Blanc Noir

Changing Times

2009-03-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

Here I am, 48 now, unemployed, broke, and happy. The surgery was a 95% success and I have little residual discomfort. Sometime in the next few months the last 5% should be fixed with silver nitrate. I have kept the first hundred pounds I lost off now for a long time and am gearing up to get rid of the last 40. The grandchild is MY GREAT JOY.

I finally made some peace with my variety of religious studies, and that makes me happy as well. I am very close to giving up on painting. That does not make me sad. It would have last year when I was too busy and too bothered and in too much pain to paint much. Now it just makes me feel free to not feel like I must paint.

December 10, 2007

2007-12-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

When I was young I was beautiful. My beauty was not that of
freshness or childlike softness, but rather that of good lines and
almost achieved perfection of face. It only brought me grief. No
one ever really seemed to see me. No one was ever happy with me
once the new wore off and they were no longer seduced by
packaging.

When I became very fat I was pleased. People had to see me as a
person now. The fat covered my bones and delivered me from
being the object of desire. Over the nearly thirty years I was very
fat I developed a few people skills, maybe not as many as I could
have, but enough to get by. Or so I thought. But in truth, no one
really liked me much. Smart, fat, snarly women aren’t any more
loved than smart, slim, snarly women. They just get less play and
more laughter.

Eleven years ago I met and married my spouse. He loved me fat,
but he did not love the fat. He loved me smart and snarly and he
loved me silly and childish as well. He saw the odd dichotomy of
geography and family, work and passions that made up the currents
of my life, and he accepted them, he accepted me. In those years he
never said I wish you would lose weight or I wish you would
channel your energies into making money or I wish you were
different...

And sometime during those eleven years the icy part that never felt
seen or loved melted and with it my reasons for being fat. So while
I give my vegan diet credit for my weight loss, the truth is that
someone loved me. Someone actually saw me, and still loved me.

There is a great deal of sadness and worry in my family right now
together with upheaval and uncertainty. Today is also the
anniversary of my father’s death in 2002. My heart is low with
these things. I give thanks for the love of family, which binds us all
together despite our differences, and provides a tower of sympathy
and quiet support for each of us.

Portrait II

2007-11-05T08:29:00.000-08:00

Go look here http://www.jaredrbyer.com/photoblog/ to see the portrait of me I really like, the b&w with lots of eyeshadow. Thank you Jared!

Portrait

2007-11-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

Today youngest son showed me a photo he took of me Sunday
night (at the Mosaic Halloween Party). I said “Wow, I wish I really
looked like that”, and youngest son, with a look of total incredulity,
said “Mom, it’s a photograph, you do look like that”.

Well not actually. Usually I have on thick glasses (purple and blue
plastic) and no makeup. Usually my sagging jaw line shows. But
sans glasses, plus gobs of eyeshadow, with the right camera angle,
SZOWEY! Like I said, I wish I really looked like that.

Home Again

2007-10-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

I have made it safely home from the Florida trip. As always,
traveling with family leaves me exhausted and a little sad. On the
very high, very excellent side of the pro and con chart I have
walking on the beach in the moonlight, watching the sun come up
over the ocean and seeing my aunt and favorite uncle. Also good
are the laughs with sister and sometimes other aunt and mom.
Nephew is most always good company. On the slightly con side is
five days of never really being alone and prickly family issues.

Maybe the hardest was watching my uncle in his wheelchair in the
doorway waving goodbye. It really did feel like goodbye. This was
the uncle whose example of living gave me the courage and the
hope to not die when I was young and saw that I would never fit in
the expected mold.

Anyway, I am overjoyed to be home with my husband, my house,
my cats and my life. How dear is that which is ours. How precious
our common life.

Sunday

2007-10-15T11:08:00.001-07:00

Spouse and I are cleaning and clearing up everything, even the
outbuildings. Yesterday he started on the red barn. Partway
through he asked me to come up the hill and sort through a few
boxes of books he had found. I did not remember sending any
books to the barn, ever. But there they were, boxes of books. So
I sat in an old rocker under the dying redbud tree and looked.
Some old friend were there, Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child,
many paperbacks on reincarnation, The Aquarian Gospel and
assorted other things. In the bottom of one box was a stack of
pristine magazine from 1997-1999. Among them, Sage Woman,
The Green Egg and a few odd copies of Tricycle, The Beltane
Papers and Kindred Spirits. I had forgotten these publications,
forgotten the pencil art, the matte paper, the thoughtful reviews
and articles. The motley assortment of books on reincarnation
and old “B” novels went back in a box for another reader but the
Lessing, The Aquarian Gospel and all the magazine went in with
me.

Which brings me to music. Once upon a time I fell in love with
campfire songs, especially the sweet and gentle “It Only Takes a
Spark”, “Day by Day” and “Let Us Break Bread Together”, but
also such prickly songs as “I Wish We’d All Been Ready”. Years
latter I added the Goddess Chants and the Element Song to my
list of auditory pleasures. Now, after having been most everything
you can think of, I still find myself singing both, Earth my body,
water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit... and Swing low
sweet chariot coming for to carry me home... on the same day.
And if that strikes you as an odd mix try Its too late to save your
soul the Son has come and you’ve been left behind with We all
come from the Goddess and to her we shall return like a drop of
rain flowing to the ocean...

French Furniture, Cats, Hens and the Killer CPA

2007-10-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

Spouse decided, with no nudging from me, that the husband of the
would be buyer of the french sofa was just too big for it and could
not have it. So I put it under the window in my dressing room, one
of only two remaining “girly” spaces in the house, where it will
probably stay. If the dressing room did not also contain the cats’
closet it would be a perfect spot for morning coffee. Maybe I will
have to break my clay litter rule and get some of that expensive
crystal stuff for the box. Maybe Leonard, the baby cat, will one day
start covering his stuff and not just throwing litter every which way.

As for covering it up, the hens have decided, for who knows what
reason, to cover up the daily egg. So every morning I have to go
sift through the bedding in the nest and retrieve the eggs. The hens
take great offense and make assorted alarm noises the entire time.
They aren’t broody this time of year so I don’t know what to make
of this. The hens alarm sounds get the old dog going and he
complains (loudly) about the hens. He thinks the hens are horrid
things and clearly suspects them of wrongdoing. He hopes I will
one day come to my senses and allow him to assassinate them.
Well, they say hope is good for the heart...

Anyway, the rest of the studio will be put back together this
weekend. I look forward to having a permanent place to work.
This will be the first time Spouse and I have, intentionally, shared
creative space. Joining us in the studio will be the large praying
Thai Buddha figure. Neither of us really wants to part with it so, at
least for now, we won’t.

Long ago I worked with a CPA who gave me chest pain and
anxiety. The work didn’t do this, the CPA did. I have been helping
her out a few days a week for the last few months. On the days I
am with her my BP goes up, heart races, head aches and chest pain
comes to roost. Really she is not a totally bad sort and her heart is
not actually black. But every single thing she does is contrary to
good (read profitable) business practice. We use QuickBooks, the
name offends me but the product is generally ok, at least I used to
think so. I have been working to get said CPA’s 2006 books
cleaned up and ready to close. I had the bank reconciled through
November. Since it was late and the December statement was
missing I left the rest off to finish later. When later came and I
went in to do December I thought the beginning balance looked
wrong so I checked the printed report. IT WAS WRONG. How,
why, who, what? Better yet there are now 5 copies of the company
books, none of which is identical to the others, some are on the C
Drive some on the network. YIKES! This happened years ago
when I worked for her before. I am at a loss now, and I was then,
to explain the problem. I use QB on other computers in another
office and have never ever ever had this problem anywhere else.
SO WHAT THE *%@^!. Anyway, the hurry is so she can file her
taxes by the Oct 15 deadline. Fair enough. The problem is that she
wants the QB fixed for 06 first. At this point it is a no can do. I
cannot fix it when I don’t know what is broken. She suggested I
take all the 06 bank records (maybe 1000 entries) and put them in
her personal set of QB on her computer. F— that. So I am doing
an old fashioned here are your deposits and here are your expenses
(broken into accounts) do your schedule C and shut up about the
darned QB. I realize I am ranting here, but it really is getting under
my skin. So instead of having a leisurely weekend with spouse and
pets and home I am going to be in a small windowless office
analyzing expenses and trade accounts.

French Furniture and Killer John

2007-10-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

The de-stuffing is going well, both internally and externally.
Internally, I expect to reach my third weight loss goal by December
31. The journey is proving to be more emotionally rocky then I
anticipated.

Like the weight loss of my person, the house’s weight loss has also
been fraught with unforseen emotional twists. I have not suffered
(much) over small furniture, lamps and extreme girly stuff. Real
furniture, a french serpentine dresser and hutch and the french
sofa/daybed has been much harder. Those items are leaving on
Thursday. The buyer has a large husband who destroyed their
previous sofa by plopping on it. I fear for the delicate legs and
caned ends of the french sofa. Alas, I cannot really justify making
buyers meet the “good home” requirement for case goods and
upholstery. (Though I would like to).

In other fall cleaning news, the little rooster, “Killer John”, did not
make the cut as a permanent resident of the American Flame
Bantam coop. Instead he went to live as an only rooster with a
flock of full size laying hens. So now we are back down to two
roosters, the coop patriarch, Bentley, and the young, handsome,
and dastardly Max Spangle. I don’t suffer from giving away my
birds, maybe because the people that take them are so happy to get
them. If you would like to see photographs of Killer John you can
go to http://flickr.com/photos/89106292@N00/ all of the
photographs of rooster heads are John.

Baby makes a Home

2007-09-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

For years, as long as I have been keeping house, I have suffered
from room anxiety. I never needed level floors or straight walls or
even adequate electric outlets. The state of the air conditioning
and minor plumbing issues never vexed me much. But oh, how I
suffered over style. In the process of suffering I purchased over
1000 shelter magazines, in excess of 200 books, an entire design
course, and STUFF. What was me? What suited the house? (I
love the house so happily moving never entered the what to do
picture) So I painted, and repainted, bought, traded and had made
multiple sets of curtains for every single room in the house, and
acquired all sorts of furniture and accessories.

I joked that I could do my house from top to bottom in at least
three totally separate styles. True, so sad, so true. I was actually
depressed about my inability to make a commitment to a style.
Spouse was not pleased either. Everything changed on a regular
schedule. No room was ever the same any two seasons in a row.

THEN MY PROBLEM WAS SOLVED! How you might ask? By
psychiatrists, hypnotists, threats, loss of sight? NO NO NO. A
grandchild, the mere conception of a grandchild did the trick.
Suddenly I knew exactly what to do. The house that would please
the child and create the right memories was the house that I wanted
also. AND IT MADE THE HOUSE HAPPY TOO!

This is a way of living and a visual style that I had never pursued
and which has no real name. I had never bought for this look,
really more a feel, yet had almost everything required. Room by
room the house is settling into itself in a way I had despaired of
every achieving. So, if you need a white painted coffee table, a
french plaster statue, a “French Yellow” serpentine dresser, some
pink floral drapes, or stacks of shelter magazines - give me a call.

Just an Update

2007-09-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

Recently I have not felt much inclined to share my various views
and daily events. It seems that life is both very general (in that
everyone for the most part works, goes to school, gets their
feelings hurt, has ah ha moments, etc.) and very personal as well
(my issues, my spouse, my pets, my petty problems, my clutter,
etc.).

But, here it is anyway.

Quick update on family: I am going to be a grandparent!!! I am
overjoyed, tickled, happy and all those other warm fuzzy feelings.
In fact, I am completely changing the way I live and use my home
for that very reason. (More on that later, perhaps).

I am getting a new daughter! Youngest son is getting married to
someone I really like, and I am pleased. Pleased, happy and
excited.

We have a new kitten, Leonard, a pale orange and white tabby. He
has made life more interesting in many ways. I get endless pleasure
from watching him play. My old cat, Charles, is working hard to
win new cat over to his way of seeing things, that is amusing also.

Church and such: Church continues to be the highlight of my week.
This week we had the blessing of the animals. Lots of dogs, a few
cats. All the dogs got along fairly well, most sat on the sofas with
their owners. We took Smoke, my old dog. He had a blast. He
played sniff butt with other dogs and a few kids as well. Everyone
made a fuss over him and he loved it. Smoke, at 12, was the oldest
dog there. There was one larger, a friendly and beautiful long
haired Rott. It really was lovely. We had some human visitors, I
have no clue what they thought about it all. Hopefully they will
come back!

Happy Birthday to Me

2007-07-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday. Despite no cake (don’t eat it anymore)
or ice cream (ditto), and no one singing the “Happy Birthday” song
I had a really good day. All three of my children came over to see
me and bring cards and gifts and middle sister and her family came
over with presents and good wishes. On top of that, friends from
church wished me happy birthday and gave me birthday hugs. And as
constant as the sunrise, was the love of my spouse.

War Question

2007-07-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Some things have been bothering me lately. A few are internal, for
example, how do you really forgive a wrong that went on and on
and on? I have shed my share of tears over my black heart this
week, and resolved to address in more meaningful ways my anger
issues (off beta blockers entirely now) and my possessiveness. But
leaving those things aside I want to address something that is
external that really really bothers me. I am not wanting to pick a
fight with anyone but there are things I want to know. If you
respond I will read your posts and consider them. And I won’t bite
back if you tick me off, see above reference to dealing with anger
issues!

If you support the war in Iraq (not just “support the
troops”) and consider yourself a Christian, how do
you reconcile the two?

July 4th

2007-07-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

Usually on July 4th I have a party. Not a beer keg and fireworks
party but a grilling out and hanging out sort of party. The party
breaks up early enough for everyone to go on to the beer keg and
fireworks to dos later in the evening. I invite all of my family and
the members of Spouse’s family that are in town. We have a good
time and no one is ever left out.

This year, I was unable to host the party as I was and had been
somewhat unwell (another story). We were invited, and attended, a
cookout on the 3rd. Because of the conflict, we missed an event at
another friends home. I also saw my mother on the 3rd. She told
me that she had been invited to go to a farm for an all day party
with middle sister’s family and had also been invited to go to
youngest sister’s party. I told her to go and have fun. But my
heart broke.

The truth is that my sisters do not want me around their non family
friends and fellow church goers. I should be used to being left out,
but I am not.

When I Was A Girl, I Loved Esau

2007-06-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

When I was a girl, I loved Esau.

At night when the work was done and we were all gathered around
the fire Father told us our stories. I listened, I listened with all my
self. I stored them up inside in neat bundles of books and chapters.
Each story the living memory of a person, newly breathing with
each telling.

I was a contrary child and so the other stories, the silent ones that
grow up inside and around the spoken memory like bindweed, were
counterpoint inside my heart.

Esau was not so clever. He was big and hairy and strong. He
loved God’s world and went out into it to make his way. Esau
would hunt, running and leaping, climbing and lifting and
crouching, until at the end of the day he was empty of reserve his
very essence in danger of being consumed. He would return to the
tents trembling and sweating like a horse that has been whipped
across the desert sands long after it should have been given rest and
water.

Esau was not so clever but he was filled with passion. He would
rather work beside the slaves then sit in the shade and talk. Esau
lived life. He did not store it up and use it in tiny bits to gain
advantage.

In my mind I could see him, huge and red, striding across the
encampment. He was not his mother’s favorite, but his wives loved
him. They relished the feel of his arms around them and when he
went out to hunt they sent a piece of their hearts with him. Esau
did not care that his wives were of a different peoples, had different
languages, even different gods. Eassu’s God was big enough for
them all and the language of love has never suffered from a lack of
words.

But Esau’s mother did not love him. He was not sleek and brown
and smooth like Jacob or her people. He was not like his father
either. Had he been born alone I think she would have smothered
him so no one would wonder at his red hair and green eyes. But
Jacob came second, the correct child, beautiful and familiar to her
eyes, and so saved from reproach she did not kill her firstborn, but
neither did she love him.

Jacob was like her, small, dark and mean spirted. He wanted the
birthright, but more, his mother wanted it for him. Together they
conspired to cheat Esau, and they did. My heart breaks for him
still, even though he long ago returned to the earth. Afterwards he
went out with his wife and made for himself a kingdom where he
was Pappa and Lover and Chieftain. A world full of fierce little red
headed children who loved to hunt and whose mothers’ fondly
compared them to their father.

Then, Father tells the part where Esau and Jacob meet again. Jacob
is afraid, but Esau is big. He welcomes Jacob, and lets him live.

When I was a child, I loved Esau. I prayed that God would send
me someone like him, big, strong, passionate and wild and that God
would pass over to other girls, girls who did not weep for Esau’s
broken heart, all of the Jacobs, the smooth, scheming, clever
favorites.

Praying for Rain

2007-06-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

It has been very dry here for sometime. We are short about 16
inches of rainfall this year, and have not had a “soaker” in six weeks
or more. Hay fields look like mid September, crops are stunted,
un-watered lawn is turning to dust. Vegetation crunches underfoot.
Worse still is the damage being done to deep rooted and long lived
plants.

Last week I went to the Northgate area (of Chattanooga) to help
out a friend with administrative problems. All the way there I
prayed for rain. Once there I popped out of my car and into hers.
Off we went to discuss a strategy to solve her problem. Then came
the storm, a ten minute, hard, fast storm.

I smiled.

Friend asked me “Why are you smiling?”

Well”, I answered with a grin, “It’s raining and my
windows are down!”

I prayed for rain and left the windows down. I’m still praying for
rain, but now I roll the windows up!

To make the joke on me richer, when I got back to North Georgia I
found that not one drop had fallen where I live.

Why I'm a Vegetarian

2007-06-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

I am frequently asked why I’m a Vegetarian. Like most vegetarians
I have several reasons.

First, and most important - I do not want my body to be a
walking cemetery.

Second, and also important - My health, as most of you
know I have struggled with weight for most of my life and
have had high blood pressure for over 15 years. I also have
interesting and unpleasant digestive issues together with
hypoglycemia and arthritis.

Third, and not quite so important to me, though it should be
- the environment and other humans. Intensive livestock
farming pollutes water tables and produces unthinkable
amounts of gas, contributing to global warming. Meat
production also reduces the available land available for grain
and vegetable production thus reducing the amount of food
available to humans.

After I explain this, the ones who don’t immediately change the
subject tell me they luvvvv meat and just could not give it up.

Poppycock, you don’t even miss it after a few days. After a
month or so it starts to smell funny to you and after three
months you are a little repulsed by it.

The next one is - I don’t much like vegetables, so I can’t be a
vegetarian.

I didn’t like them much either. I found out though that once
I had learned some good recipes (vegetarian curry is a
favorite) and had been off meat for a few weeks that I
craved some vegetables and that they all tasted much better.

Seldom does anyone ask me what the “side effects” of being a
vegetarian are. But here they are.

I am taking one half as much beta blocker as I was
previously and one fourth the amount of Ace inhibitor. I am
completely off all anti-inflammatory drugs.

I have lost weight without going hungry.

I feel much better.

My joints do not hurt.

The heat does not bother me as much.

I am no longer having chest pain.

I am no longer having “flutters”.

My skin looks better.

My unpleasant bowl disease is about 75% better.

Out of Sorts, This I Believe

2007-06-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

I am procrastinating. I should be writing an ante litem letter, but
here I am blogging instead. Yesterday was a strange one.
Apparently 3/4 of the church knew the pastor was going to be out
of town, I was part of the 1/4 that showed up, the 1/4 that did not
know.

Sis and husband showed up for services, even though they had
already been to their church’s morning service. Between the low
attendance and the guest speaker they did not really get the Mosaic
experience. Really though, maybe they picked the right week to
come since the speaker was a pastor with a strong “Jesus is the only
way” outlook, which they share. Frankly the sermon was too long
and came pretty close to being the sort of sermon that kept me out
of Baptist churches most of my life. It made my little red fundy
flags go up.

Now I will take a brief break from my generalized hatefulness and
share the funny and to the point message the guest speaker gave.
In a nutshell, spiritual maturity is loving each other and creating
unity. It was funny to me because for days I have been judgmental
and harshly opinionated and a little bit negative. So, a little fundy
or not, it brought me up short against my ugliness. It is easy to
love my immediate circle and easy to love the ones that are far
away, but I have, and continue to have, great difficulty loving
people I know of individually that are not family or friends. I really
am a bit of a crank.

I will say, since I have already implied it, that I do not believe in any
version of the Jesus Christ story that involves most of the world,
including Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, Buddhist etc., going to
hell. Further, I do not believe that Jesus Christ was God in
the Trinitarian sense. [Check out the Johannine Comma]. I think that
both God and Jesus are. Jesus prayed to God, not to himself.

I believe that Jesus is the key to the Kingdom of
Heaven. But I don’t think the key will work if you do not take it
and put it in the lock,open the door, and go
through it. There are other keys to the Kingdom, there are
other mansions in Heaven, there are other sheep, not of this fold.
These things I believe. If I am wrong, I will have lots of company
in the afterlife.

The Razor's Edge

2007-05-31T10:23:00.000-07:00

I have always been interested by a strange psychological perception
shift that is brought about by transparency and being fully present
without self. The shift is that you find yourself suddenly able to
actually see and hear what someone is telling you, regardless of
what words they use. It does not occur often (at least for me).

It did happen for me over the weekend. I was listening to a speaker
and I heard him telling me what his temptation was. I
wasn’t really aware that I was tuned in on that level until I thought
“gee, I’m glad I didn’t tell him about combing his hair back” (which
has sorely tempted me) in response to seeing and hearing the
temptation he struggles with.

Anyway, now I see this person as on the Razor’s Edge (a chosen
path so narrow as to be extraordinarily difficult to walk and from
which you suffer grievous damage if you fall) and I will not become
part of the temptation.

Which brings me to the question of sin. I have always felt that
some things may be a sin for some people and not for others. And
without getting into deep waters here, I believe I can back that up
with scripture. (At least to my satisfaction). Anyway, part of not
sinning is not causing someone else to sin. And on the deeper level,
part of not causing someone else to sin is recognizing that
something might be sinful for them, and not for you.

Sunday with the Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End

2007-05-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

I was sick Sunday. Spouse urged me to go to church anyway,
reminding me I could feel bad there as well as at home. He was
right, so we dressed up like Pirates and away we went. It was great
fun to see all the other people dressed up like Pirates. We had
lunch after, very nice and then all went to the Rave to see Pirates of
the Caribbean III. The movie was very long, a little tedious and a
little preachy. BUT it was still fun. Johnny Depp is seriously funny
and ravishing in a non-sexy sort of way, and Keith Richards was
perfect as his father. I very much liked William Turner taking Davy
Jones’s place as the Captain of the Flying Dutchman, I know all
those lost at sea souls will be safe in his care. Best of all I really
liked the use of many of the same crew, and the continuation of the
character development. Still, it was too long by 20 minutes. Oh
yes, the delectable and very talented Mr. Chow Yun-Fat makes a
terrific Pirate!

I was much sicker by the time I got home and on Monday I was
totally miserable. I spent much of the day trying to get comfortable
and the rest of it crying and feeling rather sorry for myself. Today
is better, though I am not really well I have hope of being so soon.

Diary of the Abandoned - May 28, 2008

2007-05-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

Much has happened since I last wrote. I would not now, but
someone should, we all should, and one day someone will figure
out what happened.

The flooding is severe, more than a million have died of drowning.
No one has sickened with flood water illnesses, which no one but
me seems to think matters much. Shore lines are changing. Some
coastal areas have just disappeared.

Hospitals have become trauma centers since no one is sick. Even
AIDS patients have recovered completely. And even with the
extreme stress of our loses and suffering no one seems to be
cracking up. There have been lots of looting related deaths and
some killings between drug sellers and users, but none that could be
attributed to passion or rage or even irrationality. All were simple
cold-blooded killings.

There is a security counsel now. It is worldwide, every country
participates. All law enforcement, all government, all armed forces
are part of it. The rules are simple thou shalt nots. 1. Do not steal.
2. Do not kill. 3. Do not incite or participate in riots. The
penalties are stiff, if you are caught stealing you may be shot on
sight. If you kill, you are killed. If you incite riots by standing on a
street corner exhorting your fellow man, you can be shot.

Still, there are riots everywhere.

Everything is green. The temperatures remain stable worldwide
and where there is no flooding, the world is as green as paradise.
There are things blooming I have never seen before. And the birds .
. . I wish Sarah was here to see them.

Junk, Stuff and a Not So Good Day

2007-05-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

I am a little out of sorts today. The weight loss is going well, I am
down 70 pounds. The weird thing is that very few people have
noticed. This pretty much confirms for me that after a certain point
fat people are really invisible. That’s not why I’m out of sorts. The
plumbing is acting up, and I am feeling sorry for chunks of my life
(mostly where it has intersected with others) that I cannot change.
I am also put out with myself for all the stuff I have accumulated. I
had thinned a good bit out and had put a good bit in storage and
put more in my Rossville office. When I closed it, a good bit of
stuff had to come home.

I have pretty good stuff, but not “valuable” stuff. The only reason
to keep most of it is because I don’t want to get rid of it. On a
deeper level it must represent something to me that I am not ready
to let go of. I cannot use it all at once, unless I develop a taste for
very busy crowded rooms. I like open, serene, airy spaces. How
do you balance that with two dinning tables, two sofas, chairs
galore, odd tables, a thousand books and all the book cases,
uncountable lamps, hundreds of canvases and prints, lots of pottery,
lots of statues, and on and on and on?

So I am a little down on myself. I preach simplicity and
abandonment of consumerism and I am drowning in stuff. And that
is why I am cross with myself today.

Diary of the Abandoned - May 13, 2008

2007-05-16T10:46:00.000-07:00

I cannot convey the many things happening everywhere as it is
overwhelming. There is no longer illness. Worldwide night
temperatures are not dropping below 65° or going above 80°. Day
temperatures are between 70° and 85° everywhere. There is
flooding as the ice is melting. There have been massive casualties
in flooded areas. There is much violence in the cities and in most
countries, including the US, the armies have taken over all
government functions.

There are reports that animals everywhere have turned on their
owners, run away from home, and become far more aggressive to
humans. To humans, not to each other. There is a report that the
snow leopards at the little zoo in Chattanooga killed their keeper,
then strolled out the gate. They were joined by the zoo dogs and a
donkey. By the time they reached the old rose gardens other dogs
and some house cats had joined them. Spectators said they were
playing together, resting together and that the cats were eating
grass.

This morning when I fed the hens, they were nowhere to be seen,
latter I looked out and there they were, on the ground eating, and
with them was a red tail hawk and several rats. Aliens did not
come. Whatever took some of us, restored the animals and freed
them from us. Predators are eating grass.

They are still interviewing religious leaders everywhere, the report
today is that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the Archbishop of
Canterbury all agree with the Pope, it was not the Rapture.

I am living in interesting times.

I miss you Sarah.

MOTHER'S DAY and the Return of the Yellow Deli and the Twelve Tribes

2007-05-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

Yellow Deli and The Twelve Tribes in Chattanooga

I could not remember if a group Spouse wants to join at Mosaic
was meeting last night or next week so Spouse drove over last
night, to make sure he was there if it was last night. It wasn’t.
While he was out he picked up a “FreePaper” in town and brought
it home to me. I read it, I liked some of it, some made my little red
flags go up. This morning I was bothered by the idea that it was
like something I already knew, so I checked out the website listed
on the paper, twelvetribes.org.. It turns out that these folks are the
old Yellow Deli people. The Yellow Deli made great food and was
staffed by interesting people. The Yellow Deli in Chattanooga was
the birthplace of the Twelve Tribes communities. There is
apparently a Twelve Tribes house in Chattanooga now.

Mother's Day

Mosaic is where we are sitting. I heard someone at Mosaic say this
week that he had been sitting with something for a time. It is an
eastern idea, sitting, you can sit with something or with someone.
It shows the willingness to be with, and not just to hear or be done
to. While I hope that at some point in the future I can DO with
Mosaic, for now I am SITTING WITH Mosaic.

This weeks “sitting with” gave me much. The morning service
(Jesus’s relationship with his Mother) and the evening teaching
(core values) were excellent. But it was a member who showed me
Jesus on Sunday. All the children, and adults, with mothers
present, gave their mother a rose provided by the church. I was
wishing my mother was with us, even though she has her own
church (she is an elder), and feeling a little guilty that I had not
gone to church with her, and I was thinking of my own children,
who were not with me and about my mother in law, whom I also
love. Jessica came to me and asked if I was a mother, I said yes,
she went and got a rose and gave it to me. It may be a long time
before I can remember this without crying.

I spent the middle part of the day with all the family. It was so
very good. Mother's Day helps me remember with tenderness all
the deep joys and shared sorrows of family.

MONKS LUNCH

2007-05-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

On Saturdays I make dish we call Monks Lunch. It is simple to
prepare, easy to eat and carries us through our most physical
working day. Monks Lunch is brown rice, lentils and lightly
sauteed vegetables, the vegetables vary but always include onions.
Usually the vegetables are some combination of onions, mushrooms
and red peppers, but they can be almost anything. The leftovers
can be eaten cold or reheated. I like to chop up tomato, mix it into
the leftovers and eat it with whole wheat Pita bread.

Monks Lunch is not a dish to write home about. But it meets the
bodies needs, it is wholesome, cheap and easy to make. On the
road of eating to live, instead of living to eat, it is a good stop.

Today I had leftover Monks Lunch for my office lunch. It was a
great relief to not have to hunt all over town for an acceptable
vegetarian lunch. I thanked G-d for the pleasure of simple food.
May we remember the hungry in our prayers and keep before us the
suffering of our fellow creatures.

Diary of the Abandoned - May 11, 2008

2007-05-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

MAY 11, 2008

One human has died of natural causes, a woman in North Dakota, it
was her 119th birthday, making her 120 in real years. Several
people died of gunshot wounds in Florida and a farmer in Alabama
died after being gored by a cow. Otherwise, the hospitals are
empty. No one has said it yet, but cancer is gone, so is AIDS, heart
disease and emphysema. There are rumors that hypertension and
diabetes are gone too.

People look different. I think my hair is getting darker and my
stomach is flatter. I can flex my fingers faster and my feet don’t
hurt. My neighbors look different. Mrs. Jamison has to be in her
80's, the last time I saw her, before the day, she was walking with a
cane and was wearing glasses. Today she is out in her yard
working. No glasses, no cane.

The animals are different, but except for a cow goring a farmer, this
has not made the news. The hens are wild as crows now, they raise
a ruckus when I come out and watch me like I was a hawk. They
still eat the grain I throw out, but only after I am back in the house.
I had to go town this morning for supplies, a raccoon was working
on a trash bin in the daylight. Two bluejays were chasing and
pecking a man on a bicycle. Ladybug said her five year old dog
growled at her last night and rushed out the door when she was
taking out the trash. The dog has not been back.

No one seems to know where the missing twenty percent of the
population went. The only thing they agree on is that it was not the
Rapture. They seem to think that if it had been, more religious
leaders would have been taken, no Muslims or Jews either. The
final nail in the argument is that the Pope wasn’t taken so it
couldn’t be the Rapture. I think they’re wrong.

I miss you Sarah.

Diary of the Abandoned - May 9, 2008

2007-05-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

MAY 9, 2008

More news, worldwide the weather has stabilized. Days
everywhere go no higher then 85, no lower then 55. It has rained
gently for about twenty minutes each night since the event. There
is flooding in many places where the ice is melting quickly. There
have been reports that some green is beginning to show in desert
areas.

I can’t worry about flooding or green deserts. It seems worse to
me that Sarah is gone. The hens also now, Sarah would have
expected me to care for them, and I did, but this morning when I
went to feed them they were not in the pen. At first I thought it
was happening again, but then I saw one of the hens in the top of
the redbud tree and later I saw another of them on the roof. I
didn’t think they could fly.

The odd news, the bit that worries me most, is that no one has died
since noon on May 5. No one. Not one human death anywhere in
the world. Not one.

Diary of the Abandoned - May 5, 2008 and May 6, 2008

2007-05-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

THE RAPTURE

MAY 5, 2008

It happened at 11:48 a.m. today. She had kissed me on the
forehead on her way to feed the chickens. After thirteen years I still
was smitten with love for her, so I watched out the bathroom
window. The hens came running, she scattered grain, laughing
happily at chicken antics. I could see her lips moving, but could not
hear what she said, probably calling them by name, one by one.
Then she stopped tossing grain, her face froze, the hens all stopped
eating and stood stock still. She looked up, and her face was
changed. She smiled, a wide, pure, wild smile, I had never seen
before. Her skin gleamed all colors, like oil on water, but pale.
Then she changed again, glowing, but fading. I saw nothing above
her but air. I looked where she looked, nothing. I looked where
the chickens looked, still motionless, and could not see what they
saw. I too was frozen, I wanted to run to her, to grab her, but I
just stood there with the curtain pushed back and watched her
become transparent, then she was gone. The chickens stood
another moment, and so did I. Then they went back to eating as if
nothing had happened.

That was at 11:48 this morning. Now, five hours later, the world,
what of it is left, is consumed with chaos. There is news, but no
phone service, all lines busy. Regular programing abandoned, only
news on every station.

MAY 6, 2008

I waited, half hopeful, half grieving, for her to come back. But she
hasn’t and I know she won’t. The news has been on constantly, but
I am only now able to bear watching it. So far the report seems to
be that about every fifth adult on earth is gone. All infants, all
young children, most of the preteens, even babies unborn, all gone.
Except for the children there is no real commonality. Families say
the one missing was kind, or good or strange. At first they said the
Rapture, the second coming, but that can’t be, since many of the
missing are Hindus or Jews or Muslims or something. So it isn’t
the Rapture. Some experts say aliens or terrorists. I don’t think so.
I saw her face, she wanted what got her.

I fed the hens today, first time ever. They always ran squawking up
to Sarah but they were quiet today and didn’t start eating until I
was back in the house.

Looking For Sunday

2007-04-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

I’m in the middle of the move now. Tomorrow we will move the
heavy furniture to Lafayette, Sunday afternoon we will move the
stuff home that is not going to Lafayette and Monday morning I
will clean this place up. Even though I am up to my eyebrows in
packing and sorting I am looking for Sunday.

There is something good about going in that door, exchanging
smiles and good mornings with people I barely know, but will one
day call friend. It is good to sit and feel the music, to let the clean
love that flows soak into me. Even though I study, pray and
mediate on G-d on my own, it gives me a charge to be in a room
full of others reaching for G-d’s hand. Even the sermon always
seems to hold something for me. Last week I was brought up short
by Martha and Mary, too often I am Martha. So I will leave dishes
in the sink if need be, the bed unmade and my robe on the chair, and
on Sunday morning I will be in my seat, in the church that isn’t,
soaking up a little extra G-d with my friends to come.

THIS IS MY FATHER’S WORLD......................

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.

Babcock, 1901

Anger

2007-04-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

The Beta Blockers don’t seem to be working this week. I have
suffered from several separate bouts of anger this week. On the
surface each episode is unrelated to the next. But I suspect that
they are actually all the same.

A former business associate learned that I was closing the office
here and was moving into the office at the County seat. So she
wanted to come get a few things she had left here, read abandoned,
when she left six months ago. I didn’t mind, I never wanted the
stuff to start with. But she also thought that maybe she would take
the phones! I explained that phones are portable and that these
phones were going on the road with me.

Then to make matters worse, she filled the secretary in the office I
am moving to with images of me as the dragon lady. Secretary
there will not be my secretary, so I had to assure her that she was in
no danger from my red pen. Thank you very much former business
associate. I really needed the staff there to be afraid of me before I
even moved in.

Now, I had nearly recovered from that little insult when my very
sweet aunt requested that I come to dinner. She stated that A) it
was not a family thing B) they needed for me to come and provide
information about family research and C) there would be food. As
it turns out, none of this was really true. It was a family thing, part
of the family anyway. They did not want my knowledge, they
wanted me to tell one of my elderly uncles, in 100 words or less,
how to do extensive genealogical research. He was convinced, and
probably still is, that I know some secret source for all the
information. Nothing could be further from the truth. At last count
I had gathered information from over 90 sources, including blogs.

The final insult was the dinner on offer. Ham, more pork in the
vegetables, and lots of deserts. The grain offered was in the form
of white biscuits. The black eyed peas were cooked with pork, the
green beans were cooked with pork. I settled on a little slaw, a
little apple salad and a side salad. I also ate an oatmeal cookie and
decaf coffee. Half the people there know I am a vegetarian, but
they seemed to think that I could just pick the pork out. My sister
told me they had pork because it was free. Not for the pig I said.

By midnight I had cooled off enough to actually sleep. Today I am
not angry. But I am really working at staying away from everyone
who might piss me off today. So far so good.

I know none of this is important enough to merit anger, certainly
not to the extent it had me. So it must have been something else in
the mix. Anger is rarely of merit. The sort that just comes over
you is almost never good. But it certainly did serve notice on me
that I have not overcome much, I have just managed to control my
environment enough to avoid most personal anger triggers.

And you know, that makes me a little mad...

What Was On My Plate

2007-04-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

I have had a series of lightbulb moments lately. One has to do with
how my mother viewed nutrition. She was a registered nurse who
strongly believed what she had been taught in nursing school. This
is it in a nutshell: Your dinner plate should have a meat, a green
vegetable and a colored vegetable. If you needed more calories you
could add a slice of bread. Children, up to age 21 were to be
served milk at every meal. Deserts could be had on special
occasions, soda when you were sick. Lunch for children could be
any combination of sandwich and or soup or during the school year,
a “hot lunch” from the cafeteria. Breakfast should be toast with
scrambled eggs and citrus fruit, but if you were short on time,
Instant Breakfast would do.

Salads were made solely from iceberg lettuce, tomato and
cucumber. Salad dressing was thousand island, or in the 70's ranch.
In the 60's the bread was white Colonial, by the early 70's it was
Roman Meal. Soup was generally Campbell’s. A few times a year
she would make a pot of real soup. Of course, toast was buttered
with margarine, and chicken was fried in Criso. Seasoning food
involved threatening it with a ten year old jar of McCormick’s.

We were uptown and health conscious. If you wanted seconds,
you could have them, provided what you wanted was the green
vegetable, the meat, soup or salad. Seconds of “starchy foods”,
potatoes, corn, peas, bread and pasta were discouraged. You
never dared ask for more desert.

Casseroles were saved for special occasions, like Thanksgiving and
Christmas. We ate very little pork, only chops once in a while and
ham at Christmas. Beef was considered a better food then chicken,
which was only served once or at most two times a week. Beans
were considered inferior protein, so even though my mother loved
pinto’s we only had them twice a year. Greens were cooked at
New Year’s, Southern style, which means boiled up with ham
hocks until grayish and totally limp. We did have cornbread every
other month or so. Mom made it to go with homemade soup, and
the pinto beans and greens. Cornbread also topped my favorite
meal, hamburger pie.

When I was about eleven we started making Lipton instant tea with
lemon and artificial sweetener. No calories. We could drink all of
it we wanted. And that was a lot. We used a large jar of the
powdered mix every week.

Television brought us visions of such wonders as Kraft Macaroni
and Cheese in a box, Cream of Wheat Cereal and Rice a Roni. I so
loved Cream of Wheat that I would make it myself, with milk and
sugar, every afternoon after school. Cake was strictly off limits but
the Cream of Wheat passed muster. Middle sister made the Mac &
Cheese, which I liked best with little green peas and hamburger.
The Rice a Roni never really caught on.

Rarely, once in a great while, we were allowed chips or french fries
with our burger.

We felt sorry for, and a little superior to, people who ate beans
often, or who made do with chicken because it was cheaper then
beef. We really worried about the neighbor who made fried ham,
homemade biscuits and homemade red eye gravy every Saturday
morning for her children. What dangerous food to feed children!
We smugly ate our Cream of Wheat with sugar, grapefruit topped
with sugar, Rice Crispies with sugar, toast with jelly and a egg,
washed down with milk and reconstituted orange juice, knowing
our diet was far superior to the neighbors.

Every single day we consumed an entire gallon of 2% milk and
every other day an entire loaf of bread.

My father made his own breakfast, never varying the contents, two
strips of bacon, two scrambled eggs on white bread with
mayonnaise. The sandwich was tightly wrapped in saran wrap and
eaten in the car while he drove to work. I looked forward to
joining the management work force, so I too could have bacon
every day.

The foods that scared my mother the most were all the things she
considered “starches”. Starches would make you fat and pasty,
they were empty calories and bad for the digestion. Starches were
partially responsible for most of society’s ills including poverty,
illiteracy and plain old meanness. Under the umbrella of starches,
were rice, pasta, bread, corn, peas and all grains.

Until I was an adult, living in my own home, I never tasted a whole
grain other then rolled oats. The first real whole wheat bread I
tasted, I made. Thank you Laurel’s Kitchen. Ditto the brown rice.
Even so, I could not shake the feeling that if you did not eat meat
every day you would become weak and waste away in a horrible
manner. I was also suspicious that Mom was right and that the
“starches” would get you.

I thought that green beans came in a can and needed to be cooked
for at least two hours. Peas were easier, just open the can and heat
to a boil. Unfortunately, they were starches, so I could not make
them as often as I would have liked. Corn was the same. I will not
torture you with all the ways you can combine canned food on a
plate, but needless to say I had learned from the best.

SUBWAY V. MCDONALDS or Poison for Lunch?

2007-04-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Lunch on the Run - Part One

In my work neighborhood there are all the usual fast food choices,
plus a handful of restaurants. Since the idea today is to get lunch
fast, I’m going to look at what I think ought to be some fairly safe
lunch choices.

I know I want chicken, everyone knows it’s better than beef. So
far so good. I want it on a bun, since I am in a hurry, and I want it
grilled, not fried. I know if I eat it grilled I avoid all those nasty
transfats and the hydrogenated stuff. I am feeling kind of good
about my choices but I don’t really know which I want, Subway or
McDonalds. Since both are very close, I decide to make my
decision after looking at both online.

First the Subway. Fresh baked buns, fresh ingredients, lots of
yummy vegies. So, on to the website, subway.com - once there I
choose the Menu/Nutrition tab at the top and nutrition from the
submenu. Then from the selection at the bottom marked additional
nutrition links I choose product ingredients. Since I know wheat
bread is better then white I chose wheat.

WHEAT BREAD Enriched flour (flour, malted barley flour,
niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water,
whole wheat flour, high fructose corn syrup, wheat gluten, contains
less than 2% of the following: wheat bran, yeast, salt, soybean oil,
dough conditioner (acetylated tartaric acid esters of mono-and
diglycerides, ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, ascorbic acid,
azodicarbonamide, potassium iodate, amylase (enzymes)], cracked
wheat, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, caramel color (contains
sulfites), dried honey preparation (honey powder, invert sugar,
wheat starch, soy bran flour, silicon dioxide [anti-caking]), mineral
oil. Contains soy and wheat.

Wow. Who would have thought? White flour is the first
ingredient? High fructose corn syrup? Sulfites? Mineral Oil?
WTF?

Ok, the breads scary. I don’t even know what most of that stuff is
really, but the stuff I do know. YIKES.

But, I am in a hurry, and chicken is good for you, so lets add that
chicken breast now.

CHICKEN BREAST PATTY Chicken breast with rib meat,
water, seasoning (corn syrup solids, vinegar powder [maltodextrin,
modified corn starch & tapioca starch, dried vinegar], brown sugar,
salt, dextrose, garlic powder, onion powder, chicken type flavor
[hydrolyzed corn gluten, autolyzed yeast extract, partially
hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil, thiamine
hydrochloride, disodium inosinate & disodium guanylate]), sodium
phosphate.

Ok, what is the deal here. It’s a joke, right? Corn syrup, brown
sugar, MSG hidden as Hydrolyzed corn gluten and autolyzed yeast
extract, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and more of that what
the hell is it stuff.

Sigh, I am hungry, but not that darn hungry.

Ok, all hope is not lost, maybe McDonald’s is better. With hope in
my heart and rumbles in my belly I head to mcdonalds.com. Once
there I choose USA from the pull down menu in the top left corner,
then food, nutrition and fitness from the menu bar. Then Nutrition
Info and Ingredients List.

Premium Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich:
Honey Wheat Roll, Grilled Chicken Breast Filet, Mayonnaise Dressing,
Leaf Lettuce, Tomato Slice, Liquid Margarine

Hey that looks ok, except for the liquid margarine, my doc says not
to eat that stuff. But look what was in the Subway bread, better
have a closer look.

Honey Wheat Roll:
Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin,
reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, whole
wheat flour, dry honey blend (honey, high fructose corn syrup, invert
sugar, corn syrup, wheat starch), sugar, yeast, contains 2% or less of the
following: soybean oil, canola oil, partially hydrogenated soybean oil,
salt, wheat gluten, calcium sulfate, potassium iodate, L. cysteine,
monocalcium phosphate, dough conditioners (may contain one or more
of the following: DATEM, ascorbic acid, calcium peroxide, enzymes,
azodicarbonamide, distilled monoglycerides, mono- and diglycerides),
calcium propionate (preservative), soy lecithin. CONTAINS: WHEAT
AND SOY LECITHIN

Ok, I am getting worried now. White flour is the first ingredient in
the wheat roll. Honey, high fructose corn syrup, invert sugar and
sugar. Geeze, is there any other sugar they could add? Just to
make it a little better they added some partially hydrogenated oil
and a whole slew of chemicals that might could be used to kill
roaches.

I’m not giving up yet, maybe the chicken’s good and I can just
throw the bun out.

Grilled Chicken Breast Filet:
Chicken breast filets with rib meat, water, seasoning (salt, sugar, food
starch-modified, maltodextrin, spices, dextrose, autolyzed yeast extract,
hydrolyzed [corn gluten, soy, wheat gluten] proteins, garlic powder,
paprika, chicken fat, chicken broth, natural flavors (plant and animal
source), caramel color, polysorbate 80, xanthan gum, onion powder,
extractives of paprika), modified potato starch, and sodium phosphates.
CONTAINS: SOY AND WHEAT. Prepared with liquid margarine: Liquid
soybean oil, water, partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils,
salt, hydrogenated cottonseed oil, soy lecithin, mono- and diglycerides,
sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preservative), artificial flavor,
citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene (color). CONTAINS: SOY
LECITHIN

I think I’ll cry. Autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed proteins, lots
of yummy MSG, a rose by any other name... hydrogenated oils, and
again with the roach spray list of other stuff.

No chicken sandwiches today.

DISCLAIMER: the ingredient lists were directly copied from the
websites of Subway and McDonald’s. I am not a doctor or
scientist. My opinion that all the food I have listed here is poison is
just that, my personal opinion. Do your own research, its only a
google click away.

Duh...

2007-04-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

Some time back I went with a friend to the nutritionist her MD
wanted her to see. This woman is well thought of by the medical
community. She basically said to my friend, you have type 2
diabetes, you can never get rid of it, you can control it with diet,
exercise and medication. Don’t focus on getting off medication she
said, we don’t want you to have to give up birthday cake or fried
chicken, or even BLTs. Be sure though to eat some butter with
your potatoes and some mayo on those BLTs. The fat lowers the
effect of high glycemic foods and reduces the fast elevation on
blood sugar.

When pushed she did acknowledge that using whole grains in a
natural form, ie steamed brown rice, plus vegetables, nuts, seeds and
legumes would probably take care of the problem enough to keep
you off the medicine. BUT WE KNOW NO ONE WILL REALLY
EAT THAT WAY, AND WE DON’T EXPECT YOU TO.

Fast forward a few years and my sister, with type 2 diabetes, tells
me that you never recover from diabetes, you can only control it.
Yikes. This information came from her diabetes education and
support group. Oh yeah, according to her, its ok to eat commercial
bread as long its wheat bread, and lettuce is ok if you don’t like
Kale, and white rice is ok if you eat beans or meat with it. Need I
go on?

I am shocked that the medical system is lying to people. Most of us
were trained from birth to think medical doctors are the last word.
Are they conspiring with Kraft and Colonial Sanders and the
pharmaceutical companies to keep us sick or are they just stupid?

Death By Food

2007-04-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

My mother thinks, and yours might too, that all you have to do to
lose weight is not overeat. This was true for much of human
history. But the rules have changed and food is not what it once
was. Even modest amounts of modern food can make you fat
and sick.

Almost everything you eat contains one or all of the trinity of
death: MSG, High Fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated Fats.
There are literally thousands of other pollutants in our food, but
these, with no real help from the myriad of other toxins, can and
will make you fat, give you high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes,
artery and heart disease and a whole host of other metabolic
diseases.

I thought for some time that if the label did not list MSG there
was no MSG in the product. Not so, there are over 60 names for
MSG, including such innocuous things as broth and natural
flavor. It is even injected into grocery store meat.

If you have metabolic disorder you are a victim of the modern
food industry.

The younger you are now, the more at risk you are. In 1960, the
year I was born, many foods were still made with sugar instead of
HFCS and MSG had not really gained a foothold in the food
industry. Of course HFs were all the rage in the 60's. Every
kitchen contained the large size can of Crisco, we thought it was
cleaner and safer then lard. If you are younger you have been
flooded with these chemicals since birth. Most commercial baby
formulas contain MSG and corn syrup. Even though we know
that MSG causes brain cell loss, even though we know corn syrup
contributes to obesity and diabetes, we still tolerate it in our baby
foods.

We are becoming progressively fatter, sicker and dumber. If you
eat the “safe”, “healthy”, “convenient” food in your grocery store
and virtually every restaurant you are playing roulette with your
future.

Sunday Things

2007-04-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning dawned cold and clear. We had our morning oats,
enjoyed a few minutes of music in the living room then trotted off
to church.

The church we are attending, Mosaic, is non-traditional in a
number of ways. First the building doubles as an all age
“night club” called Fathom, and it looks as much like a club
as a church.

Second, it supports the arts. It looks more like a gallery
then a church.

Then there are the services,
about half an hour of music, then a prayer, a brief break and then a
sermon with bible reading woven into it. There is a lot of visual
media in the mix, including images, movie clips and the like. The
sermon is given from a stool near the seating, not from a podium or
raised platform.

None of this seems odd to me. Going to church at all does.

No one cares or asks what any one person believes or doesn’t
believe. Best of all, there is a terrific mix of people, none of whom
seem very nosy about what we do, where we do it, where we are
from etcetera ad nauseam. A very nice girl never fails to ask us
what we did during the past week, which I never manage to answer
without, unintentionally, sounding evasive. I can’t say, I am a
paralegal and this week I did xyz, and I am a painter and I am
working on something now, (in fact, even in my head as we speak)
and I do volunteer work that I love and this week I sorted and
labeled old blueprints and architectural elevations and I am in week
three of my eating plan and doing pretty good at it but I am
thinking about making spinach and feta cheese pastries with filo
dough because I am reading a book called the Sultan’s Kitchen and
when I leave here today I am going to my mothers. Deep breath.
It really is pointless, I can just imagine her kind eyes glazing over as
I speak. So I say, oh just working and enjoying the spring. Sounds
evasive, maybe even sneaky or unsocial, but so far it’s the best I
have managed.

Other then the chatty girl, who is, as I may have said, very nice, and
pretty also, no one seems very nosy at all. Very good.

Now, after church we went to Mom’s house. A nice visit was had
by all. Everyone is happy, which childishly I do not like, because
we are going to church. They assume, possibly not correctly, that
this means that I am not A) dancing ecstatically around a bonfire,
B) worshiping God using a foreign name that G-d might not like or
answer to or C) planning a trip to an Ashram. They hope this
means that I will transform into a good right minded x-tain, just like
them. I will even learn to vote republican...ha ha ha. Maybe I will
even take up eating PORK, like a good evangelical. HA HA HA,
not even if falls from heaven on a sheet...

This week, (back to church) the three piece ensemble, did a version
of “When I survey the wondrous cross...” that made the hairs stand
up on my arms. The sermon was pretty good as well.
Unfortunately I was having some interesting chest pains, and
frankly I was paying as much attention to my innards as to the
sermon. I also got to see many small children zinging around and
screeching with happiness as they hunted eggs. The little kids
really made me happy.

None of this seems odd to me. Going to church at all does.

Have a good week, I’m thinking of you (and filo dough and
accident reconstruction and frozen leaves)

Morning Oats a/k/a Horse Chow

2007-04-06T07:11:00.000-07:00

Per Person

½ cup rolled oats
1 cup water
1 tablespoon slivered almonds
1 tablespoon Raisins
1 tablespoon ground flax seed
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Combine the oats, water, raisins and cinnamon in a small sauce pan,
heat over medium heat until it bubbles just a little. Add the slivered
almonds and the ground flax seed. Give it a stir and eat.

Notes: Do not use instant oats, use old fashioned rolled oats. If
you are out of almonds you can use walnut pieces. Currents and
raisins are interchangeable, you could also use prunes or dried
plums but use unsulphured ones. Flax Seed must be ground or it
will just go straight through undigested. Keep nuts and seeds in an
air tight container in the freezer. Do not drink juice or other sweet
liquids with this meal.

People who do not like oatmeal have probably always had it
overcooked.

If you did not eat correctly during the day this makes a quick
healthy evening meal as well.

April Fools, Mosaic Church, 3D Movie

2007-04-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back Spouse played at Fathom, an “all age club” in
Downtown Chattanooga. I was not impressed with the
management of the venue but I really liked the space. The place is
very large and every available wall is covered with art. The main
room has concrete floors, hand painted faux stain glass windows, a
huge stage, open industrial style ceiling, and exposed HAC systems.
There are glittering glass mosaic lanterns and globes hanging
everywhere. The ladies room is painted purple.

Now to make it more interesting, the room I just described is the
meeting space for the Mosaic Church. I bet you can see where this
going. Last week Spouse and I went. Yes we did. We went to
church.

We liked it. We both liked it. Good music (more about that latter),
a decent sermon, comfortable seating (including sofas), Fab coffee
and pastries. The coffee and pastries are during, not after. There is
no traditional structure. The service consists of people coming in,
getting coffee and breakfast, sitting on sofas or at tables with
chairs, listening to the music, or humming or singing along or
standing in front and swaying with it. Very low key, very
comfortable, not alarming in any way. After about thirty minutes
the minister, Tim Reid, came out in jeans and an untucked shirt.
There was a prayer, then a bible reading, then a sermon. The
sermon was really more of a talk, relating the reading to life. It was
simple and fresh and relevant.

We liked it. So we came back. This week, we had music, lunch,
palm stems, and a semi-topical sermon. After church most of the
congregation went to the movie Meet the Robinsons. Oh Ho...
Very cool movie. GO SEE IT. It is 3D, really impressive
compared to what passed for 3D when I was a kid, and a number of
good messages. 1. What you do matters 2. Families sometimes
look strange 3. Failure is part of the process of success 4. Keep
moving forward. If you loved the Jetson’s you will like this one.

SOME THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MOSAIC: The actual space,
the downtown location, the young congregation, the support of the
arts, the informal service, the sofas, coffee. I like the box near the
door for offerings. I like feeling like I am in church built from the
ground up based on what someone would think organized worship was who had
never ever seen or participated in a church service.

Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

2007-03-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

If hell is a place full of wailing and the gnashing of teeth, then my
friends, we are already there. Even though the sun shines and the
breeze is very soft today there is wailing. Even though work has
been fairly steady this month there is gnashing of teeth. Even
though there is great love abounding I believe we may already be in
the house of punishment.

For my part, my husband is driving to Pikeville Kentucky to the
funeral of his best friend Chuck who was killed Monday afternoon
when an excavator fell on him. Of the six boys in my husband’s
childhood posse, he is the only one still alive. He is only 48. If
God knows statistics husband should live to be very old and die
peacefully in his sleep. None of the others did. Wailing, wailing
and gnashing of teeth.

Middle sister is in the hospital hooked up to IV antibiotics with an
unknown infection. Wailing, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And I am waiting, as are many others, to find out if someone I love
much is sick. Wailing, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

For most of us there are some childhood years unmarked by illness,
disaster and death, but after the first, our innocence is lost and
forever after we live in the shadow of the valley of death until it
claims us. By the middle years you realize that the average life span
is a joke and like Kali you walk around with the heads of the dead
hanging in your subconscious.

Today, no bluebird could make me feel that earth is almost
heaven. May God hold you close Charles Ivan Griffith.

Free Cell

2007-03-12T08:02:00.000-07:00

Free Cell is the quickest measure of daily brain function I
know of. On a good day, I can win two or three games in a
row in fairly fast order. On not so good days, I manage to
win, but in a slower fashion, maybe even resorting to
starting a game over. On really bad days, I don’t win much,
and the puzzle does not unwind for me. On those days, I
try to focus on such things as polishing the furniture,
looking out the window and making polite chit chat. This is
one of those days.

We had oldest son’s 30th birthday party on Saturday. Much
cake and ice cream was consumed and a good time was had
by all. Youngest sister and oldest boy had an argument
about religion, the usual standard for discussion in our
family. The rest of us bunched up in the front room, leaving
them the dining room. Of course once they realized they
had been abandoned they came to join us. We declared the
front room to be a religion and politics free zone. It
appeared that some success would be had in achieving
polite discourse until daughter sweetly mentioned how
much she likes the print over the sofa (Krishna and Radha),
after some moments of verbal juggling, much enjoyed by
daughter, the possible tempest passed. Youngest sister,
clearly cued in that there was something she should object
to in the print, could not find that objectionable thing and so
the talk once again found a polite, banal, happy path.
Thanks in no small part to the Baptists’ emphasis on not
learning anything real about other religions. Sigh...

Mother was concerned about the location of certain items of
furniture that were not visible. She did not admire my open
spaces, my flexible floor plan, my newly patched and mostly
bare walls. She was miffed that I had removed the
mahogany glass cabinet, she was not mollified when I told
her I had relocated it to the office. She did not like my
pottery collection here and there, it belonged in the case.
Oh well. The youngest sister, the above mentioned Baptist,
was most impressed that so much had been moved since
Christmas. How she wondered, did I get spouse to move all
that stuff? I refrained from telling her.

Yesterday, youngest son was to come fetch me at noon. At
what I believed to be 10:30 he arrived. I was still in my
robe, unwashed and frumpled. I was slightly surprised that
it was actually 12:30. He was 30 minutes late, not an hour
and a half early. The time issue makes me unhappy so in
petulant and useless rebellion I did not change the clocks,
and so for a day or two or three I will have to add an hour
to the time. Then in a day or two or three I will realize that
I am being silly and will adjust the darn things.

Youngest son patiently waited for me to unfrumple, which I
did with all good haste. We went to the Chattanooga Zoo,
which is very small and almost nice. I enjoyed it much
EXCEPT the poor Donkey had hooves so long that he
could not properly walk. (Yes, yes I did complain) The
Chimps seemed very sad. The Snow Leopards are
gorgeous. The goats were much fun and I managed to lure
a small pig from his shadowed barn into the sunlight.

After the Zoo I persuaded youngest son to go with me to
the Labyrinth at New Hope Pres. It is outdoors, made of
gravel and brick, and is in need of some repair to the outer
edges. I walked it, it took much longer then I expected. I
like it. I did not achieve any Zen like state but it did feel
good. At some point you are just on the path, not with a
destination, just on the path. Maybe that is the whole of it
really. We go inward, we go outward, with only one way in
and one way out, if you don’t cheat and just go across, like
someone I know. We are born, we die, and in between we
are just on the path.

All in all a very good day.

TAGGED

2006-11-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Umm, Egg Nog in the middle of the day, hot chocolate at night and when it is really cold.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Wrap.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White, white everywhere.

4.Do you hang mistletoe?
Nope, stuffs poison. I do like to kiss in the doorway though.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Some years never. Usually, a little each weekend from TGD on.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Turkey and more turkey.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
Decorating the tree.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I don't really know, when I was fairly young, maybe 7.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We open gifts at my Mother's on Christmas Eve then have just spouse and kids on the Day.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Some years I don't. Some years I use a small tree and use peacock feathers or the the such, one year I used an old round mutli tiered stand and bedecked it with pink and white roses and ribbons. I gave everyone small gifts that year so I could tuck them onto the rack. Once in a great while I haul out all the old family ornaments and do a traditional tree.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it when it falls, ready for it to go the next day.

12. Can you ice skate?
Never ever even thought about it until now.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
There never has been "a" favorite. I have recieved lots of favorites.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Having everone together, feeding them, lighting candles and just enjoying the love. And when its all over, I love to sit in the living room with Cat and relish the memories.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Pecan pie.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I have two, Christmas Eve with my Mother and all my extended family and Christmas Day with spouse and my sons and daughter.

17. What tops your tree?
Ha, see #10.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Giving, but I like getting things that I know mean the person who gave it to me really gets me.

19. What is your favorite Holiday Song?
Greensleeves.

20. Candy Canes?
The soft Leos in a can.

Thanksgiving

2006-11-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is nearly here. As I do every year, I have been
reviewing the things I am thankful for. Here is this years partial list.

1. No one in my family has died this year.

2. No one in my family has suffered a divorce this year.

3. This year, once again, my spouse is near the top of my list. He
was and continues to be the restoration of the years the locust has
eaten.

4. I am thankful for my sons and my daughter.

5. I am thankful that my youngest son has found love, and thankful
for the person she is.

6. I am thankful for opportunities to be with family.

7. I am thankful for my road trip with my sister, nephew, aunt and
mother to see my favorite uncle and his wife.

8. I am thankful for Smokey, and I hope that I have made his
remaining years sweeter.

9. I am thankful for my work at the museum.

10. I am thankful I still have my mother.

11. I am thankful for a few finished paintings and a handful of
satisfying photographs.

12. I am thankful to be alive.

Installment 2

2006-11-13T08:48:00.000-08:00

It has been pointed out to me that my post (part 1)
is unfair in that it talks about religion in general but
uses Christian fundamentalism for the more specific
and more negative examples.

It is certainly not my intent to “bash” any group.
What I was trying, not very well, to get around to,
is the role that absolutism in religion plays in
political and social decisions and the calculated
use politicians make of the fundamentalist.

IT APPEARS TO ME that the constant insistence
in fundamentalism that members believe and behave
in certain fairly narrowly prescribed ways has created
a large body of people who relate to society and
politics in the same manner. If you have been trained
to believe a certain set of facts which are exclusive,
and one of those facts is in friction with other issues,
you are likely to make a decision that supports your
core belief, even if you cannot otherwise reconcile
that decision.

The easiest example is abortion. We have had
legal abortion in the US since Roe v. Wade. There is
almost no chance that abortion will ever be entirely
made illegal here. Fundamentalism teaches that abortion
is wrong. This belief, in various intensities, is shared by
a large numbers of non-fundamentalist as well. The
difference in the absolute nature of the fundamentalist
belief. Since abortion is wrong, it must, at any cost,
be made illegal. Persons who have abortions must
break the law to obtain one. The absolute belief that
abortion is wrong transcends the individual and creates
the belief that the system, in this case the US, that
allows abortion commits sin on a gross scale bringing
the displeasure and wrath of G-d not only on the
individual, who can be forgiven, but on the entire country,
which perhaps cannot be forgiven.

To the absolutist, no response to abortion short of
making it illegal is acceptable. Politicians tapped into
this absolute belief some years back. They can run on a
platform centered around the pretense of making abortion
illegal. They know there is no real chance that abortion
will be made illegal but they can be sure of obtaining the
votes of those who believe, in an absolutist manner, that
abortion should be illegal. The absolutist must, in order
to maintain his self identity, always vote for the party or
individual that states that he also shares the same absolutist
view of the issue. No other issue, unless it also part of
the absolutist view will trump this one issue. The only
danger the politician faces is if he supports a conflicting
absolutist issue which has equal intensity. The easy way
around this problem for the politician is to give lip service
to supporting an entire set of statements of belief and intent.
For this reason, politicians who use the abortion platform
almost always also use anti gay marriage language as well.

To an absolutist, abortion is far more of an issue then
the minimum wage, the environment or even ethics in
the public arena. In this respect fundamentalism, by
its absolutist belief structure has put its flocks in harness
and blinders.

Religion -1st installation

2006-11-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

There are three sorts of religion.

The first is Mystic. It is not based on text or tradition.
Instead the mystic experiences the divine from within
herself. The mystic may see G-d in fluttering leaves,
sunshine or baby birds. Many mystics have had
experiences with the divine since childhood. The
experiences are so vivid and real that they can dismiss
text and tradition if it conflicts with what they know
first hand. There is a mystic strain in all established
religion. In the Christian world the Quakers are mystic,
in the Islamic world the Sufi’s are mystic and within
Judaism the Hasidic communities are mystic. But
mysticism reaches far beyond these bastions of
acceptance. There are mystics in every group of
significant size. The Roman Catholic church has
always had a large complement of mystic individuals
and numbers of them can be found in mainline churches
everywhere. With a few notable exceptions, including
the Hasidic communities, mystics are rarely members of
a fundamentalist group.

The second group, arguably the true bedrock of
organized religion is the mainline religious. There are
mainline denominations, including the major Methodist,
Episcopal and Presbyterian churches, and mainline
individuals within denominations and groups that are
predominantly mystic or predominantly Fundamental.
Mainline religious place tradition and positive texts
above personal experience and absolute interpretation
of texts. Mainline religious typically consider the
responsibility to feed the hungry and cloth the naked as
being more important than the duty taken on by
fundamentalism to convert the masses.

Fundamentalist groups, including most Baptist, most
Church of God, and independent Church of Christ,
place text before experience or tradition. Typically,
within these Christian denominations, Jesus has
replaced the G-d of the Old Testament as “Lord.”
Mystical experience is viewed with great distrust except
for conversion and healing experiences which are
encouraged and celebrated. Likewise, mainline religion
is often ridiculed by fundamentalist as lukewarm or
merely social religion. Historically, fundamentalist have
seen the missionary duty as primarily one of
conversion.

The knowledge most individuals have of the groups
they are not part of is very limited. Often intentionally
so. Some groups are proudly, and sometimes
belligerently, ignorant. Fundamentalist often home
school, not to provide a better education for their
children, but to insulate them from such things as
modern science and non-fundamentalist classmates and
instructors. Frequently the depth of their elected
narrow way includes embracing a particular version of
sacred text to the exclusion of all other translations.
Mainline denominations are viewed as of dubious
authenticity and members of mainline denominations
are often viewed as not fully Christian.

Mainline religious tend to embrace secular education,
including higher education for men and women.
Mainline religious often view fundamentalist with
either alarm or with blind acceptance of them as fellow
Christians with similar beliefs. Mainliners rarely
indulge in absolutism, which is the hallmark of
fundamentalism.

Mystics are more often a result of nature, as opposed to
nurture, and may find themselves in seemingly unlikely
places. The most beautiful of these unlikely places may
be the Hasidic community. Hasidic Jews are
fundamentalist (within their individual groups) in their
absolute rules and views of food, charity, observance,
ritual and practice. They also are mystical in their
individual relationships to G-d. Hasidic celebrations
have a palatable sense of the numinous and of joy
which I believe is the result of mystical experience
within the framework of fundamentalist life style.
Because they span the entire spectrum of religious type
they also include mainline belief and form, although the
middle ground is in this case, the least prominent.

Patriotic Chores, Mud and Ignorance

2006-11-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

I went to the polls and cast my vote. Spouse went also. It has not
really stopped raining here since some time during the night.
Rossville is usually red, and if I had to guess today’s outcome in
here, it probably will be today as well. Maybe my bit of blue will at
least make it a little purple.

I wish I could have gone to Tennessee to vote AGAINST
CORKER. He was bad enough as a mayor, but in this campaign
he has really proved to be a weasely spoiler. Some of his ads were
racist, sexually loaded and just plain low down. And his mother! If
my mother looked as mean as she does I would certainly not parade
her around like I still lived under her skirt. He kept his sweet
looking wife under wraps until the 11th hour, wonder why?

Thank anyone who listens that tonight I won’t hear, “and I
approved this ad”.

Because of the rain, I took care of my pets this morning and got
good and muddy as my reward. The chickens don’t care about
weather, they just want grub and fresh water. My old hen, Betty,
was fussing around waiting on her clean water while Sarah, the
child of Betty, was anxious for some good organic sprouted bread.
Bentley, the old roo, was just strutting around. Bentley, is no brain
surgeon. Max Spangle, the half grown child of Betty and Bentley,
had already cleaned up the ear of corn spouse gave him last night
and was crowing and posturing and doing the head bob. Max lives
in solitary confinement, only temporarily until the new hens come in
the spring, because his father tried to murder him (after successfully
killing his oldest son). The dogs are always, without fail, horrified
and shocked that I FEED chickens. Clearly, they both think
chickens are low and meant only to be chased and eaten.

A client’s ex-wife came by to threaten me. I had to do a QDRO so
she could get some of hubby’s retirement account and she thinks
that because she does not yet have her check that I am “holding it
up for him”. Ha ha, nothing could be further from the truth. I had
dropped everything else to get her Order back out in the mail when
the revisions came in. See if I worry about it much now. She was
so abusive and threatening that I locked the door when she left. Of
course she was yelling all the way to the parking lot. People almost
never understand how long it takes to get Orders through. What
kills me though, is why they think any professional would “hold
their case up” for any sort of personal reason. WE DON’T CARE.
We want to finish the work in proper and orderly manner, close the
file and move on.

Near Misses or Missed Chances

2006-10-19T07:35:00.001-07:00

THIS I BELIEVE: There are tests in our lives which may pass
unnoticed. But how we react may well change the course of our
days.

Yesterday, early, a man in late middle age, with a cane and a limp,
came through my front door. His story was simple, after 37 years
of marriage, his wife was leaving him. I wanted to help him. But
he lives in Tennessee, and we don’t practice there. So I showed
him the office across the way where a Tennessee lawyer works. He
wanted me to drive over there with him, but I could not leave the
office unattended. Plus, I don’t get in cars with strange men. The
stairs were clearly a problem for him so I let him go out my back
door so he could go down a ramp instead of the stairs. I saw him
emerge safely from the bottom of the ramp, then I forgot him.

Later, I got the bank deposit ready, left spouse in charge of the
phone and went to the bank. There was no line and I was back on
the cross street in no time. One car was in front of me waiting for
the light to change. The light changed, at one time I saw the car
brake lights go off and a truck coming in the opposite direction hit
the white line and lock it up. The truck hit the front of the car,
knocking much of the front end off. I stopped and parked in the
road to see if I could help, but the driver of the truck was already
checking on the car and calling the police. So I got in my car and
returned to the office. Once there I called the police station and left
my name in case a witness was needed. As it turns out, I was. The
truck driver said that the car ran the light, not him. So I said, yes
you can list me on the report, and no that is not what happened.

Much later, spouse had gone and I was alone in the office once
more. I heard a key in the door and thought spouse had come
back. When the door did not open I went to it and opened it. It
was not spouse. The man jumped into a white truck, slammed it in
reverse, then squealed down the ramp. The back door is remote, I
am usually the only one parked there, I almost always keep the
door locked and no one could see if something happened back
there.

Be as wise as a serpent, as gentle as a dove. Easier said then
done. Maybe I should have disregarded my safety rules and driven
the man across the street. Maybe if I had I would be dead now. If
I had been the first car at the light and not the second, I might me
dead or injured now, or maybe I would have seen the truck in time,
or been looking off into space and missed the light turn and nothing
would have happened. If the back door had not been locked, the
man could have come in. Clearly nothing good could have come of
that.

So, did I have a day of barely escaping disaster? Or did I, by
helping the man in the morning a little bit, avoid death in the
evening?

The Sea, the Primordial Sea

2006-10-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

Last night I returned from the sea. I watched the sun come up over
the ocean. I saw the sky run from indigo to silver, passing through
orange, red, golden, turquoise, aqua, blue to silver white. The
colors suffused the water and the breaking waves were rainbows.
Pelicans flew against the sky and the early morning sand pipers
started their dance in and out of the foam. I walked into the
primordial waters and felt as if I was the beach, the lightening sky,
the birds, the waves, the deep.

I think that if I were with the sea as I am daily with my green world,
the last of my fears and ego would wash away and I would be left
pure and empty. On the beach there is no other reality then the
crashing never ending beginning of the world.

Office Spaces

2006-10-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

Some offices seem to have an almost
unlimited ability to absorb furniture
and furnishings. The office I worked
in from 1989 to 2003 was one of
those. We had 1600 square feet
broken down into one huge private
office with private bath and two 14
by 12 foot offices. There was a large
secretarial area, a large waiting room,
a storage room and one more bath.
The hallway was large enough for
bookcases and some narrow tables.

Over the years I was there, furniture
came and a few pieces, a very few,
left. The boss loved antiques and
auctions. I had prints, plants, chairs
and bowls of potpourri. We all had
books, thousands of books. There
were lamps on every table and desk
together with ashtrays, magnifying
glasses and coffee cups. The walls
were covered in prints and paintings.

It sounds crowded, but it wasn’t. It
was the American version of the
English country barrister look. It
was warm, comforting and
established. Clients loved it and it
certainly made the long hours we
worked a little easier.

Later I worked in a CPA office that
had a more current style. There were
no antiques and no substantial
furniture. It looked nice enough
when it was clean, which was
virtually never. The rest of the time
it was overflowing with papers and
files and tatty brown envelopes. It
was not an emotionally comfortable
place and lacked a sense of the
wholesomeness of my previous
environment.

Now, in my own space, I try to
achieve the generous, accumulated
feel of the old place without going
the old boy route. As an old girl, I
really prefer lighter colors, flowers
and light to tobacco brown, dark
wood and closed blinds. Much of my
waiting room and my office are done
in leftovers from my house. It looks
nice for visitors and feels good to me.

The waiting room has a pair of french
wing chairs, a plain console table,
plants, potpourri, magazines, throw
pillows and bird prints. I am going to
add a few good straight chairs when I
can find some that suit.

My office has a antique knee hole
desk, a midcentury modern credenza,
a gate-leg table, a bookcase, a pair of
club chairs with needlepoint throw
pillows, candles, plants, lamps and
more potpourri, Impressionist prints
on canvas and scads of botanical
prints, many vintage. There is a huge
cloisonne bowl, a Chinese porcelain
stool and lots of books.

I am gearing up to redo the “manly
office” in the back. Dark greeney
black walls (no windows) very old
oak desk, oak bookcases, antique
British side chairs in dark dull wood
and worn brown leather, antique
brass lamp, dark original oil
paintings, a 400 year old chair from
Wales and some Chinese export
porcelain. In this case the “redo”
consists of actually painting the walls.
It’s a huge job, since half the walls
are paneled in that nasty 70's stuff
and half are painted burgundy. I
might also slipcover the ugly black
modern desk chair with a dark
tapestry style cover.

Offices offer an opportunity to
provide employees and clients with a
comfortable supportive environment.
Antiques, traditional art and healthy
plants and books counter the
flourescent lights and technology
necessary to operate a business.

Chicken Fighting

2006-10-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

Recently there have been victorious accounts of chicken fights raided, arrests and EUTHANIZED birds.

Now, like most of you, I don't hold with organized animal fighting. The little bit that accidently occurs is bad enough. I do eat eggs, lots of chicken and some beef. I bet you do to. This may sound like I can't string a paragraph together, but stay with me here and reserve judgement for a minute.

In the US, we raise MILLIONS of birds for eggs and meat. Most of these MILLIONS live in horrible conditions and are badly stressed. The stress is so bad that hens are culled when they finish their laying cycle. At that time many are thin, wounded and often have broken bones. Meat birds live an even more horrible life. They are breed to mature so fast that their legs cannot keep up with their weight. Again they are badly overcrowed, stressed and then killed at 6 to 12 weeks. That's right, weeks.

So the hens make it to about the first birthday and the little meat birds might make it to 12 weeks (most do not). At no time in their short lives do they recieve decent treatment. Do some research on it if you don't beleive me.

Of course, some organic or free range egg producers do a little better. But again few keep hens longer then a year or two and little roos in a commercial production setting never see their first birthday.

Now, hobby and exhibition breeders keep birds, often for years. Some hens live to be more than 10 years and some lay, in a reduced capacity, for many many years after the first molt. Some keep a special roo as long as it lives. But even so, most baby roos of all breeds, kept for any purpose, are culled. That means, gentle reader, that most are killed.

The next fact about chickens is that roosters fight. All breeds, commerical and otherwise. Some are better at it then others. But mature roosters, of any breed, cannot, except for the rare exception, be kept together with out serious, often fatal results.

The second fact about chickens is that some chickens, again we are really talking roosters, will "fight" humans. These mean birds are found in all breeds. In fact, white leghorns, a breed heavily used to create commercial egg layers, are often considered the nastiest of roosters. Game bird roosters are no more prone to people hating then any other breed. Bird to bird aggression is no indicator of bird-human agression.

Now, consider the gamecock. His owner knows his genetic history back for generations. The bird could well represent a particular line kept in the owners family for multiple generations. The hens often run loose or in a semi free range. No one kills them when they molt. Some of the little roos don't make the grade, they go the way of most little roos all over the world. BUT A GOOD MANY get to grow up and have a life. They are lovingly cared for, protected, known as individuals. It is safe to say the greatest numbers of senior roosters in the United States belong to gamecock breeders. Hobby owners, like me, might keep a favorite rooster as a pet, but we don't indivdually have numbers of mature adult roosters.

It is nuts to say that the deplorable conditions commercial birds are kept in and the short brutal lives of most male chickens is ok, but that a three year old healthy rooster should be killed because it is a gamecock.

I think that if you asked the bird, would you prefer to be born in an incubator, raised in a box and when you are eight weeks old hung upside down and your throat cut OR born in a pen with a mother, live a bit scratching around and learning to crow, then get sent to live on a tether or in a roomy pen for a year or so, then maybe die in a chicken fight, or maybe live on to be a papa and watch the seasons change and the sun come up and the sun go down... Well which would you choose?

Some days are not diamonds

2006-10-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Spouse did not have to work today. So I spent early morning with him, not peaceful, not quiet. He likes to talk in the morning, I do not. Then he found out that a big project he has been working on has completely blown up, never to be realized. He is devestated. I am unhappy for him. He is defensive and sharp when he is upset, so I am walking on eggshells again, which doesn't work because it makes him think I am keeping something from him. He is a totally lovely man. Sweet and usually charming. Generous to a fault, kind, funny, protective. But when he is unhappy, love is not enough to cheer him.

My bifocals will not be ready for another week, which means I will not have them when I leave for Florida next Friday. At least I have the driving glasses, I can see the ocean even if the lunch menu is blurry. Actually I exaggerate. I can read the menu next week just like I do now, glasses off, paper three inches from my nose. Good thing I type without looking.

So, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Looking at Posts

2006-10-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a lot of typos, spelling errors and qustionable grammer. I would never send out a letter or pleading so full of mistakes. But here, it feels safe to just type. Probably an error in thought process, but it feels nice for now.

Also I am struck by how pleased I seem with the daily round of nature. I actually am that way. The sweetest part of most days is the early morning hour I sit in the living room with my coffee and my cat watching the world wake up. In that hour, the room goes from almost full dark to light enough to read small print without a lamp. The birds sing and flit around just beyond the big window. In the last half of my happy hour squirels play in the dogwoods outside the small windows and the crows have their morning business meeting. The cars, people talking as they walk, school bus and children's noises, dogs barking and the occassional very loud boom thump a lump from a passing auto take nothing away from the bluebirds and maple tree.

Day in and day out, rain and shine, cold and heat, spring green, fall's gold, winter frost, I watch them all. A few years ago I had a crisis, a serious one. The kind that makes your doctor prescribe antidepressents and make counseling and hospital noises. I flushed the prozac after I read the insert and just started sitting with myself in my living room. At first, I had to read to sit, but now I can just be there. I don't think about anything much, no life review, no mental juggling of bills, no rehashing of old arguments. I just sit, and look. Over time I got better. Crisis passed, life went on. I suppose its a little like mediatation, which I never could stick with for long.

Just so, I also have a morbid streak. I am able to see the dangerous bad thing lurking around any corner. You can put an eye out with a paper airplane. Ask my mother, ask my sons. Everyone knows this. I had a bad few days of chest pain a while back and all I could think of was how awful it would be to die with the kitchen half painted. I have an irrational fear of leaving things undone. I would prefer to know the exact moment I will die so I can be sure to have the house dusted, the yard mowed, all the laundry put away and the checkbook balanced.

Spouse believes that he is more or less immortal, a view I tend to not share, McClouds excepted. Last week I was bothered by the idea that if he died before me, and if his parents were still alive, they would want to take him back to the horrid place he sprang from and bury him in cold ground where the sun would not shine. See, morbid. Happy but morbid.

Morning Fog

2006-10-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

The fog is so thick today, even now at mid morning, that the world disappears just past my fingertips. For some reason it makes spider webs strung between trees, shrubs and house more visable. Chickens did not start the suns up crow fest until about 8:00 and then cut it short, maybe the fog confuses them. It is lovely. Maybe not on the scale of the first hard frost or the first good snow, but certainly as nice as thick sparkling dew on spring crocus or moonlight on still water.

Chicken Stuff

2006-10-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

While little beta roo was out yesterday baby alpha roo acted most distressed. When they were reunited they were the picture of brotherly love. By 6:00 pm alpha roo decided maybe a litte interfamily murder would be in order. Little beta roo was plucked out and put in a third pen, all alone, and a little bloodied. This morning all was well, except beta roo's comb is flopped over and one eye is swollen shut. Otherwise all is well. Such is the life of chickens.

Tiny Bird

2006-10-03T06:51:00.000-07:00

This morning I propped the front door of the office open. Shortly thereafter a sparrow flew in. Sparrow will not fly out. He has been all over the office, on every picture frame, bookcase and bowl. He has pooped on a file, no problem. Right now he is resting on a basket rim, on the floor. I have closed the blinds so he will not bash his little brains out on the glass and have closed off the rear of the building so he cannot disappear there. He looked very dear perched on my reading chair, and neatly clever looking down from the bookcase. But he needs to go now and rejoin his tribe. Fingers crossed. Worst case scenerio, I have to wait for him to roost tonight then put him out. But if I do, where? On a pine branch, on a shrub, where does he usually sleep?

Ho Ho Ho. The phone rang, the wee one took off for the lobby. Then he saw the wide open door and away he went!

A very good weekend, chickens, strange calls and sadness

2006-10-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well, R finally fixed my account so I can get in. (I have been locked out through a goof of mine for the past week or so) On Saturday I got up, finished the painting I was working on, put a coat of primer on the armoire, took a shower, went to the art store with R, then on to the Hunter. We stayed at the Hunter until they closed. R made some photographs, including one of me I liked. From there we went to visit Mom then I rushed home to rendevous with spouse to go the Barking Legs to the Diana Jones and Jonathan Byrd show. It was great! When we got home at 11:00 p.m. I painted most of a new acrylic work on the sheet of black illustration board I had bought that morning. THE BEST DAY I HAVE HAD IN A REALLY LONG TIME. I spent the entire day, from waking until sleeping doing exactly what I wanted. Maybe a first.

On Sunday I finished the acrylic painting, painted the armoire, painted two iron stands, cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom. I did not make the bed, or cook lunch, or go to the store or anything I ususally do on Sunday. I listened to my new Diana Jones CD and the Jonathan Byrd CD. A very good day.

But when I went to bed last night I was still sad. I had not seen my oldest favorite son and my favorite daugther. I have not seen them in a few weeks and I miss them alot. Hopefully I can think of something nice to fix for lunch next week and lure them off their mountaintop for a few hours.

This morning, I accidently let the baby beta roo out. It only took me ten minutes to catch him. (Betty took 45 minutes the last time she escaped) The babies weigh about what a big dove does and are just about too cute. Imagine a bright colorful rooster, complete with big high tail and bright red comb. Imagine him strutting and crowing and acting like he is the biggest animal in the barnyard. Now imagine him 8 inches tall. Enough said.

Today I had a string of strange, unsettling and unprofitable phone calls. A man who has a human squatter in his storage building. A woman with a bankruptcy problem in another state. So on and so forth, ALL DAY LONG. I rushed out and got Chinese take out, wolfed it down and chewed between phone calls.

Saturday night, Diana Jones sang one of her songs that just slayed me. She attributes the idea to a statement Aniais Nin made about William Blake "He was cracked, thats how the light got out".

Here it is:

CRACKED AND BROKEN

I want to know you, know where you've been
Know how you came through
The sound of your voice, your original sin
Where we are is where we begin

Cracked and broken and beautiful
Cracked and broken that's how the light shines through
Cracked and broken and beautiful

I want to see you
In the full of the morning, in the last of the evening
Unfurled and uncovered
And in the same light I want you to see me

Cracked and broken and beautiful
Cracked and broken, that's how the light shines through
Cracked and broken and beautiful

And I want to feel where our edges are rough
What our corners are made of
Where you and I start, where we both come apart
And where we both come together again

Cracked and broken and beautiful
Cracked and broken, that's how the light shines through
Cracked and broken and beautiful

When china breaks
It's never the same
When I felt your love
My heart became

Cracked and broken and beautiful
Cracked and broken, that's how the light shines through
Cracked and broken and beautiful
Beautiful.

Diana Jones / Yar Jones Music / ASCAP

AMEN.

Evanescence

2006-09-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Rosh Hashanna is the day G-d decides who will live and who will die during the comming year. Each year it smacks me with my mortality. Far worse, it reminds me of the mortality of those I love. It reminds me that my determination to live is only part of the equation. Rather I will be here next year hinges not only on my taking care, but of others also, and G-d. My beta blockers and salt boycott will not save me from a drunk driver or lightening. Enough sleep is no protection against a gun or even cancer. Worse, my prayers, heartfelt and frequent, may not protect my others from those terrible things.

There is a story of a Rabbi who wrote on a slip of paper, I AM BUT DUST AND ASHES; on a second slip he wrote FOR ME THE WHOLE WORLD WAS CREATED. Each morning he placed one slip in his left pocket and the other in his right. On days he felt low, ineffective, unloved, sad he pulled out the slip that reminded him that "For me the whole world was created". On days he felt cocky, confident, invinciable he drew out the other slip and rememebered that "I am but dust and ashes".

Both are true. We are but dust in the wind, energy that goes from form to form, flesh that feeds fires and tulips. Yet, each of us is a unique individual who has never been here before, that will never appear again. Each of us is as precious as any of us. For us the world was made. For us the sky is blue, trees green, birdsong sweet.

On Rash Hashanna G-d weighs us, and decides...

Who by fire?
Who by water?
Who in the sunshine?
Who in the night time?
Who by high ordeal?
Who by common trial?
Who in your merry, merry month of May?
Who by very slow decay?
And who shall I say is calling?

Who in her lonely slip?
Who by barbiturate?
Who in these realms of love?
Who by something blunt?
Who by avalacnche?
Who by powder?
Who for his greed?
Who for his hunger?
And who shall I say is calling?

Who by brave ascent?
Who by accident?
Who in solitude?
Who in this mirror?
Who by his lady's command?
Who by his own hand?
Who in mortal chains?
Who in power?
And who shall I say is calling?

L. Cohen

Belly Rings and Mennonites

2006-09-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

A few years back, bellies started showing up. Here a belly there a belly. Unsually the bellies were flat and very young. That combination, even with Cleopatra eyeliner, failed to break the illusion of stupid (umm...innocent)youth. They were just too cute.

My sister, mother of young girls, complained bitterly about them. I defended them. We, I said, used to go about in skirts up to our cracks. We were young and cute then and they are young and cute now. So there!

But over time, more bellies came out, child bellies, not so good. Someone dressed them, just exactly what for is a mystery to me. Older bellies, some with stretch marks and wrinkles, some with belly rings, some with visable hair! I closed my mouth and wished that they would buy a mirror. Then pregnant bellies, some of them with belly rings. Then at last fat bellies and even one senior belly. Have all the mirrors in the land been broken?

Now stretch marks and wrinkles, babies and fat are all part of life and a lovely part at that. But not on public display; framed by low rider jeans and boobs.

Then I met, under sad circumstances, a different girl, young, trim, lovely. She had on "plain dress", a clean face and shinning hair in a long braid down her back. She was confident, well spoken, polite. In my heart, I knew that she was what American girls could be. I felt some little grief for what we have robbed ourselves and our daughters of.

My mother said that American culture and society quickly began to falter when men stopped wearing hats. It wasn't the hats of course. It was the habbit of taking them off indoors and tipping them to women that constantly reminded men of the division between indoor and outdoor life.

The bellies alone are neutral. A belly is just a belly. Fat or flat, wrinkled or smooth, with our without piercings. But the mind is not neutral. Without dignity sufficent to prevent it from putting the belly on display in the public arena it probably lacks dignity sufficent to produce and maintain a citizen, a mother, a wife. A dear friend summed it up thusly: Ain't she got no pride?

Sometimes All I Need...

2006-09-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

Lovely weekend. For me it started Friday noon. I close up early so I can go to the Hunter for a few hours of volunteer work. Happy happy I am.

Saturday I felt yucky, but the sky was blue and nothing much called me. Later the favorite oldest boy and favorite only daughter came over to visit. Happy happy I am.

Sunday morning I finished "Joan". Not so good, but hey, not horrible either. In the afternoon favorite youngest son came to see me, went to Mom's, looked at stacks of old family books. Ate cookies, bad girl. Visited the New Moon Gallery, lovely, lovely, smells so good. Bought a hemp bag and a CD. Went home, cooked cornish game hens and rice pudding. Finished West novel. Thought deep thoughts, Happy happy I am.

Morning Has Broken

2006-09-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

Blackbird has spoken on the new day.

This morning when I woke the dark was diluted enough for the gentle grayed greens and browns to show against the skies dawning blue. In the quietness I drank my coffee and was content. It seemed that this moment was eternity. The sky lightened, the crows had an early morning rally, and my tree became sharply visable. And still I was content. When the morning was solid I fed the fish and the chickens, took my shower, dressed for the day, and still I was content. Now at the office, the lights on, the blinds raised, the plants watered and the phone answered I am still content.

Today is the day that the Lord has made, let me rejoice and be glad in it.

Summer's Passing

2006-09-06T06:19:00.000-07:00

Since I had to write about the extreme heat this summer, I will now balance out the moaning by saying that the weather is wonderful! Cool at night, nice at noon, still bearable at 3:00, sweet sweet sweet.

Now that fall is around the bend I have started my annual autumn program of getting my flora and fauna ready for winter. The dogs get a cup more food each evening and heartworm preventive (ivermectin) every two or three weeks instead of once a month. I also use a second broad spectrum wormer in mid October and after the second or third frost. The old dog gets additional bedding now and the younger dog gets deep bedded when the nights are in the 40's. This chickens will get one more good cleaning of the roost right after the first frost. The window in the coop will be closed when the nights get in the low 40's. The roof vents stay open all winter, no matter the cold. I add starchy vegtables to their diet, defrosted frozen peas and corn mostly. The pond fish get fed morning and evening until the water is too cold. In late September I switch to a special fall/spring food that won't rot in them if the temps drop. We take the floating plants out of the pond and trim back some of the overhanging branches in a mostly symbolic effort to reduce the amount of leaves that fall in it. Cat just gets wormed. He lives in the house, and eats as much as wants all year. Except for one more round of flea drops and a worming there is nothing to be done for him.

Houseplants are another matter. Some need to be repotted before they come in. In early October I will spend most of an otherwise good Saturday trying to decide where to keep them all during the winter. The bulk of the issue involves two huge pots of split leaf philos that take up entire blocks of whatever room they are in.

Fall also makes me happy because I can open doors and windows, turn off the AC, and pretend that I live in a simpler more primitive time. It takes me a while to get used to the absence of AC noise, especially at night, so I do keep the vintage style table fans on, at least until it actually gets cold. This year I would very much like to have a nice clothes line in the back yard. There is not much nicer than fresh line dried sheets.

I am not sorry to see summer going, even though it means that I have used up one of my alloted seasons. The heat was bad, I had some upheaval in my life mostly caused by mid life, my business partner left for a job, I only finished one painting (and it nothing special). I have been plagued by headaches and joint pain and too much sitting. Autumn always makes me happy in a pleasant bitter sweet sort of way. I have activities that I anticipate with great pleasure and glee for every season except summer. Summer I just endure. Goodby summer.

Durer - Self Portrait with fur coat, 1500

2006-08-31T09:14:00.000-07:00

For over a month now I have been obsessed with this portrait. I have it on my work table in the studio and I look at it many times each day. Despite the fact that the painting is over 500 years old, and Durer himself only dust, I feel that he could come through the door any moment. Where the door is, and who actually walks through it is another question. It is as if the distance between us is an illusion and that he is telling me the key, if only I will hear.

It is easy to say that his facial hair and some features are like my spouses. Or that his eyes look somewhat like my own. Easy to say that the picture is painted in an iconic Christ like manner. But that is too simple. Durer painted more into this portrait then an image.

Click on the image above and maybe you will see what I see.

A Woman's Heart

2006-08-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

My heart is low
My heart is so low
As only a woman's heart can be

Knowing What We Are

2006-08-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that the knowing of oneself is of the greatest importance. But the knowing must be relative to age, experience and introspection. At twenty I thought I knew myself, but I was only on the road. I was beginning to process options and with the beginning of each new viewpoint or project I felt like this is it, this is who I am. Then when I moved on to something else I thought, well that was not really me, but this is. I was painting some then, watercolor and ink mostly. I was reading everthing still, without much descrmination and with a solid preference for fiction. I went to church and over a number of years filled various roles in that context, I taught Sunday School, served on commitees, sang in the choir.

About 25 I stopped painting, I did not believe that I would ever attain enough technical skill to be anything but a Sunday painter. Over the next years I went to school, changed religious focus, started reading non-fiction in earnest. Then I entered the adult workforce in a serious sort of way and only read legal and religious material. Those were happy years that gave me a break from feeling like a failure. Then at about 33 I had mastered my work and needed more, again I shifted religious focus and added photography and design to my life.

At forty I started painting again. My religious focus changed again and I started reading fiction again in small doses. At forty five I was still painting, no longer feeling that I could not master technique, reading deeply still in design, and with a modified, though not totally changed religious focus.

Now, the modified religious focus is pretty solid, the painting is going very well, the reading is mostly art.

So at twenty I would have said "I am an artist, I am a liberal christian, I read".
At twenty five or so I would have said "I am a christian, I study, I read".
Then at twenty nine I wiould have said "I am a paralegal, I read for my work".
At thirty three I would say "I am a photographer, I am a pagan, I read"
At forty I would say "I paint, I study color and design, I am B'nai Noch"
At forty five I would say "I am a painter, I look at and study art, I am a religous person"

Now, I say simply "I am a painter"

So, I did know what I was at each stage, but I was still learning and trying things on. Even now, I cannot say with any faith that in ten years I will still say "I am a painter". I don't see it now, but maybe then I will say "I am a sculpter" or "I write graphic novels". At twenty I did not see where I would be now, but looking back I can see how everything that came before directly formed what I am now.

Not Sent For

2006-08-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

My business partner has been poached by a competing firm. She is giving up her own space, a certain level of control and smoking indoors for a JOB. A regular salary, benefits etc. I am happy for her, but also not. I can keep up with the work load, and my income will increase, BUT... I will be up here in the tower by myself most of the time. I will miss her.

Change is in fact, sometimes evil. Despite this I am sure that it will work out well for both of us.

Changes

2006-08-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

Until this week I would have argued to the end of my endurance that violence, war, environmental destruction, cruelty to animals and general ugliness were the result of individual error that could be corrected, in time, by individual love and individual example.

I believed that the choice of an individual to live an ethical, kind, creative life that did not place excess burden on others or the environment had a lasting, benefical effect that extended beyond that persons circle of influence. I actually believed that if enough people became ethical, kind, creative and tolerant that the mass of goodness would tip the overall scale to goodness and that it would become the norm worldwide.

I was wrong. No norm of goodness will stop a Saddam, a Bush, a Hitler. There is no personal error in their thinking. They simply want what they want, at any cost to other life. They are not acting to make a better world, but to make a world that is shaped to their image.

A better world is a place with low infant mortality, enough to eat, clean water and air, sovernity over our lives, equal access to reasonable health care and education for all. A better world is a place where the streets are safe and old people cherished. A better world is within reach, except for the wolves among us. They want power, and our "better world" is something they gladly forfiet to acquire it.

Still, an ethical, kind, creative life, allows us to achieve personal growth and to build families and communities that are peaceful and tolerant. But the sheep and goats among us must acknowledge that wolves do not belong in our midst, that no matter how tame we believe they are they will eat us to satisfy their hunger, and worse, they will kill us just because they want to.

Happy Birthday to Me

2006-07-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

On Sunday my favorite oldest son and my favorite daughter had me and spouse, mom and favorite youngest son over for my birthday. Eldest son grilled burgers, Mom baked a cake and Youngest Son gave me an IPod. The burgers were great, the cake was fab and the IPod is way cool. I especially like the way it looks, all smooth and white and slim.

I was, and I still am, so grateful for my wonderful kids and my husband and Mom. Events like birthdays make me much happier then they did when I was young. Nothing really seems ho-hum or ordinary.

Betty, the BB Red OE Bantam hen, hatched four babies on the morning of the 15th. All four are still doing well, looks like they are all little roos though, so they will eventually have to go to other homes. They are about the cutest things ever, really tiny and alert. Bentley, the Roo, thinks it is his job to watch them very carefully. He tries to squeeze under Betty's wings with the little ones, but she isn't having it. Poor Bentley. Nonetheless he does seem very proud.

All in all, a most satisfactory day.

Dreamland

2006-07-12T07:41:00.000-07:00

I have recently suffered from extreme fatigue, body pain and cloudy thinking. This following a period of intense "spring cleaning", consuming sugar and having house guests for days who had to be fed three cooked complete meals a day and enertained to boot.

I am stating this prior to disclosing the strange dream so as to make it clear I am not jumping to any conclusions.

Sunday night I went to bed as usual, tossed and turned, laid semi awake for a time and finally entered some fitful state of sleep. Then the dream...Our old office had an open ledged window between the waiting room and the reception room. In the dream I was on the reception side and Speedy (names not changed to protect the deceased) was on the other. He looked just like he did when he was alive, it was four in the afternoon and his hair was rumpled, tie loose and the neck of his shirt askew. He was wearing the gray pinstrip suit and in his hand was his favorite fountain pen. (lost years before he died) He was wearing his gold Micky Mouse watch and the blue and red stripped tie. He was reading a pleading I had just finished. I was suddenly aware that he was dead (though he was standing before me live). I said softly, "Speedy, you aren't supposed to be here". He looked at me, then past me, his face black with anger. Then I was awake. I knew that I had been in my original office and had been working.

Now, maybe I was exhausted from the sugar, pain, stress and housework. And maybe it was because I had been working all night for who knows how long in an office long ago dismantled for a beloved boss long dead. But on Monday night I went to bed at 9:00 and last night I was in bed at 8:00. I feel much better. Maybe several days off sugar, anti-inflamatories and staying in bed 10 hours is the key to my recovery. Maybe it is just not working the graveyard shift.

And Speedy, one day I will be as you are now and we can get back to the work we loved.

46 On

2006-06-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

46. I strive to be even tempered and non judgmental. I often fail.

47. The first human baby I ever held was mine.

48. I am grumpy when I am in pain or sick.

49. I get aggravated when my coworkers do not seem to get even the simplest and most obvious of ethical issues.

50. I am a pain in the ass to live with.

51. I love to have parties. I like everyone to hang out and just chat and nibble.

52. Part of what I love about my spouse is that he says these outrageous, dastardly, terrible things. He never does dastardly, terrible things. Somethimes he is a little outrageous. My oldest boy, D, (age 29), also says dastardly, terrible and outrageous things. He does not do dastardly, terrible things. He does do outrageous things. If I had not had 18 years of D before meeting spouse, I probably would have been afraid to get involved with him.

53. I think HumVees are not just anti-American but are anti-human.

54. I am emotionally attached to my trees.

55. I have an entire closet just for paint cans and project supplies.

Long Hot Summer

2006-06-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

In the South, June is summer, not spring. We expect June to be warm. Now warm means from about 80 to 90. It is hot from 90 on up. Starting at 96 it is f*#%)*! hot. Summer is supposed to be warm or hot. A little bit of f*#%)*! hot is ok in August, in fact most of August is that very thing.

This year we are having July weather in June. No rain for about 3 weeks, daytime temps running 92-94. Too hot too soon. Following patterns this means that this year might be the one in about 15 we have with a string of days over 100. When that happens it is about all we talk about.

"Hot enough for you"? we ask, as if the heat had melted our brains. "Could be worse" is often the answer. Could it be? Really? Everyone gets heat headaches. People die. Yes really, they do, they die.

A few years ago it rained every single day in August. It was over 95 every one of those days. Steam poured up from roofs and roads. My decking got slimy and green. The grass in the front yard was waist high. The humidity was so high the AC units could not keep the interior levels under 70%. Crepe Myrtles keep blooming like demented plants from the Amazon. The kudzu was amazing. It grew across phone lines and secondary roads. I think I may have seen an anaconda in the pool. When we started growing webs between our toes I thought maybe we had all died and been sent to an alternate reality version of hell.

So thats how it is. Too hot, too dry or too wet. Too muggy, too much.

But I have been to the perfect summer, the summer of novels and movies, the summer of beaches and sunshine and breezes. Now I am going to close my eyes and pretend I am in Montauk. The sun is pure and the light is crystal clear. The sand is hot but the sea is cool. A breeze lifts my clothing from my skin and whips my hair into my face. Gulls wheel and call above me. I open my eyes and look out, water to the end of the world. Paradise.

100 Things - starting at 30

2006-06-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

30. I love to look at the inside of other people's houses.

31. I have enough stuff to do most of my house in at least 3 different styles.

32. My house is very old and not in anything like perfect square. The floors tilt a bit everywhere and a great deal in one room. The windows must have been set in the walls by someone with vertigo. The oak floors are much worn. I love it.

33. I LOVE movies!

34. When I was little I was afraid I would run out of new books to read.

35. I am afraid I will miss reading something really great.

36. I am very pleased with the adults my children became.

37. I like to take the same route to the same places everytime I drive.

38. I tried diligently to be a witch but after three years gave it up because the theology was too thin.

39. I think of God as Goddess as often as not. Mostly God seems less describable and less personal and less particular to me with each passing year.

40. I belive that if you invite something in, something will come in. It probably will not be something you want.

41. I belive that the book of Genesis contains the secrets of creation. I believe that the "dust of the earth" from which we were reportedly created was actually the exsisting natural humanoid on earth at the time.

42. I belive that angel DNA did enter the human gene pool and that it is still present.

43. The older I get the fewer things I regret.

44. Sometimes when I see myself naked in a mirror, I laugh.

45. When I was young I wanted long nails. Now they get too long and I cut them off.

100 Things continued

2006-06-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

14. Reading A History of God by Karen Armstrong made me face the fact that in my life I have not had one single original idea about God. This is despite the sad truth that I have used about 20% of my cognitive life so far in that pursuit.

15. I am often so caught up in the moment that I forget everything else.

16. I wish my extended family... well somethings don't bear telling.

17. I have chronic bowl disease that is unpleasant, inconvienant and sometimes painful. I live around it. Not many people know how bad it is because I don't talk about it much.

18. I have essential hypertension that I control with medication. Recently when my doc was f****** with my meds he took me off beta blockers. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I also learned that the nice Zen state I can achieve for a few hours here and there may be more dependant on chemical beta blockers then my years of diligent practice.

19. My former mother in law is a reincarnated Buddhist Monk. She does not know this. She thinks she is a Methodist.

20. I watched my father die over a three year period. He was sent home with hospice and a prognosis of 8 weeks or so, maybe even 12 weeks. He never got any better. Every few months he would get noticably worse. For more then three years my mother was almost never away from his side. She slept on the floor next to him. She cooked for him anytime he would eat. At the end we were there. For days we slept in fitfull restless shifts and lived in a world focused on every single ragged breath he made. I was shocked at how long and hard he held on. Despite the years of knowing he was going to die, despite the often rocky nature of our relationship, despite watching with him and sometimes for him against death I was broken by grief when he died.

21. I did not learn to read until I was in the third grade. At the end of fourth grade I was testing at the 12th grade level in reading. My spelling is not great. My vocabulary is large. I sight read. Somewhere in the mix the spelling part of my brain did not completly kick in.

22. I think K.D. Lang is hot.

23. I loved Sally Mann's early work. Most of her new stuff is just so-so.

24. I painted nudes for about 2 years. I am always, unfailingly, surprised when first time viewers have odd reactions to them.

25. I love people who think about things. I don't care if they don't think what I think.

26. I dislike being around people who believe things strongly but can not tell you why or how.

27. My mothers people were all Quakers. Despite that my grandmother raised her children as Presbytarians. My fathers people were British Puritans on his mothers side and German Protestants on his fathers side.

28. I like crows. They make me happy.

29. When I see a bluebird I feel like I have seen through a crack into heaven.

Lists - 100 Things

2006-06-16T12:26:00.000-07:00

I love reading the lists of 100 things that seem to be all over the place. In that spirit I am going to (um...try, um...attempt, um...endeavor - yeah endeavor) to make a list of my own. Not having endless energy or concentrated powers of prolonged introspection, I'll try 15 or 20 at a time, none on weekends when I am a Luddite. (Some think me a Luddite sp? all the time).

1. Usually I am not aware of my age except in an abstract sort of way.

2. I think that round is the perfect shape. I love bowls, cups, French furniture, peoneys, bracelets, marbles, and my little fat singing goddess statue.

3. I am not Catholic but I love old Catholic Madonna art and vintage crucifixes.

4. I like complex colors, I adore tertiary colors, I enjoy secondary colors and I just don't care for primaries.

5. My favorite color is blue-violet followed by blue-green then violet and yellow-green. Black is also very good.

6. If I have to stay in a room painted a warm color for very long it makes me a little ill and cranky. If the room is a warm muddy color (think harvest gold) I get flushed and start looking for a paint brush.

7. Halloween is my favorite holliday because no one else in my family even acknowledges that it exists.

8. I am the oldest child of my mother and the fourth child of my father.

9. I am the hostess of the family gatherings on Halloween (the pumpkin party- must not say the H word), July Fourth (summer cookout) and New Years Day. My baby sister, who is only 41, gets Christmas and Mother's Day. Middle sister attends but does not host. Mom has us over anytime we'll come.

10. I drive an old, ugly Corsica. It gets good gas millage, rarely needs work, is easy to park and drive, has lights that automatically come on at night and is generally a satisfactory ride. I have no urge to replace it.

11. I have been married for 10 years to my second husband. I am his 4th wife.

12. I have two sons and one daughter. I acquired the daughter when she married my oldest son.

13. I have one dog, spouse has one dog. We share a cat and fish. I also have 2 chickens.

Fly Jelly Revisited

2006-06-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

I had dinner with youngest son last night. After eating we went to Books A Million. (We all use the bookstore as a club)

At some point son said "We all read your flyjelly post".

"Did they like it? Did they find it funny? No one left a comment" I said.

"Well, not as funny as you think it is" he answered.

By now I was laughing at the memory of flyjelly, after 23 odd years I still think it is hysterical. According to him my almost 30 year old favorite oldest son has never found it amusing. My spouse thinks it very bad. Of course, he thinks it went from funny to just plain wrong when I brought home a jar of green pepper jelly and left it out for speculation.

Clearly, I am warped. Now, these are the same children who played evil tricks on me they still find delightful. Just before the flyjelly episode oldest favorite son, D, rushed in screaming Mama Mama a man got R. This was just weeks after a man did get a child that lived a short distance from us. I will not torture you with the details of the next few minutes but suffice it to say that when I finally found R, crouched against the back foundation of the house giggling softly into his hands, I was very close to total collapse. Upon discovery both D and R fell over on the ground, laughing manically with tears of utter glee coursing down their smooth little faces.

Last summer one of them reminded the other of that incident and they both hooted like hyenas until they were red faced and shinny eyed and sliding out of their chairs onto the floor like hysterical school girls. I confess that I am not and was not and very likely never will be amused by that little chapter. But it certainly makes for a good story, especially when they tell it.

Ex-Husbands and Grown Children

2006-06-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

My favorite youngest son told me his father has a mass on one lung and is going in for a biopsy. Now, I should have been able to say something reassuring to him, but I couldn't. Instead I was thinking, God I hope he has been happy these last years, at least happier then we think. My guts are screaming not fair, not fair. He is only 48, he doesn't smoke. Mass, lung, cough, feels bad, everyone in his house smokes, 2+2= CANCER NOT FAIR NOT FAIR NOT FAIR.

Of course it could be, and probably is, something else. Something that can be cured, something that won't force him to make decisions. You know the ones. Something that won't make him so sick and try to steal his dignity and self.

All this went round my skull quickly and all garbled, and all I could do was snifle. No support or gentle assurance that he would be ok. My sweet youngest boy, suffering, no help did I give.

Shifting gears a little, my present spouse is one of those men who thinks that when you get a divorce the other person is gone from your life as if they never really exsisted. I, on the other hand, only had children with people I liked well enough to keep as friends, even when there was no domestic bliss. Youngest boy's (boy is a 26 year old man)father's present wife feels the same way my spouse does, except maybe to an even geater extent. So ex is not allowed to talk to me on the phone anymore by his ex. Now my spouse would not tell me not to talk to boy's father, but he certainly does not mind that I don't. Anyway, my ex, the boy's father, is still my friend, and the father of my children, and part of the vessel of our family memory, and I don't want him to die.

Fly Jelly

2006-05-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

When my children were small, I took some liberties with fact in order to make life more fun. Well fun for me anyway. One of those liberties involved the creation of a substance I named, Fly Jelly. Now fly jelly is a lovely substance, it is silvery gray with green and purple and black irridescent glimmers in it. It is rare and expensive because it takes thousands of flies. Each must be caught and quick frozen, NOT SQUASHED) When the required quanity is obtained you carefully cook them down in a syrup of melted sugar, after hours of cooking on the very lowest heat and stirring in the very gentlest manner, the jelly is poured into jelly jars and carefully sealed. Now there is no need to use sterile jars (no one would actually eat the stuff after all). It glimmers in the sunlight, tiny wings and eye fragments gleaming and glittering in the thick silvery jell. Uhmm...Lovely.

Death, Sunshine and Lumps

2006-05-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I listened to an interview with a writer. The first line of his new book is: If you knew you only had ten minutes left to live, how would you spend them? (I may have the exact wording on that wrong) At that precise moment the sun had broken through the clouds and was dancing on the hood of my car. The trees were as green as they had ever been. The sky that perfect blue of a perfect spring day. I thought, I want to do this. I want to just look at the world.

That was yesterday. This morning my business partner and dearest friend told me she had a lump. She is at the doctor's office right now. Another friend told me an hour ago that the kidney cancer he has been fighting has spread to his spine and that it is not a matter of if anymore, just when.

It seems that death is much with me. Since my father died a few years ago it seems that someone I love is always ending. I know it is this way for everyone who loves, unless they are first. Somehow the universal, timeless fact of death does not make it any easier. The fact that all before me have died, does not make the prospect less bitter. More of my line lies in the ground then stands above it. Yet I do not wish to join them anytime soon. Even more, I do not want anyone else I love to go into that dark night.

Hair Stuff

2006-05-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

I decided to cut my hair. Not too short, not too long, gentle layers, not that frumpy 40 something look you see in every grocery store. I even had a photo. No problem said my barber of thirty years.

Big problem. Nowhere close to photo. Way too short to do anything with. Far to horrid to wait out. I cried like a baby. I cried like a small child whose cat just got run over. I would not leave the house without a hat. Even the spouse, usually supportive, said it was really really bad. I looked much older, frumpy and silly all at the same time. Of course, the swollen red eyes didn't help. Some of it stuck up or sideways, some laid in sad clumps. There was a spot that was almost bare.

I went to another stylest. A young stylest at a young salon. She looked at my hair. She commiserated with me, then she fixed it. So, now it is short. Much shorter then I orignally wanted. I love it!

I learned from this that I have not grown as much as a person as I had hoped. The bad hair devestated me. I sort of observed myself being childish and overeacting, I knew my emotions were way out of porportion. It is after all, hair. Hopefully, there was some angst over other things I feel somewhat powerless about (Bush, war, gas, starvation etc.) mixed in the tears. But probably not.

Happy Dogs

2006-04-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

Even though I have always had dogs, I have never owned 'casual dogs' before. You know the ones, they ride in the back of pick ups and don't jump out at the gas station. They swim in the pond and don't climb the opposite bank and disappear into the sunset. They get a Krystal when you go through the drive through. They walk around with silly bandanas around their necks and act like they don't care about affronted dignity.

NOW I HAVE ONE. I adopted 10 year old Smoke from the dog pound. No one wanted him because he was A) OLD B) HUGE C) A little spooky looking. I didn't care. I wanted a big dog, a sweet boy who looked a little rough, and hey olds not so bad. Ten I thought, he will be happy watching the evening news with me and snacking on soft food. NOT SO! The boy can go. Car rides, truck rides, walks in the park, swims in the pond. He can't keep up with the spouses German Shorthair, but then neither can I (neither could a racehorse).

Best of all, sometimes he looks around at the trees and sky with an expression that looks to me like:

How wonderful is the world, how beautiful are the trees, the wind feels so
soft,the food is good. I am alive, she took me from the cage, I can see
the sky!

Yeah I know that's a little much for a dog to think, but its what it looks like to me. After he looks at the sky he comes and sits next to me, leans on me and looks at me as if I am god. It doesn't get much better then that.

2006-04-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Chinese Bathroom

After my 9am real estate closing I changed clothes and started on the second stage of the Chinese Bathroom. Three hours later I am waiting on the clouds to finish drying so I can do the fine line black work. The cranes will have to wait though. I am way to cranky and stiff for cranes.

Chinese Bathroom

2006-04-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

It sounded like a good idea. Bad ones tend to start out that way. E said "lets do the bathroom (at the office) in metallic gold and chinese red, we can put some oriental stuff in it, it'll look cool". Sure I said. Why not?

Mistake. Serious error. Metallic gold paint is thin and sheer. One coat of primer, one coat yellow base, and three coats of gold later, it looks a nightmare. G-d help anyone who might go in with an upset stomach.

So, in the morning I am going to paint clouds and cranes and maybe, just maybe a pagoda, on top of the gold, just like the big chinese fan in the entry. Wish me luck, I'll need it. And listen up, the next time a middle aged person tells you something will look cool, take it with a big dose of salt and a few extra strength asprin.

Manic Monday

2006-04-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

It isn't just another manic Monday. It is a nothing Monday. Only a few clients, not many phone calls, not much to do. If wishes were horses I would have a corral full of lovely tort ponies. Even a new work for hire brief would make me smile.

I knew it would be slow when we opened the new office. I did not know how difficult it would be to be idle for hours each day. I have one closing scheduled, work all done. Everything else is current.

In 1989 I went to work for an aging lawyer. I was 29, he was 55. I was fresh and eager, he was bored and brillant. He had just recovered his license and I had just finished school. Every file we had would fit in a vertical stacker.

One dog case car wreck, one will, two divorces, one DUI, one case of hunting deer with a jacklight. They all seemed hugely interesting and vital to me. When I suggested doing discovery in the divorce cases, the boss was all for it. He grinned, rocked back on his heels, stuck his thumbs in his belt loops and said "might be fun". When we interviewed the DUI and I asked 101 questions, (as taught in school), he was amused. In a low office, nothing is more amusing then watching a novice make enormous mountains out of little sandy ant hills.

I could go back to playing 101 questions with clients, they would probably love it, but once you know what the 5 important questions are, the only smile in the excess is if someone else is asking the questions and diligently noting the answers.