tree is still there. It had soft arms. That all I remember.

I don't know if there are any arms to catch me this time. I turn, but I can't see the bottom. I don't know what's down there, but it's coming up fast. Where are the soft arms to save me? I don't want to go splat.

Who Loves Ya, Baby

2009-08-06T08:26:00.004-05:00

It's an odd thing about keeping animals around the place. Most of my life there have been animals around me. The exceptions were a few years after Daddy had died and we were moving from apartment (flat) to apartment. But they're living creatures and it doesn't take long for normal people to become attached to them. (If you do live in a place with animals - particularly dogs and/or cats - and you don't become attached to them, then I think you need counseling.)

For the most part, the animals we have kept have been dogs and cats. Any other animals we had were kept for food. There were exceptions. One year Helvie and I were given rabbits at Easter. We had had rabbits before, but those had been for food. Our two bunnies were meant to be pets.

It had been a long, cold winter that year, and I suppose Easter was early, too. In any case, we kept the rabbits in the house at first, in the big room, which had been curtained off. We spread sheets over the entire floor and let the bunnies run free. When the weather warmed enough, we set up a nice place for the bunnies in a out building. That lasted exactly one night. The dogs broke in after we went to bed and put an end to the bunnies.

There was another time Gayanne was given three baby chicks at Easter. Gayanne had never had any kind of personal pet before and so she took to the chicks more than anyone realized. And the chicks liked her, too. They would follow her around the yard as she walked, making sure they got exercise. But they didn't last either. It wasn't the dogs, though, which put an end to them. It was Mother. Sundays were baked chicken or roast days, and the day came when Mother decided Gayanne's chickens would be the daily meal. If that wasn't bad enough, guess who got to cook them? Right. Gayanne. Mother never did figure out why Gayanne was so upset, or why she refused to eat, or why it had been cruel to do what she had done. Mother had grown up on a farm. In her mind there were only two reasons to have chickens: they laid eggs; they were good to eat. What a pity that had not been conveyed to Gayanne when she had been given the chicks to take care of.

I suppose it's more parents who make taking care of pets odd. Spouse's family used to have a nice, fluffy cat. It was a fearful thing which hid from strangers. The first time I was brought home to meet Spouse's family I chanced a glimpse of it as it ran down the stairs into the basement. It took me nearly the entire weekend (it was Thanksgiving Weekend) to win the cat's confidence so that it actually came to me and allowed me to stroke its back. After I left the cat offended either Spouse's mother or brother (it's still not clear) and her brother killed it. Spouse was told the cat had run away, but she investigated further and learned the truth. You see, this wasn't the first time a pet had "run away".

There had been a dog. It, too, had mysteriously run away. Twenty years later Spouse's mother fessed up. She had brought it to the pound to be put down. She had grown tired of taking care of it after the children had grown and left home.

I suppose that's partially why I resent it when people put such a strong emphasis on money. To me, it seems that the more we do that the more likely we will make our pets "run away". Then we tell lies to cover our actions, as though we instictively know we've done something wrong.

Part of my not wanting to have our cat in the first place was knowing this day (having to move) was a very real possibility, and finding a place to rent which allows cats is not always easy. As it turned out, we did. But there's a responsibility in keeping a pet. No, they are not humans, and no I do not believe they should have all the rights of humans. But they do have the right to be taken care of. After all, we chose them.

It isn't always easy and it isn't always fun. But what is? Tell me. I'd like to know. Nothing that I have or do makes me happy all the time. But when a cat - or dog, or bird, or whatever - comes and wants to sit beside you because it likes you, that has to mean something to you. If it doesn't then I truly feel sorry for you, for you are missing out on life's greatest treasure: love.

If Home is Where the Heart Is, Then I Am a Wanderer Indeed

2009-08-05T08:51:00.002-05:00

Back in the 1960s it was the practice at the grade school I attended (in nice weather) to have the students line up by class out in the parking lot. There was a flag pole there and we would all stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Each day one lucky student would be chosen to lead the recitation. Students were chosen by rotating from class to class. With six grades, and two classrooms per grade, this meant twelve classes. Volunteers would be requested, and since most students never volunteered, that meant the leaders in the Pledge of Allegiance rotated through a small number of students. I was one of those students.

I took great honor in leading the entire school in the recital, and when it was my turn I spoke the words loud and proud. My sister, Gayanne, would make fun of me afterward. She and her friends criticized everything and everyone.

It wasn't so much that I'm patriotic. Not in the sense one thinks of when one thinks of patriotic people, waving the flag and blindly following even stupid and morally wrong decisions. I have never adhered to the "you can't criticize those you love" dogma, which seems to be the teaching of Republicans in particular. To me, that is phony. Following blindly is hardly respect. It's stupidity, and I refuse to be that way.

Still, I love my country, despite growing older and learning it is a far from perfect place. Of course, if we only followed the rules and dogma we have set into law, it would be a wonderful place for everyone. But the words of our constitution, while majestic and royal, have never been applied across all groups of people. From the inception of our republic there have always been vast numbers of people denied the things promised in the constitution because people of power don't like them.

I remember as a child being confused about slavery. For one hundred years we maintained slavery. This was not consistent with the words I was taught from the constitution. Women weren't allowed to vote. Politically powerful people took tremendous advantages against people who had no power. The freedoms promised to everyone only seemed to exist for those who belonged to the group/s currently wielding political power. That is still true today.

Who is in power shifts, but generally political power seems to reside with those who have connections to a lot of money. Historically, these people have been white men, and so all white men are grouped with them. I don't think that's any more fair than excluding those who aren't white men from power. But my Daddy was a white man, and I don't see that he got a whole lot of special privileges. Back when I was a baby my family lived in a neighborhood in which we were the only white family. We were also the poorest family in the neighborhood and the others felt sorry for us.

True, had Daddy been of the right mind, he could have made himself more like those in power and probably advanced himself, whereas non-whites did not have that luxury. Daddy's problem wasn't his skin color: it was his social attitude. He was working class. An old style person in a modern world.

Political power is an ugly power, and those who wield it often eventually become ugly. It's inevitable. One cannot work with sewers and not develop an odor in their very skin. Back when I worked in a pizza restaurant (not fast food back then) I actually smelled like a pizza restaurant when I wasn't there. That was a good smell, I thought. The smell of politics is offensive to my sense of rightness.

There are those who hate the idea of having children say the Pledge of Allegiance. They maintain it is against their civil rights. Personally, I think we get carried away with things like that. Does it really hurt to show respect for the country in which one lives? People argue that the country isn't helping them. Well, I know where they're coming from. But they are missing the point, I think. We live here. And even if we're not happy with our lot, it's still home. It is sad when home is not a happy place to be. But I know about that, too.

An Unpleasant Countdown

2009-08-04T07:47:00.002-05:00

Less than a week to go now in this house. Legally, I believe we have until some time in September before we have to leave, but the movers will be here next Monday to take our possessions away. Hopefully, they won't keep them for themselves.

When Spouse and I got married we had the ceremony in eastern Wisconsin. At the time we would be living in eastern Minnesota. But Spouse's family was where we had the ceremony. One of my close friends at the time actually drove the 300 miles one way to attend the wedding. He, my mother, and a two sisters rented a van and he did the driving. After the wedding they brought back all of the wedding gifts while Spouse and I went off to spend some time together.

Two years later my friend got married. As I walked the receiving line to shake his hand (and his bride's) he introduced me to her.

DAN: This is my friend, Bevie. We're good friends.

ME: Yes. So good, in fact, that I let him take charge of our wedding gifts. How are they, by the way?

They're really nice. The toaster's broken. It was just cheap garbage.

Wasn't that your gift to us?

Yes. I believe it was.

That's one of the things I liked about Dan. He just flowed with a joke as though he were in on it from the first. But it's been nearly 30 years since I've seen him. Life goes on and often we head in separate directions from those we care about today.

Which brings me back to the point of this post. Less than a week to go in this house. When we move we will have at least interrupted telephone service. I receive my internet service via telephone. Don't know what kind of telephone service we will have. We'll have to have something, but whether that service includes an internet connection is not known at this time. So, what I'm trying to say is that I may be on a countdown to signing off for a very long time. Possibly permanently.

In the meantime Spouse and Son are all excited and moving things early. They're in the process of loading up for their third trip in as many days. Saving the movers work next week. Just as well. They charge by the hour. How can we afford to hire movers? We can't afford not to. We are moving to a third floor apartment/flat. I get wore out just walking the stairs carrying my own weight. No one we know is able and willing to help. The cost of renting a moving truck I could drive is almost as much as hiring someone else to do the work. Besides, we're keeping someone employed. Doing our part, you know.

Myself? I have not returned to the place since we signed the lease. I'm in no hurry. Once I get there I'm not going to want to come down. It just means having to climb back up. (No elevators. This place is not exactly the Ritz.)

Fortunately, we're nearly out of furniture. Unfortunately, the furniture which remains is heavy. I have a beautiful cedar desk which weighs more than I do. We have the pool table, which nobody would buy. That's going to cost an extra $150 to move. And they won't set it up. Just as well. Son as a really nice dresser which is almost as heavy as me, and we have a nice one about half my weight. Other than those things our furniture consists of folding tables and chairs, a glider rocker we purchased when we learned Son was coming, three mattresses, two swivel office chairs, and a round bumper pool table. Everything else has long since been sold.

What we have are several dozen boxes filled with things from VHS movies to old record albums, my writing Archives, books (lots of these), knick knack things (I love these things), plush animals (I love these, too) and music cds. Basically, junk. But it's our junk. And so we keep it. As much because we couldn't sell it at the garage sale as any other reason. Which reminds me: we also have several boxes containing items from our gift business. Boy, didn't we get rich doing that?

So, I'll try to post daily through the week. After all, I may be signing off for good come Sunday or Monday.

Getting People to Laugh

2009-08-03T07:05:00.003-05:00

Stephen and I used to make ad-lib recordings on cassette tape. That we were using cassette tape should give you an indication of just how long ago that was. But we had fun.

As comedy teams went we probably weren't the best, but we enjoyed ourselves. I was the straight man. Stephen was the comic. Not that I never had anything funny to say, but generally I let Stephen run with the skits and I would simply react to him. It wasn't always easy to keep up with his train of thought, for there were many tracks in Stephen's mind, and he switched from track to track with ease.

Half the time I don't think Stephen knew what he was saying until it had left his mouth. He didn't think too far ahead, which is why his films, for the most part, were dismal failures. The exception was when he let his guest star take control of the story.

Often we would crack each other up because neither had a clue what the other would be saying. There were no rehearsals. Everything was spontaneous. One of my favorite skits began thus:

Stephen set the tape recorder to record and then began knocking on his chair. Taking my cue, I made a door opening sound and put on my wheezy old man voice. Stephen used his baby-talk old man voice. (Can't describe it other than that. You'd have to hear it.)

ME: Good evening. May I help you?

STEPHEN: (very slowly) I'm looking for a man - who only has - two eyes. (faster) But it doesn't look like he has two eyes because he's wearing a patch over one eye. But he doesn't need the patch because he really has two eyes. Have you seen him?

No. But then it's difficult for me to see because I have this patch over my eye.

Stephen could be very funny. Sometimes he could also be annoying. But he was annoying in a funny sort of way. He had a fascination with certain words. One of those words was hemorrhoids.

STEPHEN: I'm sorry, Challie, but I can't go - bowling - with you on Sa.Tur.Day.Night.

ME: Whaaat's da matter?

(First two words high with expectation.Third word with great letdown.) It's these - hemorrhoids. They're so embarrassing. The other day I went to pick up my ball and - well - it was horrible.

Hemorrhoids! Is that all? Why not try Doc.Tor.Scholl's.Hem.Roid.Al.Suppositories?

Oh, but they're all the same.

Not Doctor Scholl's! They're made with a special blend.

But they all taste so horrible.

I had to explain what suppositories were.

Later, we did another skit.

I'm sorry, Challie, but I can't go to the show tonight.

Whaaat's da matter?

I gotta brush my teeth. My breath. It's so bad.

I see what you mean. Why don't you try Doc.Tor.Scholl's.Breath.Suppositories?

After our suppository skits Stephen would often walk around with his back arched and shoulders back, as though in great discomfort, and exclaim loudly, "It's these - hemorrhoids." Finally, his mother asked him if he really did have hemorrhoids.

Although extremely close to his mother, Stephen took no greater joy than driving her insane. (Unless it was driving me insane.) When I was invited to have supper with them the first time he began the meal with the comment, "Bevie, this isn't a race." That was followed up with his pretending to hit his head on the table. His head would go down and his hand would come up, rapping the table's underside. His mother was never quite sure he wasn't really hitting his head and would get all upset about it.

There were few things Stephen treated seriously. Art and basketball were probably the only two things I can think of. Everything and everyone else was fair game for his sense of humor. Like me, Stephen often showed his love through his sarcasm. As my sister, Judayl, once told Gloria, a friend who broke down and cried under the constant onslaught of Judayl's, Helvie's, and my humor, "We never tease people we like. Wait a minute! No. That's wrong. We only tease people we like."