Truth Told

The Evil Genius has a few chores he's supposed to do in the morning.  He is supposed to take out his bathroom trash, clean two of the cat boxes, do his school work, and practice his cursive writing.  Some mornings he also feeds the outdoor cats or takes out the compost or does some other chore, as well.  If he is diligent and does these things when he gets up, then he's done well before noon and is allowed to play or watch TV or use the computer while I do housework or tend to whatever I'm busy at.

On Tuesdays and occasionally other days of the week I get up early and take Sprout with me to run errands.  Tuesdays are our day to visit Someone in jail, but the Evil Genius doesn't like it there and I won't make him go, so he gets an extra measure of trust and responsibility and stays home on his own.  Don't worry, there's a list of rules he must follow and he has no fewer than three phones he can call from if there's any trouble, plus the (admittedly not much loved by us) cop two doors down.

Most mornings I remind him to do his chores if he's been up a bit and looks like he's going to get tangled up in play.  Some days he gets away with "forgetting" until the afternoon.

Today, he told me he did his chores.  I wasn't sure he had, and I asked if he'd done them all.  He assured me he had, including pages and writing.

I let him go about his day.

Then I busted him.

The cat boxes?  Not scooped.  His trash can?  Full.  Outdoor cats?  Not fed.  Work pages?  Burried under a pile of other things, no way he opened one of those books and did anything in them.  Cursive practice?  Again, no way, buried under some items that had not been moved from the night before.

So he lied to me.  Outright lied.  And given a chance to recant and come clean, he upheld the outright lie.  Now, it's not as if this was a lie I wouldn't discover.  All I had to do was look at the cat box, the trash can, the workbooks, and I would see.  He had to know I would see.  And I've called him on things like this before.  I've asked if he's done his chores and he's owned he hasn't and even said "Let me do that now!"  He knows I am neither blind nor stupid.

I am frustrated, as millions of parents before me have been and as millions of parents after me will be.  Children will lie.  They will lie even in the face of the evidence.  Once they've lied, they will strive to uphold the lie despite all the proof before them that they have been caught out and their parents know they've lied.  It's part of being a kid and part of growing up to learn when to lie and when to own one's actions.

What I find frustrating is the pettiness of it.  I can understand lying about something huge, something that seems so terrible that one doesn't want to face it.  But trash?  Cat box?  Insulting.  If  am being honest, which more and more I strive to compassionately do, I have to say that some of my ire comes from my past relationship with his father.

My ex-husband is a decent fellow.  He came over and helped me with a little automotive battery juggling because I couldn't do it and asked for help.  He has been compassionate and supportive of us during this whole jail experience with Someone.  Once or twice or damn near every month when I run out of money before I run out of month, he has been nice enough to offer up some or all of the child support early, even when it may strain his finances a little.  I didn't divorce him because he was abusive or cheating or one of the incarnations of evil.  I divorced him because we had no business being married , neither one of us was really happy, and one of us was going to die, either because of homicide or because we ate ourselves to death, and it probably wasn't going to be me.  All that said, one of the reasons our marriage was doomed was his constant, petty lying.

You see, he wanted to be liked, to have approval, not to disappoint or deal with unhappiness, so when he regularly didn't do the chores he said he would do, he would lie and say he had done them even when it was obvious he hadn't.  Trash?  He'd say he took it out even when the can was overflowing onto the kitchen floor, then try to convince me all that rubbish had occurred after he took it out.  Even when it was the same trash in the same place.  Cat box?  He'd say he cleaned it, but it would be full and undisturbed since the last time I looked at it.  He'd lie about brushing his teeth, lie about mowing the lawn.  Mowing the lawn!  Because the grass grew that high since this morning when it was allegedly mowed!

I could not trust him to do what he said he'd do, and I could not trust him when he said he'd done something, and I was overwhelmed by all the things I had to do to try and keep up.  I failed.  Our home was a mess because I  couldn't handle everything, so I did nothing.

I don't take well to being lied to.  It is a betrayal that I cannot simply get over, get past.  I am sorry to say that it sticks with me and colors everything that follows, and when I am lied to enough, that trust simply cannot be rebuilt.  Ever.  I don't want to distrust my child.  I don't want to wonder how much of what he says to me is bullshit, and I damn sure don't want to spend our time together trying to winkle out the little nuggets of truth in it all.

I talked to the Evil Genius about it.  I have told him before and I will tell him again and again that I know he will lie to me.  It isn't a question of "if" but rather of "when".  I just want him to be sure it's worth what will happen when I find out the truth, when I don't trust him and am disappointed in him.  I don't want him so embroiled, so lost in his own web of lies that he can't find the truth with both hands and a flashlight.  I certainly don't want him wondering why he's alone and why no one seems to want him for more than a little while.

Compulsive liars lie to feel important, useful, wanted.  The sad thing is, many of them don't have to lie to be wonderful people, they just don't think who they really are is enough.  It is.

Soaring

In my dreams I can fly.  Upon waking, I am sometimes disappointed to find I am once again subject to gravity's strict laws - what happened to my ability to rise up to lofty heights and float among the clouds, dancing with thistle down to the music of the stars?

Why do I dream of flying?

I'm certain there are countless dream dictionaries and interpreters to give some explanation , nearly as many as there are people who dream of flight.

I think, though, that dreams of flight are as much memories as expressions of an active psyche.  I think we flew, and we remember, and we cannot fathom in out deepest selves why our wings were shorn, why we should be earthbound when clearly we should be leaping skyward and riding the wind.

Image totally yoinked off a Google search, credited to Richard Wilkinson

Memorial Day

Photo found here and copied entirely without permission but not without respect.

Many of my family have served their country in the various branches. I learned a couple of years ago (thanks to my aunt) that my father served in Germany, although I do not yet know in what branch or when.  His father was in the Navy, in the Pacific.  My brother was in the Army, but thankfully got out when yet another gopher hole tried to eat his ankle. Don't ask. My Uncle was in the Air Force, even flying Air Force Two for a while. My Grandfather (Mum's father) was in the Coast Guard during World War II. I have a cousin retired from the Air Force. I believe he flew Airforce somethingorother from time to time (I'm being intentionally obtuse so as not to make it easy to find him and cause shenanigans). I have a friend who was in the Army during the Vietnam War (conflict, my ass!) - I never once resented the calls at three-o'clock in the morning; nightmares shy away from friendly voices, from reason and reassurance. Another friend was in the Army until it broke his back - literally. He survived, but not his plans for a lifetime in the military - they don't want broken people, no matter how useful or clever they are. Someone's family is jam-packed with folks who've served - mostly Navy, I believe - and deserve some respect and thanks. So...thanks.

For a history of this day, go here. Or here. Or here. In a nutshell, Memorial Day is for remembering the fallen. Veteran's Day is for honoring the living. That's why they get two days, and so they should. Men and women stand up and make targets of themselves to maintain our freedoms every day of the year, so the least we can do is take two days to tell them "Thanks. Thanks for acting against human nature and protecting me and mine. Thanks for losing an arm, a leg, a life so that I don't have to."

It's not about the politics. I'm non-violent. I don't think war is ever a reasonable response to conflict. I don't believe that wars are fought for ideals, but rather for political and/or financial gains. I won't forget, though, that people have laid down their lives so that I may stand on a street corner protesting (I never would) them, or denigrating (never, ever!) them for their service.

Perhaps one day, we won't have any new graves to decorate. Until then, I remember and (as best I can) I honor.


In Flanders Fields by John McCrea

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.  Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from flailing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
 

By the Numbers

I am working on some sewing that I need finished by July.  You'd think I'd have plenty of time for it, but no...no, I don't.  I have only a few days that I can dedicate to sewing because I also need to clear out the library and guest room so a friend and her kitties can move in.  Then there's the June event where the band is performing, so there's at least one day a week of rehearsals.  Oh, and let's not forget the whole bothersome I-have-kids thing.  I've had two days to work on the pile, and here are some numbers so far:

0 pieces finished
1 sewing machine
2 sergers/overlock machines
3 broken needles
4 times threading the first serger after replacing a broken needle
5 times testing and re-threading that serger before giving up on getting it right (threaded fine but suddenly the stitches are so loose they're useless) and switching machines, and 5 pairs of shorts with the serging done (since I switched machines), waiting to be finished
6 sarongs that need to be made into shirts
7 times I told Sprout not to get her hands near the serger needles
8 times I've had to stop and rescue Sprout from inside the closet
9 different inventive expletives used to describe the people who designed the threading sequence for sergers
10 mad dashed up the stairs to help Sprout use the potty
11 phone calls frm politicians, credit card services (for a household with NO credit cards), and collections agents for people who haven't lived here in five years
12 sarongs waiting to be cut and made into 8-in-on strappy shirts
13 days until I can't spare time for sewing because I must begin packing for the June trip
14 sarongs cut and ready to make into shorts
15 new grey hairs since I started on this sewrific journey

What are you up to these days?

Remembering

Thoughtfetti.

I really miss Someone.  I sometimes catch myself feeling something akin to mourning - it is as if he has died but is not dead, gone but still here, and I feel caught in this thick, sticky sap of not-knowing, not-doing. I am deeply saddened by the reality that, as a consequence of his own actions in the past, there are very few people who care that he is in jail, and fewer still who want to help get him out.  It can't be helped, but it leaves me feeling terribly isolated and increasingly frustrated.  He is so easy to love, but his love is not easy on a body.
~~~~~
I am making some roasted Greek potatoes and they smell amazing.  Mum bought some seasoning mix for me on our mid-week trip, and I decided to test it tonight.  I hope it tastes as good as it smells!
~~~~~
It was 66 degrees inside Casa de Crazy when we got up this morning.  Spring, it seems, is making an attempt at a come-back and had enlisted Winter's aid.
~~~~~
I was lucky to find some potatoes to cook - seems one went off and most of the rest followed.  Have you ever smelled that liquid that potatoes turn into - no, not vodka, alas - when they go off?  Gah!!!
~~~~~
I have damn near incapacitated every muscle and bone in my body doing it, but I got the bed from downstairs in the guest room up into Sprout's room, and she slept on it for the first time last night.  She loved it...and loves playing on it during the day.  I may have to Duct Tape the sheets onto it.  She still crawls in with me in the morning, but I don't mind.  Much.
~~~~~
The Evil Genius came into the house with some red clay he dug out of our yard in his bucket.  He informed me he was going to make play-dough.  I informed him he was going right back outside to play with it.  He wanted to argue, but I won...close shave, because Sprout was with him and she had that look in her eye...the look that says "I am going to paint the walls, floor, and every surface I can reach with what's in the bucket!"  I suspect there with be some bathing happening tonight.
~~~~~
I am watching Hook.  Wow...Robin Williams looks so young in it.  Funny how ageless he is my head.
~~~~~
I feel restless but I am mired here.  Can't leave, but staying is almost intolerable at times.  It's the Gypsy in me, wanting to be on the move.  It's the Avoider in me, not wanting to be here where troubles seem to have piled up like leaves beneath the Autumn trees.  I am no less here for feeling the yearning to run away.
~~~~~
I have an enormous craving for Chinese food.  It strikes me at odd hours.  I can almost taste it.  Groan.
~~~~~
I think we should revive the word "Popinjay".  It makes me laugh.  Go on, say it.  See?  It's funny.
~~~~~
This song makes me smile. 
~~~~~
What're you up to?

A Fond Farewell

I am going to say goodbye to a friend this week.

Going with Mum Wednesday, coming home Thursday.

We are going to say goodbye to our friend V.

Our friend has cancer.  She has had cancer for a while.  She's been fighting a losing battle from the start, and she knew it, but she chose to fight because she didn't want to leave her increasingly more bewildered husband behind to face his own end alone and most likely lost in the haze of of time and confusion that steeps his brain.

Come soon, we were told, if you want to see her.  Come soon while she still has a little good time left.  Come soon if you want to know, really know, that she can hear, see, know who you are.

So we're going.  A friend is watching the kids for me.  This trip is for Mum and me.

Knowing us, we will go and laugh, and cry, and laugh some more.  We will tell our friend that we love her and will miss her, and then laugh again.  We may tell old stories from our track working days.  We may look at and discuss her art - she is a marvelous stained-glass artisan, and I am lucky to have a couple of pieces of her work in my home.

Death is inevitable.  I will come to my own end days, I know, and leave the people I love behind.  But it's an abstract reality, isn't it?  And cancer is a cruel death.  This is a woman who lives with a shout, not a whisper.  There will be a void where she was, when she goes.  I will miss her.

Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?

Oh, wait, I don't have a dog.

There are many reasons why I have cats but not dogs.  I don't have time to teach a dog good manners or to housebreak it.  Cats not only survive, but sometimes thrive on benign neglect.  Dogs?  They're usually sociable creatures who like to interact with their pack and don't always understand long absences and solitude.

I am not thrilled with the amount of poop and other effluvia I deal with on a daily basis - I really don't want to add tidying up after a canine to the list.

So why am I cleaning up piles of canine leavings from my yard?  Why are my Iris trampled and my garden mauled?  Why are the outdoor cats constantly fleeing the porch and going hungry because the food I give them disappears at an alarming rate?  I don't understand...I don't have a dog.

Oh, but the neighbors do.  They have two, in fact.

One of the dogs has learned some nifty new tricks.  He has learned that he can jump the fence!  He can remove his collar!

He's a friendly old fellow and I wouldn't mind his visits if he wasn't such hell on my yard and garden, and if he wasn't chasing the cats and eating their food.  I've walked him home and rung the bell, eventually getting a response from one of his humans who spoke of her frustration with his Houdini act...and then put him right back in the fenced yard from which he can so easily escape.  They're getting an electric fence, she says.  How on earth will that help when he can remove his collar?

He has been free-range for weeks, now.  I am not convinced they actually plan to do anything about it.

I am loathe to call animal control - I may have mentioned before that I don't think it's right to punish an animal for acting according to its nature.  He's just being a dog.  His humans are the ones who need to step up, but they aren't.  This bothers me.  Why have an animal in your life if you can't or won't deal with it?  The woman I spoke to said she didn't want him in the house.  So...it's okay for him to wander in and out of my garage, yard, and garden, pee and defecate on this property, and generally act like he's my pet and not hers?
Adding insult to injury, the neighbor in question is in law enforcement and has a working dog.  He knows the law and knows how to train an animal and work with it.

I know that you, dear reader, would not be such a thoughtless human to your pets - but if you know of someone who is, please, oh, please, tell them.  Help them to manage their critter so that it's not being a nuisance to others.

I am worried about my neighbor's dog - he's black, it's hot out, he has no food or water out here (except the cat food he steals from me, that is)...and then there's the night time to consider when the other neighbors fly through the cul-de-sac like they're trying to beat Mario Andretti home for dinner - black dogs are so easily struck at night.

I don't want the care of another being right now, and he has a family that is supposed to love and care for him.  So what am I to do?  What would you do, dear reader?

Tanzen

I have been to a bar perhaps three times that I can recall.  Twice it was for charity events.  I have certainly never danced at a bar, or a club, or in any public venue.  I'm not much of a drinker or social dancer, it seems.  I danced at my wedding, because that's what one does.  It's the only time I ever danced with my now-ex-husband.

I'm no twinkle-toes, and can't do anything remotely resembling a formal dance move.  I mostly shuffle and sway and hope I don't smush any toes.  I don't even dance around the fire at drum circles any more - too many lithe, sexy young things out there and I feel rather more like a stump than I like.

I have one precious video of Someone and I dancing just before my band performed at a festival.  It was to a Bob Marley song, and my now deceased friend 'Lo shot it unbeknownst to us.  I love that video.  We danced another time in the kitchen of Casa de Crazy, his arms around me, my head on his chest, slowly swaying for a few minutes while dinner cooked.

Sometimes, when I am alone, I will dance a little - in the kitchen, or the living room, while I'm cleaning.  Once in a while, the children join me, and then we will likely get a little silly and wind up laughing and breathless in a pile on the couch.

I would like to dance more.  I want more time in Someone's arms.  I want more time watching him hold our daughter and dance her about while she shrieks and giggles and holds on tight.

Despite the dearth of dancing in our lives, this song was stuck in my head yesterday and this morning.

How about you?  Do you dance?

I Haaaave a Dreeeaaammm...

How did you read the title?  With a strong, vibrant voice full of passion and hope?  Or was it more like the ABBA song?

Regardless, I do have a dream, of sorts, and it involves the jungle I call a yard.

The first part of the dream is that it no longer look like a jungle.  That may take a minute, as Someone is the yard and garden person in this family and he's, umm...kinda in jail right now, which puts a crimp on the whole yard work thing for him.  I loathe yard work entirely and will, in fact, hug the shade and coolth of the air-conditioned Casa at every opportunity when the weather turns hot.  Which it already has.  80 degrees Fahrenheit is about as high as I like to climb on the thermometer.  After that?  I'll be inside until the next frost, if it can be helped.

So de-jungling (yes, spell check, that is TOO a word - I just made it up) falls to me, and I find myself woefully unprepared for it.  There's the whole weeding thing - you have to bend over and pull those suckers up, and bending?  In public?  Outside? Where people can see?  And probably point, laugh, and offer to rent that advertising space?  Yeah...no.  Still, it needs doing.

And then there's the watering.  Well, I can't complain about that - I have a marvelous sprinkler that is adjustable in several ways and has a timer, so all I have to do is turn a dial and turn on the hose, and the garden (and only the garden) gets watered.

What about mowing?  I'm thinking I need a goat.  I could milk it and make soap or something, and it probably wouldn't break down as often as the mowers have around here.  Seriously, Casa de Crazy kills lawn mowers at an alarming rate!  Push mowers, riding mowers, mowers of every sort, they come here to die.  The only mower that is still moderately workable is the reel mower, and?  I am in no shape to much about with that thing.  It damn near kills Someone to use it.  Me?  I wouldn't mow an inch before I was done for a month.  So right now I haven't realistically got the means to mow, and I think I see and hear things rustling in the grass.  For all I know a giraffe has escaped from some menagerie somewhere and is happily ensconced in my yard.

The second part of the dream involves making less lawn, more garden (or "edible estate", as I've heard them called) and maybe wildflower meadow and possible even orchard in the distant future.  Casa de Crazy sits on a 3/4 acre lot, which doesn't sound like much but it looks huge to me, and I figure the part that isn't wooded could be useful for something besides creating hernias and causing heat rash.  I'm thinking a few fruit trees and some berry bushes, and a new strawberry bed that isn't quite as chaotic as the current one would all be nice.  I don't plan to live here forever, but I don't mind leaving something nice behind for the next person, either.

Third comes the outdoor living part.  We have a couple of really nice outdoor tables, one of which has matching chairs.  Right now they're sort of planted out in the grass, forlornly wondering why no one ever uses them.  As long as I'm spending the lottery money, I would like a stone paver patio out front, and a little fire pit and seating area around the side.  Around the other side, a greenhouse wouldn't hurt my feelings.  While I may not like being hot and sweaty, I would probably spend a lot more time outdoors if I didn't have to worry about being eaten by whatever lives in our personal Serengeti.

Before anything, though, I guess I will have to remove the junk that has accumulated all around the yard and house.  We may have a packrat or two living here, and they've gathered up some impressive items.  Impressive, that is, if you judge more by weight or size rather than actual, you know, usefulness.  There's the refrigerator that could double as a bus.  The collection of bits and pieces of I-don't-know-what.  The riding lawnmower huddled under some kind of cover, defunct and bewildered as to why it deserved such a fate.  The portable fireplace/grill that I adore but has lost a leg and now has to be propped against the arm of one of my metal chairs if I want to use it.  The chair arm is the perfect height, by the way, but this makes the fireplace/grill rather less than portable and the chair rather less than sit-able.  There are a few million plastic cat litter buckets kept because...umm...why?  Oh, yeah - they make good planters in case we run out of the thousand black pots in the garage.

Groan.

There is a lot to do, and even on a good day I can't do most of it.  I have to try, though.

Do you think the neighbors would call the loony bin on me if I try to clip the grass with kitchen shears?

Time Flies

Fun or no fun, time has a way of slipping through my fingers and flying away to become distant past before it was ever really present.

Things have been...well...interesting strange umm...things.

I am swallowing my pride because my pride isn't terribly helpful just now.  It's rather getting in my way.  It's taken me a minute to work up to posting this, because I am a coward, and proud, and not much in the mood for dealing with censure and negativity, but one can't be apathetic and expect to get anything done.

So here goes.

Someone was arrested in February for a variety of charges, mostly centering around possession of marijuana.

Those who know me know I am an advocate for legalization, that I believe the prohibition of marijuana does more harm than good, that I believe it IS a medicinal plant and worthy of consideration in the treatment of many ills.  I believe the prohibition continues because it is profitable and gives law enforcement something to show the public - "Look, see, we're effective and keeping your community safe from ravening potheads!"  I am also not a consumer because I can't - is it unlawful and it also tends to make me rather useless because I have a low tolerance (I found out the latter many, many, many centuries ago, well beyond whatever the statute of limitations is for this sort of thing).  If I could be, legally, I might occasionally partake when the variety plate gets to be too much.  As it is, I am clean, sober, very much rooted and grounded in the here and now.  Whee.

Bah.

Anyway, he was arrested at his place.  Eventually I got him bonded out, but he was re-arrested for bond violation and other charges added on to the first set.  Whee.  This time, there is no bond.  As we are collectively broker than a politician's promise, we can't afford a lawyer, so he has a public defender.  I am certain there are good public defenders in the world, but they are NOT located here in Redneck Central.  The man assigned to Someone's case hasn't contacted him or me, despite many phone calls, e-mails, pleas for information and action.  He is notorious among the other inmates of the jail for NOT seeing his clients and for largely ignoring them until trial days, when they may speak to him for a minute or two before going into court.  The only thing anyone from the PD office has said to me is "Tell him to shave his beard, he will look better to the judge."  Really?  This does not inspire confidence.

I need a moment to breathe.

Okay.

I am trying to find a lawyer who will take payments, but that's about as easy as locating an honest politician. So I have swallowed my pride in one big lump, stressed myself to the point of nausea, and reached out to the world at large with this:

I miss him.  I write him every day, even though he only gets mail on week days.  When I can afford to pre-pay for calls, he calls me every day.  He talks to Sprout on the phone at least once a day, and I am now one of those horrible mothers who takes her child to the jail to visit her Papa, because she misses him to the point of tears and thirty minutes a week on the other side of the glass are better than no minutes a week, and HE needs HER, too.

I did find a lawyer who is highly recommended and who isn't demanding insanely high fees up front, but I still have to come up with several thousand dollars in advance, and then bond money on top of that (if we can even GET bond, because Goddess forbid they should let the nasty old pot smoker back out to endanger the community with his nefarious...umm...smokerage!), and hope that we can get the charges dropped (there is some question of rights violations and incorrect procedure, and for once I hope the police DID screw up their case) or at least lessened and bring Someone home where we need him and he belongs.

So...yeah...I know not everyone agrees with me about legalizing and whatnot.  And I know there are plenty of people who just don't like Someone and/or think he should just sit there and/or don't care to lend a hand.  But...on the off chance you, gentle reader, feel like-minded and/or compassionate, in case you know anyone else who may feel like-minded and/or compassionate...please feel free to click, to share, to spread the word that a family has been rent and we could use all the help we can get to put ourselves back together - I will not settle for the Humpty-Dumpty story ending.  We will be whole again.

Pollen Count

When I was a child, I never knew there was such a thing as a pollen count.  Even in my teens, I was unaware of what, exactly, the phenomenon was called.

What I did know was that every year, something crawled into my head through my sinuses and played the timpani...badly...before migrating down into my lungs and camping there for a few weeks, lodging me firmly in The Misery Zone.

One spring, it even turned into a lovely case of pneumonia that came within a gnat's ninny of hospitalizing me.  Fun times.

To this day I am not certain what the pollen count really means.  I mean...okay...I understand it's how much pollen is in the air at any given time, usually a daily average or high.  But...how does that apply?  Sometimes the count is really quite low and I have a head full of glue.  Sometimes the count is insanely high and my sinuses are as clear as if I'd been eating hot Chinese mustard by the spoonful.  It seems it's not the amount of pollen, it's what the pollen is that matters most.

I propose that instead of a count telling us how much pollen there is overall, we change it to a pollen quality, enumerating the various things trying to kill us at any given time.  Heck...not just pollen...how about we include particulate matter like pollution and diesel exhaust, construction dust, and the dry, powdery substance that looks, acts, and smells remarkably like what comes out of a bull's backside but in fact spills out of politicians' mouths every time they open them.

In fact, I bet if we installed BS filters on politicians, our general air quality would improve exponentially!

Meanwhile, we are well within the time period when my immune system goes haywire in response to the blooming of things, so I will be keeping Kleenex in business for the next month or so.  Poor Evil Genius suffers the same affliction, so he'll be joining me in the head-full-of-pudding-lungs-full-of-gelatin-nose-running-like-a-faucet club.  Lucky us.

A Rare (Hah!) Political Rant

So much of what passes for politics these days is an expression of fear.  On either side of the line, people are fearful of what they could lose, of what they may have to accept, or what others may gain from them.  Fear becomes anger, becomes hatred, becomes a blinding unreason and goads people into believing what they would never  consider were they rooted in calmer thought.  Insults are hurled, and stones, and judgement.  Here's the thing - we all need to eat.  We all need shelter.  We all need water.  The sun shining on one group shines on another.  If the fear were gone, we could perhaps feel free to express our better selves, our compassionate selves, and move beyond these galvanizing polarities of Democrat, Republican, Tea Party, Libertarian, all so much of a muchness.

I am vociferous in my opinion of politicians.  All politicians.  I lump every one of them beyond the grassroots level into the category of Untrustworthy Manipulative Liars and Thieves.  There isn't a single one of them who has not lied to us, who has not been forsworn.  Oathbreakers, all of them, every President in my lifetime, every member of the House and the Senate, every Mayor, every Governor.

Of course I fear losing my freedom.  Equally, I fear losing my Self to the fear being flung will-he, nil-he into the world by people who will do whatever it takes to have their way.  I fear being blinded by an emotional response to an irrational  manipulation.

Once again, I remind you of what Sarah said to the Goblin King:  You have no power over me.



When we realize this...then we'll truly be free...and all of the politicking in the world won't be able to enslave us.

Not My Cuppa

Today I made coffee.  I don't usually.  I like coffee okay, but I prefer tea.  Still, today I made coffee so I would smell it throughout the house and feel Someone's presence here in his absence.  He's away for a bit.

The thing is, once I made it, I couldn't let it go to waste, so I drank some of it.  Okay, a lot of it.

You wouldn't think it would have much of an impact given my tea habit.  No...you wouldn't think that.

After the third cup, I could feel the Universe vibrating.

I saw colors that aren't part of the known spectrum.

I could hear the creaking of the harness on draft horses in Pennsylvania.  From next week.

Next time I will just sniff the bag of beans.

It's Not East Being Cheesy

It's not much easier being mentally ill. Sounds so scary "Mentally ill", and a little dangerous. Not at all glamorous, though, and not terribly interesting. Mostly dull and uncomfortable.  Often terribly self-contained, because no one really wants to hear about it as often as I experience it.

Right now, the depression is in the forefront, and I am trying not to let it win...but boy, oh boy am I tempted not to get up in the morning.  The kids can just eat graham crackers all day, right?

No.  No, they can't.  Get up.

Sigh.

I wish I could say there is a great and noble battle being fought, or relate some heartening tale of how I have triumphed over evil...or at least ennui...but the truth is, I'm just muddling through in a rather uninspiring fashion.  It's boring, really.

Every day, at some point in the day, I just want to give up, to lie down and quietly fade into nothingness.  Every day, I continue on with what I am doing and just endure.  Every day, I could easily just be done, and every day I find something to keep ticking along for.

Paranoia is taking its toll, as well.  Recently, traffic in the cul-de-sac had increased.  People come driving down our road and zip around the circle...and it has me on edge.  I want to go out and stop them, ask them who they are and why they need to come down here.  I imagine telling them "If you don't live here and aren't visiting someone here, you don't need to drive down here, so cut it out before I have to start pelting you with stones or rotten fruit."  It's because my mind is trying to convince me they're looking for a house to rob, or are simply part of the vast and nameless "them" who are watching me for whatever reason "they" are watching me.  This would be the same mind that is utterly convinced that my house is bugged and that same "they" zooming around the cul-de-sac have also put video cameras in all my vents.  I kid you not, there is a part of me that believes this.  Luckily, that part is relegated to a dark corner of my mind where it has to be content with rocking back and forth and sucking its thumb. I'm lucky...I know what's paranoia and what's real...it doesn't make the unreal less...umm...real...in the moment, but I have an anchor to reality that many are missing.  It makes all the difference.

The news is full of cruelty, hatred, and anger, and I don't understand it.  I don't understand why people think it's okay to make special rules for a special few, to give privilege to some and deny it to others.  Basic things, simple human rights.  I don't understand how people can be so horrid to themselves, others, animals, or even the very planet.  How, even in a greed induced tizzy, can ANYONE think that waste and destruction are good for any future generations?  It makes me sad and frustrated...for crying out loud, my brain is broken, people, and I can see we're in a very bad way here on our little rock!

My mind preys on me, and there's not much to be done about it.  I'm one of the lucky ones - my OCD expresses itself in small ways, like how the dishwasher is loaded, how the dishes are put away, and how laundry is done and folded.  I'm not trapped in a cycle of hand washing or door locking or some of the other terrible behavioral tics that make up the illness for others.

It would be so easy to dwell and dwell on what's wrong...but instead, I'm trying to do something right.  Feed someone hungry.  Make a quilt to help raise money for someone who needs it.  Listen when a friend needs to talk.  Plant things...lots of things...big things, little things, edible things, flowering things, beautiful things, ordinary things.  Tickle my kids until their laughter makes the walls ring.  Asking "How can I help?"  All anger does is create more anger.  I'm aiming for some Zen, some peace, some compassion, and some light-heartedness.  Misery I have in spades...I'm working on my store of good stuff right now.

Who Wants Music on Mondays?

Things In My Head In the Wee Hours

We can't help who we love, nor the intensity of the loving.  We can't help that bone-deep aching that can come with the need-love, nor the breathless exhilaration of the want-love.

We can't help feeling driven to the edge and tipped over, dropped over, launched over into the grand unknown.

We can't help out flight through turbulent winds, blazing glorious shards of light and dark, sun and moon and stars setting our prismatic feathers alight as we flutter futilely seeking to control our wildly wandering path through a maelstrom of stillness.

We can't help out motley-clad hearts dancing with ungainly, mocking steps, jingling merrily discordant bells with every stomp and whirl.

We can't help our madness, whatever direction the wind be blowing.

All we can hope for is to retain our core and live on, live on, live on, as if we are not, each moment, being entirely remade by our own conflagration.

What We Share

The sun that shines on me, shines on you
The wind that touches me, touches you
The earth that holds my feet, holds your feet, too
The rain that falls on me, falls on you
We are connected by these sacred things no matter where you are
Location and distance are just geography
The sun that shines on me, shines on you.

Five Being the Number and the Number Being Five

Fifth time I'm posting this, but why mess with perfection, eh? Yeah, yeah, I'm a lazy blogger.  You still love me, right?  Right???  Why do I hear crickets...?
~~~~~
 I cooked corned beef and cabbage on Monday, much to my family's delight - a double lot of the beef will ensure we all have a surfeit and hash the next day. I'll try to remember to take some up to Mum next time I see her...if there's any left... Bird opted out entirely, causing me to question whether he's really mine. I get not liking cabbage, but potatoes? Something's not right with the child. Someone will happily scarf the lot when he can come over, because he's a good Irish lad.

I'm planning on baking soda bread, too, because we like it and any leftovers can be used to make a nice doorstop or stone axe.

Seeing as I'm Pagan, you wouldn't think I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Better than most, I know what St. Patrick did to get famous and earn his sainthood. However, I'm also part Irish, and I happen to love corned beef and cabbage. Also, I consider it a reclaiming of the day for Pagans, or some junk.

A bit of slightly bent history (that has, I'll grant you, been mangled in my head over the years and is rather truncated because I'm not writing a book, here)(I'm writing a book somewhere else). When I was a child, we were told that St. Patrick's day was to celebrate his chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. It is an historically serpent-free bit of earth, and the church attributed this to Paddy and his efforts...kind of overlooking that there weren't any of the slithery things on the island to begin with, if you ask me. Which they didn't, because I was a kid and most grown-ups weren't prepared for my staggering logic and keen grasp of history but rather appalling lack of respect for theology.

 Many years later, people were saying St. Patrick's Day was a celebration of all things Irish, like green beer (wait, isn't beer German??) and green clothes, and green hair, and green mashed potatoes (which I won't eat on a dare because, really...green potatoes???), and rivers dyed green (I'm sure the fish are all so very thankful to be included...like Fridays and Lent weren't enough for them!)(that might only be funny if you're Catholic)(or not) and exclusionary parades, and funny little men waving their shillelaghs about (look it up you pervs!!) and that sort of thing.

 In none of the many different explanations for this seemingly random holiday did anyone mention pagans. A most curious oversight of you know what St. Patrick, who was just Patrick at the time (not really, I have no idea what his real name was. For all I know, it was Fred), was actually doing on the Emerald Isle.

He was born and lived sometime between 490 and 461 AD, give or take. Around age sixteen, he was either sent or stolen and taken to Ireland where he spent some time hanging out with sheep and being lonely. He talked to God a lot. You may notice that lots of shepherds do that. You would too if all you had for company all day was a bunch of mutton-heads. I'm sure the Pope understands...

Christianity was rolling along like a snowball in those days, spreading out all over the dang place. Good grief, it was getting so that a simple Pagan/Heathen (there's a difference between the two, not that the church cared much) couldn't get any peace any more. Everywhere they turned, there was a church being built where a sacred grove used to be, from the trees that used to be the sacred grove, or a church going up on a sacred hill, or someone bathing their dirty feet in a sacred stream. To be fair, there was a lot of real estate lumped under that "sacred" heading in the pagan world. We're like that - we just love our planet so. Plus, you know, all those gods needed housing, and they don't do the roommate thing very well. So the pagans were running out of places to have sex on the ground, in the woods, up a tree - they were big on the sex, those little devils - and to read entrails in their spare time.

I digressed. Sorry.

So there was this lonely kid, Patrick Whatsisname, hanging out with sheep and pondering life, the Universe, and everything. He got the idea, somewhere along the way, that maybe other folks should share his God. He got out of his contract (OK, probably slavery) and went around telling folks how terrific his God was, and how he reckoned they should convert. It seems that polite conversation wasn't doing it for the pagans, who tended to stare at him, or point and laugh. Rude beggars, huh? Now young Patrick (or middle aged Patrick, or old Patrick, I have no idea) decided he needed to be a bit more...persuasive. He had noticed something common among the pagan big-wigs. The guys at the top of the food-chain, magic/spirituality wise speaking tended to have a symbol on them somewhere...usually around their wrist. On the wrist that indicated their "hand of power", or the hand which they believed their "magic" flowed from. If it wasn't a tattoo, it was a torque. Guess what the tattoo/torque was? A critter called the oroborus. For them as what doesn't ken what that critter is, it's a snake eating its tail, and often represents eternity.
Pat realized that if he took away this "power", he took away their mystique and leadership ability. So he removed the snakes - often with something edged and unpleasant. Yes, he whacked off their hands. Or branded their skin. Or took their trinkets. Converting Heathens is such messy work!! It was for their own good, of course.

Some pagans today go on "snake crawls", a sort of pub crawl where they wear snakes and proclaim their paganism. I'm not quite that...er...proactive. I also don't necessarily think old Pat went around mauling everyone he met in an effort to build church membership and win a nifty prize. But it's the bloody aspect of what he did that earned his name in Christendom and for which his holiday is celebrated.

So again, why would I celebrate the day? Well, I'm all for a day when families get together and discuss history, theology, spirituality, and the like. Traditions are important - they give us a foundation on which to build our lives. People should discuss their history so they don't repeat it - whatever side of the issue they're on. Also, as I mentioned, I am part Irish. I can celebrate that heritage even as I acknowledge its imperfection. And I am Pagan - and I am celebrating the fact that I can be pagan today without (much) fear of having my (largely not visible when I'm clothed) tattoos painfully removed and other unpleasantness (except for the odd zealot who thinks I'm fair game, but I'm used to that. I live in the Bible belt, after all). Precisely because we didn't get wiped out, I celebrate. And have you ever had a really nice corned beef and cabbage dinner? I mean, yum! Oh, but I won't be wearing green. I wear blue. Don't even think about pinching me.

It IS A Kind of Madness

When I was a kid (shut up - I was TOO a kid once, and it was even AFTER the dinosaurs walked the earth!), I was vehemently anti-drug of any kind.  I was taught to be so by people who were taught to be so, without thought, simply because that was the established rule.

I grew the hell up and learned to think for myself, something that now seems to be the exception rather than the rule.  I see that there are drugs, and there are drugs.  Some things are destructive, horrifying - meth - and some things are beneficial and a threat to chemical pharma - marijuana - and they are all lumped together into a great big "NO!!!" because that's easier than looking, listening, considering, and acting on a case-by-case basis.

Well, too bad.  It's time to quit being lazy, quit accepting the word of greedy, lying, manipulating politicians and start looking at what's going on all around us.  People are suffering, and why?  Laws made to keep black folk from intermingling with white folk (it was believed that jazz musicians would use the evil marijuana to seduce white women, and I swear I am NOT making this up) and to protect ONE man's tree harvesting interests (because hemp, lumped in with MJ, is a superior crop for paper, among other things).

If you think the prohibition on a plant is righteous, respectfully and with love I say you are ignorant.

If you think pot is worse than meth (pot is a schedule 1 drug, meth schedule 2.  Think about THAT!) then I say this with love - you drank the Kool Aid.

I'm tired of seeing people live in fear because of their medication.  I'm tired of seeing people live in fear because of their recreation.  I'm tired of seeing people live in fear because of their avocation.

Stop the madness.

Ooooh...New Music Crush!

To What Purpose?

Hope is not terribly welcome in my life just now.  Every time I have some tiny shred of it, I am disappointed.  I think I see some cause...but then...failure to thrive.  It withers and dies, turns to dust and blows away, and I am tired of it.

For a little while, anyway, I am not permitting hope to cross the threshold.  It can sit outside, lost and forlorn and learn how it feels to be shut out.

I don't have any faith in what people say, today, either.  Words, words, lots of words, but they don't mean anything, do they?  Just words, flowing forth like a river of shit, words claiming one thing when actions show another, and I'm tired of being let down so words, too, can wait for a little while, keeping hope company wherever unwelcome liars bide their time until I am foolish enough to think they are genuine again.

Bitter?

A little.

But also tired of the whole experience.  I long for a time when I could believe like a child believes, that people are good, that things work out, that we are not helpless or useless, that words have power and meaning, that promises are kept by everyone and not just the odd few, that the world is not full of poison and monsters and a blankie and a kiss are all that's needed to fend off the shadows.

But I don't believe.

And I wonder if I will again.

Thoughtfetti

Found out that Someone's great aunt passed away last weekend.  I hope she has a peaceful journey to the next life, whatever it may be.  I should call Nanny and give her my condolences, but I just can't, right now.  My hear's too heavy, and crying on the phone is counter-productive.
~~~~~
Sprout got some helium filled balloons on her birthday. One of them is still floating up to the ceiling.  She likes to pull on the ribbon and watch if float back up.  I can't believe it's still going!
~~~~~
Nothing smells like breakfast like potatoes and onions cooking.
~~~~~
I don't much care to eat, these days, but I do.  I am trying to make things that are especially appetizing, but it isn't helping very much.  My stomach is just in knots all the time.  Unfortunately for my mid-section and arse, ice cream and chocolates seem to go down just fine.
~~~~~
I am once again reminded by the world at large that I have no real value to society.  I am worth nothing because I don't make money and must rely on others.  I am, in fact, a negative...I don't contribute but I consume.  It is unpleasant to know that I am what so many people openly revile as a social parasite.
~~~~~
I am making bacon in the oven.  I'm not sure how I feel about it...on the one hand, it sure is easier AND faster than using my trusty bacon-frying-pan-o-wonder, but on the other, it's just...not...the same...
~~~~~
I'm in a very bad frame of mind.  Once more, February has proven it is horrid.  There are bright spots in this darkness, but they are swallowed up, they can't cut the shadows, and I am tired enough to wish they would extinguish themselves rather than offer false hope that there is anything good for me in this world.  This is not self-pity.  It is simply how I feel.
~~~~~
Am I the on;y one who puts cream cheese in their scrambled eggs?  Y'all don't know what you're missing.
~~~~~
I am going to plant peas in the garden today.
~~~~~
What're you up to?

Mike Rowe's Integrity

I have been somewhat preoccupied, lately, with matters deeply personal.  Also, I don't have regular television, so I miss such trifles such as State of the Union addresses, the latest political scandals, and the unveiling of new ad campaigns (via The Super Bowl or otherwise).

I have not, however, managed to miss Mike Rowe's newest foray into the tangled web of the advertising world.

Below, please find a letter I composed entirely in my head, because really?  It's the only way I can pretend he would read it!
~~~~~

Dear Mike,

I hope I may be so familiar as to call you Mike.  I have been a fan since just after the beginning of forever.  I have admitted in public that I have a ridiculous fan-girl crush on you and, when asked what famous person I would like to have with me if I was trapped on a deserted island, I didn't have to think twice before speaking your name.  Call me selfish, but if I must spend time as a castaway, I would prefer it be with an intelligent, witty, and talented person.

I have claimed that I would listen to you read the phone book or The President's memoir.  Of the two, I would prefer the phone book.  I abhor politics and politicians, but if you ran for public office I would vote for you in a heartbeat.

I've had the good fortune to hear a few brief snatches of your singing.  There is a quality to your voice that triggers a response deep in my brain and soothes me, makes me smile.  I'd consider myself well and truly blessed to sing with you, and die a happy woman having done so.  I often laugh at the astonishment of people who don't know that you can actually carry a tune in a bucket when they first hear you singing.

I was an avid viewer of Dirty Jobs until I lost my connection to the televised world, and even after that sad day I still watched what I could on the Internet and on others' televisions.  I will listen to advertisements just to hear your voice and experience that delicious little shiver that inevitably comes with hearing you speak.

Which brings me to the meat of the matter.

You recently unveiled a new advertising campaign for WalMart.

Good for you.

Wait, what?  You were expecting another in a long line of chastisements or outright attacks?

No, sir, not from me.

You see, you have integrity.

Integrity - adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.

I don't much care for Wal Mart.  I don't like their corporate ethic, the way they treat their employees, their hugely negative environmental impact.  I don't like that they bully local governments into giving them huge tax breaks and incentives to build by threatening to build elsewhere and destroy the local economy anyway.  I don't like that they actively seek to close small businesses and encourage their representatives to wager as to how long it will take before small town business areas are as devoid of life as a politician's conscience.

I have had occasion to opine that Wal Mart is a prime example of greed and corruption run rampant and is an incarnation of evil in its current state, second only to Congress.  In fact, I rarely refer to it by name, preferring to call it The Evil Empire.

I found it deeply saddening that they strayed so far from Sam Walton's ethic.

So why congratulate you for working with them?

Mike, you are about jobs.  Specifically blue collar type jobs.  You have been a staunch advocate for the working class, a voice in the wilderness concerning the folly of enforcing the idea that college is the only way.  You have not been shy about speaking of the need for blue collar workers, skilled labor, the underpinnings of our society.

The ad for Wal Mart isn't about Wal Mart.  It is about awakening the slumbering giant of our once proud manufacturing system.  Opening factories.  Creating jobs.

I don't see an ad for the Evil Empire.  I see a man well within his integrity helping to push the button that will once more start the great machine.

If Wal Mart keeps their word, follows through, freshens our economy and employs our workforce, then more power to them.  I have my doubts as to their integrity, but that's not a reflection on you, Mike.

Thank you for being so bold as to act according to your values despite risk of disapprobation from others.  I find it refreshing.

Shade and Sweetwater,
K
~~~~~
In case anyone hasn't seen it and is wondering:

Nanoseconds

In between the ticking and the tocking, down deep in between the twitching of the thinnest sweeping clock hand, there is a hesitation when the time has come to leap between the seconds and everything stops and braces for the airborne moment.

There in those depths of time so small we barely see them, note their passing, nod as they go by, there in the brief stillness, I fly to pieces and pull myself together.

All day.  Every day.  As long as I am conscious.  Fly apart, come together.

My days are composed of waiting, and in the waiting I try to be patient but I burn.  My gut burns, my throat burns, my eyes burn.  Eat?  What is eat?  Drink?  What is drink?  When soaring explosively through the endless little deaths that occupy the betweens, one does not consume, one is consumed.

Every.  Minute.  Is.  Torture.

It doesn't end with sleep.  Sleep is simply a way for the mind to transform what is experienced during the day.  Sleep twists it, turns it, knots it up and hurls it into the psyche where it drops with leaden precision onto the most fertile ground, sends down shoots and roots and thorny runners, blooming restlessness and misery in its brambles.

There is no respite.  There is only the waiting for the leap, not of faith but simply of momentum forward into whatever waits in the continuing darkness.

Lost

The thing is, it's so easy to feel lost.  There are so many things, so many events, that can cause one to turn in a direction they never expected, walk a path they have never considered and know nothing about.

It's so easy to feel lost and alone and wonder how to get to the other side of this mess without losing as well as being lost.

It's so easy to feel lost and alone and as if one is dangling above some great and bottomless pit of darkness and despair.  It is, of course, an illusion, that pit, but when you are experiencing something, it feels very real.

Hope is such a slender thread to hold onto when dangling above that pit.  Tenuous, stretched to the snapping point, one gossamer line leading back to solid ground.

Sometimes, though, hope is all there is in the midst of seeming hopelessness.

And so, I hope...

And On, and On, and On

There is an emptiness where an ache once dwelt.

Before the ache, it was joy.

I had hoped that the joy would linger, perhaps even root and grow into something steady and sure, but it faltered and failed and became a sort of shame and sorrow that became the ache that is now an emptiness.

I had hoped that perhaps there could be a healing, a restoration, even as the ache grew and grew, before it became the emptiness where the ache once dwelt.

Now it is just a sort of an echo-y place which reverberates with a dull and throbbing pain when poked too hard while being searched for the remnants of what was joy before it became sorrow and shame that morphed into the ache that segued into the emptiness.

I wish I could fill the emptiness with some good thing, some brightness, but I think it it more likely that I will have a scarred-over callous where the emptiness took the place of the ache that was once joy.

Life goes on.

Some Kind of Record

It is February fifth and I am not mired in the Deep Beiges.

Yes, you read that right.

Don't get me wrong, I still have a case of the blahs - the same case that dogs me constantly - and every now and then it dips down into the Beiges, and even the Deep Beiges, but I am not neck deep in it like I would usually be this time of year.

They usually start creeping up on me in December, hover around mid-level through January, and whomp me upside the head at the Beginning of February.  With luck, they abate in mid-March but have been known to linger well into May.

I have every reason to be sunk in the swamp right now.  Self worth?  Zip.  Self confidence?  Zero.  Self image?  Nada.  Self loathing?  In spades!  I live with (well...kinda...live near, mostly, and sometimes with in an I'm-just-visiting kind of way), and love, an abusive addict who is sliding down the slippery slope into paranoia and self hatred as if the path was greased.  I can't manage to keep any part of Casa de Crazy clean for more than a few minutes.  Some parts, in fact, haven't been clean in years.  I am constantly cleaning up vomit, feces, or urine.  No kidding.  Several times a day, one of the denizens will deposit something somewhere - kids, cats, adults, everyone is playing the game of What Noxious Effluvia Can I Leave Where?, and I'm the one who gets to find it.  Sometime I don't find it until a day or two later, because I don't always hear the event in question.  I sometimes wonder if I am in training for my next life, when surely I will come back as a dung beetle.

I caught myself reflecting on what I've been feeling lately, which is less a deep and abiding depression and more a sort of general blues with the occasional foray into Holy Crap I'm Frelling Miserable!  Funny how something as simple as brain chemistry can rock one's world.  I have been up at the cabin, house sitting for Mum.  The kids are with me, which makes it difficult to find a moment for quiet introspection, but luckily I am a master of multi-tasking, so I can examine my navel AND yell at the fractious children.

I realize that my patience is not at a minimum.  It is worn slap out.  My anger is somewhere between a slow simmer and a conflagration, and I just never know from one moment to the next what it's going to be - as much as the people around me, I am along for the ride.  Yes, I have many coping mechanisms for depression and anger and all the other things on my variety plate, but right now those coping mechanisms are not terribly effective.  As in, non-starters.

Maybe the anger is burning some of the depression off?

The next few weeks will be unpleasant on the inside.  I can feel the pause that come just before the drop, like being in the front car on the roller-coaster just as it hesitates at the apex of the highest hill.  There is something of the same sort of dreadful anticipation, too.  I know I'll live through it, and with any luck I'll be able to rush through it and charge up the next hill without lingering at the lowest point.

Meanwhile, there is cleaning to do, and possibly some quilting, and if I can't cure me, I can at least distract me.

Imbolc

Somewhere, Crocus are beginning to poke their way up through frozen dirt, slush, snow, desperate to fling themselves wide to the sun.  Somewhere, birds are finding their voices again, calling out glad tidings of light and warmth renewing.

Life is stirring.

The Goddess, worn from grieving in late Autumn and birthing at Winter's beginning, is wakening once more. She is growing stronger.

It's a time of fire, this holiday - lighting candles to welcome the sun's brightness, candles of orange, red, yellow, His colors.

Fire brings blessings, healing, and change.

Make and bless candles today for use during the year.

If the day dawns bright and clear, there will be a second (or longer) winter.

Weave Brigit's crosses from straw or wheat to hang about the house, invoking protection for the household.

The candle on our altar is burning, the light that us find our way in the darkness...may it ever burn...

Happy Imbolc.
Oh, and? Happy birthday, K2, sister of my heart!!!!!

Der Schnee, Der Schnee!!

Here in Redneck Central (somewhere south of Blogopolis in the Blue Nowhere), we don't get a lot of what you might call Winter Weather.  Sometimes it gets chilly, and on rare occasions I will put socks on.  I don't actually own a winter jacket any more, although I have a shawl and a trench coat looking thing that will do in a pinch.

What usually happens is, the days get shorter, the nights get longer, and once in a while it rains, sleets, dips below 30, and people go inside and build roaring fires to warm themselves by.

I grew up in New England, in a state where snow sometimes started in October, got serious by the end of November, and didn't think about thawing until March or April some time, if then.  I am comfortable going barefoot in the stuff, providing there's a stove or fireplace on hand for later defrosting if needed.  Or at least a nice pair of socks.  I am familiar with how to heat with and cook over fire, and how to use the great outdoors as a fridge if the power goes out and the indoor icebox can't keep its cool.

When I first moved to Redneck Central, I didn't know about the Winter Panic that set in at the merest hint that a snowflake could possibly consider thinking about flying over the state on its way to somewhere else.

The Winter Panic includes but is not limited to:  filling the vehicle's fuel tank, buying gallons and gallons of water and milk, purchasing bread and eggs as if they may never be available again, and paying usurious rates for a few sticks of wood bundled in plastic webbing and sold outside convenience stores.  People will get violent if they see someone else get the last jug of milk or the last half dozen eggs (cracked and pre-scrambled for your convenience)!

No one around here wants to drive anywhere, and if a single. solitary. snowflake. should fall, they will huddle inside their homes until the weather guru declares the all clear.

Sometimes people die because they lose power and freeze to death, or asphyxiate on fumes from their propane or kerosene heaters.  I am always saddened by these deaths...most especially the children, because children don't know better than to burn heating fuel in an improperly ventilated place...the adults should, though.

I am often unaware of what the weather is supposed to be doing...if I really need to know, I look outside or open the door, so it was news to me that we're expecting Snowpocalypse tomorrow.  We could get as much as two whole inches of snow!  And it could last (gasp) as long as Wednesday morning!  When it will melt!!  And cause...umm...moistening!!!!!

I do understand feeling concern about winter weather when it's rare.  I don't blame people for trying to be certain their families are cared for and safe.  I understand wanting to be prepared.  What I don't get is why the panic?  If you're afraid of ice on the roads, stay home unless you have no choice but to drive,  and then?  Keep to the right and don't slam on your brakes every few feet because a snowflake twitched at you.  Don't take it upon yourself to be the traffic warden and slow everyone else down by pulling into the left lane and crawling along - not everyone is unable or unwilling to drive in foul weather, and that kind of behavior causes accidents that can be fatal.  Your smug does not trump my need to continue living.  Bread, eggs, and milk do you no good if you can't keep them stored properly or cook because there's no power.  Think about what you CAN do if the electricity goes out - do you have gas heat and oven?  A fireplace?  A wood stove?  No alternate heat, but a camp stove or one-burner?  Nothing but electricity?  Do you have blankets and warm clothing?  Batteries and flashlights?  Can you safely store refrigerated foods outside or in an unused, unheated room or porch?  Do you have candles and matches, or Coleman lanterns and proper ventilation?  If you have no way to keep warm and no way to store or prepare food, can you shelter elsewhere?

The best way to avoid panic is to have a plan and be ready to implement it...and be flexible.

Remember, it's winter - there may actually be winter weather.  I know!  It's crazy!  but it's true - there could be snow every few years!

It's okay, though, because together, we will survive...and when it's over (in twenty minutes or so) and we dig out of the inches of snow, we'll smile, nod at neighbors, and have stories to tell for generations to come.

Fiddle-de-dee, Sprout Is Three!

My baby girl isn't such a baby.

She talks like she's always known how, even if sometimes I'm the only one who understands her.  She walks and runs like gravity is for mere mortals, even if occasionally she gets tangled up in her own feet.  She sleeps through the night like an old pro, even if sometimes she wakes up and want rocking again, or to crawl into bed and budge up against me with a soft sigh that fades into a sweet little snore.

She argues, bites, pinches, throws toys, hits,loves, hugs, kisses, pats, and cuddles.

I call her "Little Heart" and her brother is "Big Heart".

Her laugh comes from somewhere deep within her and bubbles up like an auditory artesian spring, and it is marvelous.

She wants to help, or do for herself, fiercely independent and angry when she can't.  She can count to two, sometimes as much as five.  She knows she does not like fresh pears, and apples with peanut butter are coveted.

She loathes the shoulder straps on her car seat and wriggles free of them whenever she can, until I catch her and sternly admonish "Put your arms back in!", which she does reluctantly, protesting.  No matter how tight I make them, how secure I make the chest buckle, she can get free.

Sometimes she like to spend hours just mashed up against me, snuggled as close as she can get.  "Will you sit on the lounge with me?" she asks, and when I do she sits, lies, sprawls on me, one hand absently holding mine or patting me, staring at the television or out the window or at nothing at all.  Maybe there is a book, or two, or a dozen.  Maybe there is conversation.  Maybe there is just us on the lounge, warm and content, covered in cats and a sheet or blanket, still for a time.

She knows how to scream.  She has lungs and volume like me.  She can scare the crap out of her father and I when she cuts loose out of the blue.  She likes to sing.  Sometimes she sings all day long, and sometimes just a little here and there, mostly songs she makes up on the spot.  There is no rhyme or reason, but it is a happy noise.  Occasionally she dances, too.  She may entice one of us to join her.

My little wild, sweet, strong, smart little girl is three.

How glad I am for having her.

Isn't, Is (SO Series)

He isn't a pedophile.

He is a sex offender, caught by a pretty girl's lies about her age, caught by her Father's anger and denial of his daughter's serial behavior with men.

He isn't a pedophile.

He is terrified of touching or being touched by children.  He is afraid that even a hug will be misconstrued by people who don't care about anything but labels.  He is careful not to hug, pick up, pat, or come in contact with children who aren't his.  He doesn't even want to push them on a swing or pick them up and offer comfort if they fall or get a boo-boo.

He isn't a pedophile.

He is concerned about changing his daughter's diaper, even at home, concerned about cleaning her bottom or her vulva too carefully, the way they should be cleaned, because he worries that people will think the worst of him.  He worries about giving his daughter a bath or letting her shower with her Papa.

He isn't a pedophile.

He is a graduate of his home state's prison system, and a product of his experience there.  He is angry, lost, hurt, resentful, bitter, confused, and damaged, and he doesn't know how to find his way to a healthier self so he is mired in it all, feeling isolated, abandoned, unwanted.

He isn't a pedophile.

He is angered by the very idea that anyone would attempt sexual activity with a child, disgusted, horrified.  He does not find children of any sex attractive in that way.

He isn't a pedophile.

He is afraid to go to the park, the Y, the indoor play places with his family, afraid it will give people the wrong idea, that he will go back to prison just for climbing on the play structure with his daughter.

He isn't a pedophile.

He is hemmed in, hampered by the laws surrounding his crime, laws that do not differentiate between his foolish mistake and the man who raped a little girl, the laws that say all SOs are the same and get the same treatment and are SOs forever.

He isn't a pedophile.

He is on the receiving end of bitterness, assumption, the consequences of his own actions and the anger of others.  He is struggling with his identity, not quite sure of his place in this world, of who or what he is.

He isn't a pedophile.

He is the man I love, the father of my daughter, the person I see disintegrating even as he is trying to rebuild himself, so much more than the indelible label that he's been given.

He is a lot of things, but he isn't a pedophile.

Watermelon in Winter

I am eating watermelon.  It's January, and I am eating watermelon.

It occurs to me that my children may experience the loss of this forever-season of fresh fruit and vegetables.  They may see an end to the grocery stores we take for granted, now.  They may lose the variety of foods we have now.

My grandchildren may never know what it's like to have fresh fruit in winter.  They may never know what a lemon or lime tastes like, an orange, certain types of grapes and apples, bananas.

Bananas.

There's a threat to the banana.  Some kind of blight.  The banana our great-grandparents ate is not the same one we eat - theirs died out.  If this blight spreads, there will be no more.  No more banana bread, banana muffins, banana pops, banana smoothies...all that will remain is artificial flavoring, fake banana that doesn't taste right, but when the real thing is gone, who will know?

GMO plant life is contaminating heirloom varieties, and the companies that manufacture the GMOs are suing and winning over this contamination, forcing farmers to destroy their seed stock, pay fines, even shut down their family farms because wind and pollen don't recognize field boundaries.

People treat this planet like a giant rubbish bin, tossing their trash wherever they stand without even a twinge of conscience.  They treat our Earth like Gurgi's bag of endless crunchings and munchings, like there will never be an end to our finite resources, and if there is, who cares as long as it isn't during THEIR lifetime?

Fresh water is a joke.  What fresh water?  It is ALL polluted, ALL full of the medication our neighbors upstream peed out, ALL full of crap to one degree or another.  What passes for fresh has been treated with chemicals and additives, made "safe", but its still full of what's put there and what gets int it as it rushes through plastic pipes to our homes.

The oceans are so polluted, so over fished, they can't sustain life.  Will my children, my grand children, know what wild salmon tastes like?  Cod?  Tuna?  Crab?  Lobster?  Farm raised just isn't the same, and besides, we NEED life in the ocean.  Imagine all that vast expanse, dead.

Red meat is a nightmare.  So many diseases, now, and contaminants, drugs and chemicals.  It's not meat, it's a chemistry experiment.  What is it doing to us?  Chicken, too.  Wonder why your 7 year old is developing breasts?  McNuggets.  All that chicken.  All those hormones.

Our government has all but declared war on raw foods, local sourcing, untreated, unpasteurized, untainted meats, fruits, vegetables, grains, products.

A great deal of what is called "food" isn't - it's chemicals, fillers, artificial this and FD&C that.  It's processed and treated, pulverized into paste, rolled out, and reshaped to be a more perfect version of itself.

Here I sit, eating watermelon in winter.  I paid a few bucks for a small container of ready-to-eat chunks.  I wonder what the real price is?

Sing Along, If You Like

Feeling the tunes today...

Peace in Pieces

I am wondering how it is I can feel both immensely heavy and entirely empty at the same time.  Every movement is leaden - I feel as though I am striving against some sort of invisible force, an insignificant little bug fighting its way through a sea of resin even as it hardens into amber.

Only I find the results less lovely than amber, which I always want to lick or suck on as if it were some sort of candy.  

At the same time, I am poking around inside myself and find...nothing.  Well, perhaps not nothing.  There are the children, a suffusion of love drenching every part of my psyche.  My mother.  My friends.  If not nothing, then certainly there's a great deal more emptiness than fullness, and there is a veil both ephemeral and impenetrable between me and what/who I love.

If I could be still and quiet for a bit, a statue of myself stowed in some dark corner, disregarded, I feel I could perhaps reach within and twist things around a bit, remove or bore through the veil and energize my limbs so that I am human again, not shambling stone.

There is no peace.  I am, for all intents and purpose, a single mother with two children who don't know or understand the value of a few minutes of peace or silence, who both feel the need, are driven, in fact, to speak every thought that goes through their heads whether the listened wants to hear them, and both insist not only on pouring out their nattering thoughts in a ceaseless tumble of words, they require interaction and response to even the most inane things.

They do not respect meditation, reading, conversation with others, or even sleep.

This adds to the heaviness, to the emptiness, because I feel I should want to hear them, want to interact, should feel delighted and honored to have two articulate, creative, imaginative children.

There's a thumping refrain in my head...like the bass thudding relentlessly from some trendy club, spilling out into the streets and causing nervous twitching in passersby.  Peace.  Peace, peace, peace...

In bits and pieces, moments, minutes, I just want a little peace, and then a bigger peace, and then a surfeit.

Perhaps then I will find what I need to set aside this dense nothingness, this heavy lightness of being.

Thoughtfetti

He is holding me, face buried against my head, arms around me.  He is telling me how sorry he is that he hurts me, that he loves me and doesn't know why he doesn't always show it.  I am thinking how nice it is to be held, and I wish it was enough, but I can't forget the hurtful things he says when he is not showing me he loves me.  I wonder if he will ever understand the damage he has done and that it cannot be undone, that it cannot be erased, that it may one day heal over but it will always be a knurled, twisted, ugly scar and that the healed over places will never, quite be what they once were.  I wonder if he realizes how torn and tattered I am inside, and how little "I love you" does to mend that when there's still the other, the not-love, happening.
~~~~~
I am holding Sprout.  She has her back to me and is leaning into me, standing in front of where I sit.  I bury my nose in her neck and smell her Sprout scent, and clean pajamas, and the spicy pungency of the diaper ointment, and the sweetness of the juice she is drinking.  Her arms reaches back and wraps around my neck, holding me to her, her little hand alternating stroking my hair and patting my neck.  She does not want to let go just yet, and I am content to be held onto, to hold her warm sweetness to me.
~~~~~
The Evil Genius scrambles onto the lounge with me.  He smells faintly of wood and something a little sour, and he needs a haircut.  He is warm except his feet, his toes, which make me jump when he tucks them under my leg.  He leans on me and I am surprised by how solid he is - so often he is a ghost in our home, in his room playing some electronic game or building imaginary realities with Legos and other toys, honestly sometimes it's like he's not real himself, but some kind of imaginary son who is no less loved.  He leans against me and closes his eyes and smiles and tells me he loves me, and it's still the best thing ever, and he is still my best good thing, my heart.
~~~~~
It's so easy to feel lonely.  It's so sad to feel...removed...from warmth and love and life.  The cats pile up on me when I sit down.  They want to be touched, loved, and I oblige them.  They purr and make painful showings of their happiness with their paws, claws slightly extended, kneading me.  They seem to know that their warmth is a balm, their weight on my lap an anchor, that I feel like I need something solid to hold, to touch, or I will fly right out into space because gravity has stopped working for me.
~~~~~
I do not make very good choices.  I'm a decent enough person, and I try to be loving and compassionate, but I know people who know me look at me and my life and wonder what the hell is wrong with me.  I could tell them, if they had a lifetime to listen.  There's no nutshell version.  Unless...the nutshell is "Me."
~~~~~
I am having the dream again...the one with the man who wraps his arms around me and I feel...what?  Home?  Safe?  Loved?  Wanted?  Accepted?  Nothing real.  It isn't real. It doesn't exist.  There is no man.  There is no guardian, protector, cherisher, and there never has been.  He's a figment of my imagination.  If he exists, he does not exist for me.  The sooner I can get my subconscious to accept that, the better, because that dream?  Is a kind of torture.  And I can do without it.
~~~~~
Sprout often wanders through her day singing.  She sings everything - requests for juice, what she'd like to play with, what color she sees.  I remember being told that I used to sing my way through the day when I was a little girl.  My grandmother called it "K's day at the Opera".  I don't remember.  I must have been happy, or thought I was happy, or at least content, to sing that way.  I don't sing, now.  Don't want to.  I think about the band and I am just...tired.  When we are rehearsing again I'm sure the ennui will go away, but for now...tired...as if even the idea of making music is tedious.  I have no song, and I do not want to sing it.
~~~~~
My children are both on the bed with me, snuggling. Cygnus has spent the night at his place, so the bed is too large with only me and the cats (who don't come up on the bed when he's here, any more, and sometimes I miss their furry presence reassuring me what's the real and what's the dream), and it's morning but still early enough we don't feel too bad about being in bed, and both kids have climbed up and nestled in with me and I am listening to the whisper of their different breaths and my arm is thrown over them both so I can hold them snug to me and they are warm and wriggly and I am suddenly a child myself and I am in the big brass bed with Mom and my brother in the room over the kitchen at my grandparents' house, and it is early morning but we don't need to be up yet and Mom is cuddling us and we're in that hazy place between awake and dreaming and she smells of soap and cigarettes and Mom and it is good and I love her and we are warm and safe and loved and for a minute that is all there is and I am happy.
~~~~~
How are you today?

Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

I smiled today.

Big deal, right?

Well, yeah, kinda.

Not tired, wan, sad, fleeting, this smile.

It was genuine.  It made it all the way to my eyes and hung around for a while.

Those smiles, the ones that go all the way through and up and into, those smiles are rare for me.

It felt light.  It felt peculiar.  It felt good.

Thoughtfetti

I spent Dec. 22 - 25 in the ICU at Redneck Central General Horspital, Pill Dispensary, and Sock Emporium.  Nurses are marvelous.  I try to make mine laugh whenever possible.  They don't have enough opportunity to laugh.
~~~~~
When they sent me home, I was instructed to rest.  Umm.  About that...
~~~~~
Winter has us in its teeth and is shaking us like a rat - the wind is so fierce right now the house is making a sort of rattling hum.  Some people think it's cold outside, but it's not too bad if you're just taking out the trash.  I did put on shoes, anyway.
~~~~~
I want to bake something, but I don't know what.  Perhaps I shall take a nap and make up my mind in my sleep.
~~~~~
If I didn't have kids I would crawl under the blankie and stay there for a week.  Sigh.  I DO have kids, though, and they are so unreasonable about eating on a regular basis and having clean clothes to wear.  Double sigh.
~~~~~
I have a rash.  Under my arms.  It itches and burns and distracts me something fierce.  My body hates me.
~~~~~
Sprout is speaking so much now, and it's funny to hear her.  I love how little kids talk and make connections.  She makes me smile.
~~~~~
The Evil Genius has a crush.  Oh, how he will deny it, but his father gave him an iPhone for Christmas and the boy spends as much time talking to her with face-time as he does doing anything else.  It's cute.  Disturbing, but cute.
~~~~~
My feet have been chilly for more than a week.  What's that about???
~~~~~
What books are you reading these days?

Happy Birthday, Evil Genius

If I could give one gift to you
What would that gift be?
Shall I make the world anew
Create it sickness free?
Shall I banish hunger,
Banish hatred, banish pain?
Shall I mend the broken,
Let them dance in the rain?
What if I could take cancer,
AIDS, Alzheimer's too
And send them gone forever
As my gift to you?
Could I soften heartache
Anger and fear
Give vision to the blind
Help the deaf ones hear?
Help the lost to find their way
Along the winding path
Show the weak and weary mind
The beauty that life hath?

I cannot snap my fingers
And make everything right
But I can tuck you safely in
Each and every night
And while the world is faulty
And filled with many woes
I can help you learn to avoid
The very worst of those
And I can help you to be strong
When you most want to be weak
And I can teach you to raise your voice
When most you fear to speak
I can help you find your light
To shine for all to see
And I can help you learn to know
Why the spirit must be free

In time you'll grow beyond my words
And stand up all alone
In time I'll be a whisper
Where the winds of fate have blown
But if you see injustice, hunger, or need
And work to make it right somehow
Then we both succeed
Be strong, my child, and wise
Compassionate and smart
And don't forget to listen to
Both your good head and good heart
Wherever else I be,
Whatever else I do
I will always be that soft whisper
Saying "I love you"

Quotes

"...besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child." - Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

Tibi gratias agimus quod nihil fumas.

It says "...freedom of...", not "...freedom from...".

Nolite te bastardes carburundorum!

"It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint." - Penn Jillette

Yuletide Tunes - A Very Happy Solstice To All

Yule Sing Along Eventually

Leading Into Yule

I have been so busy...I can't even catch my breath!  Things are rough, here at the casa, but life goes on.  Yule is coming, and I thought I'd post some old videos I made and share a little music with ya.  Enjoy...or don't, your choice.  Whatever you celebrate, I hope it is marvelous.

Wee Hours

Sometimes the only time I have with my thoughts, the only time it is relatively quiet (except for the humming of the heat pump, the bubbling of the fish tanks, the creaking of the house as temperatures change and the wind kicks up, the dishwasher, the fridge, the cats...) is when everyone else is asleep.

It doesn't happen often...even when they're all in bed, sometimes I am back and forth to Sprout's room to shush her back to sleep when something disturbs her and she cries out.  Sometimes I am too tired, or feel guilty for wasting the little bit of time that Someone and I have together on the rare nights he stays over, or I need to fold laundry.

Once in a while, though...once in a while I am up late, like the old days, just me and whatever is rattling around in my brain.

Tonight is such a night.  Someone is staying over but he went to bed, worn slap out from a day of working out in the yard at his place.  I needed to stay up and work a bit, trying to get a slew of Etsy listings done for K2 to have up for Cyber Monday - look for Unleashthegoddess on Etsy  if you want to shop a talented artist and find unique items to gift or wear yourself (shameless plug).  I finished a few minutes ago, and I could go to bed, snuggle up to Someone, enjoy his warm presence...but I need...truly, need...a few minutes.

Week after relentless, sometimes grinding, week of being a single mother homeschooling her kids wears me out.  Week after endless week of noise and movement and chaos leaves me breathless and in need of just a little peace, and as it stands the only way I can get some of that precious peace is to snatch it from the wee hours.

I can sleep some other time.  Right now I am going to get my think on.