Just the Way You Are

 Hold on, folks, we’re going on a ride.

When a friend had gastric bypass surgery, long time ago, they lost a lot of weight in a short time.  It was dramatic.  Quite a few of their family, friends, and acquaintances commented on the change.  Encouraging, supportive, exclamations of surprise and delight. 

One day they approached me, serious, upset.  Why didn’t I ever say anything about the weight loss?  My silence hurt - they couldn’t understand how I, a bestie, didn’t remark on this drastic change.  Hadn’t I noticed?  Didn’t I care?  They were deeply hurt.

I hadn’t meant to be hurtful.  Hadn’t realized.  So I told them the truth:  I don’t see your weight, your clothing, your makeup or hair.  I see you, my beautiful friend.  No matter what you look like, you are my beautiful friend, and that’s the you I will always see.

That’s the you I love, just as you are.

Funny thing, that inability to see the surface.  It’s a survival mechanism from childhood, when I had to learn to see beyond the public face to what lay beneath.  Who could be trusted?  Who would use me against myself?  Who would be kind?  Who was cruel?  Who hid inner rot with a beautiful face?  Who hid the poverty of their soul wbehind a veneer of wealth and social standing?

Another funny thing: For quite a long time I didn’t like Mr. Rogers.  Not one bit.  Didn’t trust him.  He gave me the creeps.

I was an adult, in my twenties, when I figured out why.  See, I know I adored his show when I was wee little.  So what happened?

He was kind.  

And I had learned to distrust kindness.

Because I was surrounded by people who acted kind only to become cruel - always for my own good, of course.

He was a good person.

And I had learned to distrust goodness. 

Because I was surrounded by people who acted good when they were seen but horrid when they thought no one who mattered was watching.

He was sincere.

And I had learned to distrust sincerity.

Because I was surrounded by people for whom sincerity was performative.

He was honest.

And I had learned to distrust honesty.

Because I was surrounded by people for whom honesty was either a bludgeon or an outright lie.

He said he like me just as I was.

And I waited for the “…but…”

Because I was surrounded by people from whom I had come to expect qualifiers.

How could he love me just as I was when the people who should have loved me unconditionally?  Didn’t.

I was loved, but why couldn’t I be better?  More.  Less.  Not myself. Why couldn’t I be more like my cousin, the child of this friend or that, the neighbor’s child?  Why couldn’t I be thinner, more fashionable, smarter, quieter, more graceful, prettier?

When I was six (I’ve related this before and will again because it is so very telling) I was snuggled up against my grandmother as we watched the evening news.  She was petting my head and said “I love you, Kiki lime (her little name for me).”  I turned to look at her and asked “What do you want?”

Six years old, and I knew that love had a price.  Those words from that woman always meant something else.  Usually they ere followed by the enumeration of my many faults and a plaintive “You could be so pretty (or other adjective) if only you would…”

As I grew older, she stopped prefacing her barbs with kindness, and usually made sure there were no witnesses to the cruelty she couched in “…for your own good…”, or if there were witnesses, they were people to afraid of the power she wielded over them, or they agreed with her casual, petty meanness.

She was a direct influence in my life until my middling teens, and indirectly for long after.  I still hear her, dead these many years, inside my head.

Hers is the voice telling me to be quiet, no one cares, I’m fat, ugly, stupid, no one wants me, they’re just being nice or polite, I can’t do anything right, I am useless and worthless and…

She never said those things so plainly, but she said them.  In so many ways, she said them. 

I was nothing but a disappointment to her and she made sure I knew it.

And there was Mr. Rogers, being himself, and I had learned not to trust, not to believe, what people showed me.  I had become so adept at hiding myself, at being malleable, at pretending to be whatever the powerful people in my life wanted me to be.  I couldn’t even be sure of who I was.  The more himself he was, the more I looked for what he was hiding.

Meanwhile, I was quietly rebelling.  I was learning that power is an illusion and I didn’t have to buy into it.  I was learning how to hear that internal voice without listening to it.  I was learning to be comfortable in my own skin.  I was learning to find beauty in everything, and to rejoice in it.  I was learning that I was strong in so many ways because of all that other shit, that I am sturdy, that my basket of rocks is full and often heavy but I will make it up the mountain, and what’s more?  I’ll carry everyone else with me if needs must.

I learned to be ornery.  I learned to stand strong and to push back.

But I never learned how not to see through the illusions.  I love you my beautiful friend, just the way you are.

https://youtu.be/8PZkIED8czc?si=cZa5mhH77_mOET26

Not Sleeping, Not Dreaming, Just Wandering.

Went to bed before 9:00.  Cats piled around and purred their lullaby, occasionally patting with insistent paws - hey, if you’re awake you could be petting - and nestling close and comforting.

Even in sleep, I am aware of them.  If I move, I move carefully.  I don’t want to smush anyone.  It’s the same…instinct?…I had when my kids were babies sleeping beside me, to adjust my position with caution, aware in dreaming.  

Sometimes I thrash about, but it’s small thrashing, tiny movements of frustration that burst into full on flailing when the kitties grow impatient with my lack of stillness and go in search of less twitchy places to snooze.

With no one but the stuffed animals to be bothered, I am…restless…

I was dreaming frustration and pain and awoke steeped in both, caught between worlds and all tangled up in my head.  The cats were with me, all of the turmoil internal, it seems, sheets and blankets untroubled by my presence.  A tug at the top corner and you’d never know I was here.

Discomfort, pain, constant companions for years.  Count the emotional versions?  Most of my life.  The physical is more recent but I can no longer remember how it feels to not feel it.

I am…sturdy.  Heh.  I AM the brute squad.  But even sturdy stones can crumble when enough cracks form.

I’m not crumbling, exactly, although falling apart sometimes sounds kinda nice.  I suspect that I couldn’t just fall a little bit apart, though.  I’d like to think it’d be spectacular, because I’d hate to be an ordinary mess.

I hurt in so many places and so many ways and if I’m going to whine about it, I’m going to whinge it’s not fair - physical OR psychological, but not BOTH!  Both is too much, and so what if I CAN handle it?  I shouldn’t HAVE to, and the goddesses prowling at my center want to get OUT and how am I supposed to deal with them when I cannot deal with me?

And you don’t want them out.  You don’t.  They are angry and restless, too, and they don’t have friend or foe, they only have destroy and remake, which is all fine and well if you’re on the creation end of things but not so great on the destruction side, although being created is messy and frightening and occasionally hurts and keeps going, but destruction is finite, so…yeah…

While body and mind take turns with the turmoil, it’s raining outside, freezing droplets ticking against the house, rhythmless droplets sighing because even nature is at something of a loss right now, so she’s doing cold and wet and maybe freeze but not for too long because the dandelions need to come back up soon, in a few months that are only a moment when you’re a Universe.

Monks are walking for peace and masked men are openly murdering peaceful protesters in the streets and hatred isn’t even trying to pretend it’s anything else while gobbling up everything and and everyone that it hates and…

I’m tired but I can’t sleep.

No rest, not because I’m wicked, but because I am thinking, feeling, broken, compassionate, scattered, infinite, confused…human…a mind bound to a broken body, free to wander as long as I don’t move.

A New Declaration

I rarely drink.

I rarely want to drink.

Tonight, I would very much like to get drunk. I will not. But I want to.  

I have, instead, chosen to distract myself by once again taking liberties and rewriting what is damn near sacred to me, hoping to keep the original intent while reflecting current events.

Feel free to tell me what you would add or change, were you writing a document meant to radically alter the course of a nation...because I'm one woman and not necessarily the best or brightest, nor the most politically astute, but I do think my heart's in the right place even if I’m angry, disappointed, and disillusioned.

~~~~~

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all beings are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Government of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

It has refused its Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

It has forbidden The People to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance to The People unless suspended in their operation till its Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, has utterly neglected to attend to them.

It has dissolved the rights of The People repeatedly, for opposing its invasions on their rights.

It has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing its Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

It has made Judges dependent on its Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

It has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

It has kept among us, in times of peace, militant law enforcement forces and Federal agencies given special permissions to disregard out natural and legal right without the Consent of our people.

It has affected to render certain law enforcement and federal agencies independent of and superior to the Civil power.

It has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving Assent to Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any crimes which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States, or through use of pardons and unlawful interference rendered moot any enforcement of our laws:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent (and enforcing with terrible vigor and no accountability via the IRS and bloated, incomprehensible tax laws):

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury (by threatening dire consequences if the accused refuses to plead guilty, and by denying accountability for abuses of the system, or by justifying through manipulation of truth or by outright lies such actions as law enforcement may take that deprives us of life, liberty, and/or property):

For taking away our due process, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending, ignoring or denying our own Legislatures, and declaring itself invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

It has abdicated Government here, by declaring itself out of our Laws and waging War against us.

It has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people, selling natural resources and public lands to foreign interests without the consent of The People, and permitted with impunity the toxic pollution of what remains in the name of profit for a privileged few.

It is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries  our servicemen and untrained, unstructured, inexperienced and unlawful law enforcement to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

It has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, by fomenting violence, paranoia, distrust, and fear and engendering bigotry, class warfare, unfair taxation, unjust enforcement of laws, unjust protections under the laws,  and lack of accountability for those charged with the equal and just enforcement of those laws.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A government whose character is thus marked by every act which may define Tyrany is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We must appeal to the magnanimity and justice of our global brethren as we disavow our government’s actions and seek to repair what it has torn asunder, reminding them that we seek to remain at peace, friends.

We, therefore, the People of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these United States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the current Federal Government, and that all political connection between them and the current Federal Government, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Happy Thanksgiving

Here followeth a Casa de Crazy Thanksgiving Day Tradicion:




And a new (old) addition to our warped holiday hilarity:


We hope you have a pleasant, tasty, mellow, comfortable, healthy, not-at-all-contentious Thanksgiving day if you are in the USA and an all around good one if not in the USA or not celebrating.

Here are the links if you want to view on YouTube:  Alice's Restaurant , Thankful and Turkey Drop

Thankful

 I have a few traditions on Thanksgiving. Not many - the menu; recording and watching the Macy’s parade, forwarding through commercials and talking heads to see the twenty minutes of balloons, floats and high school bands we’re actually interested in hidden among all that junk; and my day-before-Thanksgiving list of some things for which I am thankful, in no particular order and in no way complete:

What remains of my left foot, Nubbly, which perseveres and does its best not to pain me even when I deserve it
The doctors, nurses, and techs who probably saved my life IN 2019  and helped me get back to living it when I was hours from being septic, and already waging war with osteomyelitis, gaseous gangrene, and MRSA
The care that family and friends gave me while I returned to upright living (or what now passes for it, which is pretty darned good) once more
The Evil Genius
Micah (who was Sprout and then Blossom when she reminded me that she's a bit grown, now and isn't a sprout any more, and I'm not weeping over that, you can't prove anything)
Mom, though she be gone from us
The house in which I live (beloved Casa de Crazy) even when it reminds me that chaos and entropy abound
The vehicle which takes me where I need/want to be
Gypsy
Kerri
T, who may be my ex-husband but remains a staunch friend
Mr. Grey
Mizz A, gone but never forgotten
Kit
Sam-I-Am
PJ, who is gone from this world but always with me
Mizz Beth
Martha 'n' Milo (who lives always in our hearts)
Avalon
Dica
Donna
All of my friends who put up with me when I am most myself and therefor least likable. They are the net beneath me when I fly and fall
Kira, Jon, and Ric, with whom I am privileged to make music
Bread
The scent of leaf loam and woodsmoke in the crisp autumn air
Apple cider
Books, music, and art
Clean, plentiful water
Clean air
Clean clothes
Freedom
Nature and the ways she finds to show me something new of herself every day
Words
Song
Dance
Adversity, that joy is all the sweeter (Okay, okay, the joy is sweet enough, so basta with the adversity for a minute, please)
Every creature and plant that I consume to sustain myself, because without the life I take, I would have no life to live
Love - that it exists at all is a wonder, and I feel blessed to know it in many forms
Chocolate, gift from the Gods (yes, even the perversion called "candy bar") (Mmm...candy bar...)
The cats by whom I am kept
Honeycrisp Apples
Strong hands
Strong spirit
Strong will

Laughter

Cussed determination not to curl up and die just because life can sometimes be a succession of truly awful, bleak, and desolate days...but sometimes it isn't
My couselor, Jessica
The Internet
You

I hope you have a blessed day, and that the things for which you're thankful outweigh the things for which you're not.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all, from us at Casa de Crazy to you out in the Blue Nowhere and beyond.

Counting Down

It is Thanksgiving week and there is much happening here at Casa de Crazy and Dragon’s Rest.

We’re celebrating at Dragon’s Rest again, this year, our way of keeping Mom with us even though she is gone.  Angie, too - if she cannot be with us, at least her kitties can enjoy a few morsels of turkey.

The Evil Genius will not be coming - bit of a commute from the other side of the country.  More keylime pie for me (and Ed, and Tony).

Not gonna lie, this year is going to hurt.  Last year did, but we found laughter and love and joy, and we will again.

Some friends will be joining us, though, and that’ll be fun.

This is a somewhat traditional post for me - every year I write a little something about this week, as it is the lead-off to The Silly Season (aka Christmahannukwanzakyule) and often one of my busiest here at the Casa.

So, here we go.

Sunday - Baking bread for dressing.  Micah (Blossom, Sorout) is going to help, and we’re doing it at the cabin so there’s less to transport on Wednesday.  Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Monday - cutting bread into cubes so it can air dry for dressing.  Did I mention cleaning? Transferring turkeys to the fridge,  then back to Casa de Crazy.

Tuesday -  Baking keylime pies, mashing turnips and carrots.  Panic over the cream supply - will half a gallon suffice?  Is two pounds of butter enough? Thaw the turkey stock for dressing and gravy.  Chop onion and celery for dressing.

Wednesday - Pack it all up.  Back to the cabin.  More housework.  Lort, the housework.  Setting up the extra table and chairs.  Prepping the dressing.  Still panicking about the butter…maybe last minute shopping is in order?  Stuff the turkeys with herbs, butter ‘em up, and season them before putting the pans in the fridge so they’re ready to go in the morning.  

Thursday - Turkeys go in to bake.  Dressing goes in to bake.  Green beans are steamed.   Boil and mash potatoes.  Are five pounds of potatoes enough?  Maybe I’ll make ten… Finishing up any last minute cleaning.  Friends and family trickle in.  Set the table.  Fill the water pitcher.  Watch TV and baste the turkey.  Start Dutch apple pie baking and start chocolate silk pie thawing (because Marie Callender does pie so well, I'm happy to let her).  Serve.  Eat.  Coma.  Dessert and coffee/tea.  More coma.  Play games.  Pack leftovers to go for guests.  Eat more.  Sleep well.

Friday - Head to GARF to work with Kerri at her booth, stopping by Casa de Crazy first to love on the cats therein.

Saturday - More GARF, then home for the night.  Start planning holiday goodies for shipping to family and friends.  Get ready to make meringues so Mom’s tradition lives on.  

Sunday - Back to the cabin.  Naps interspersed with making Thanksgiving casserole and turkey stock/soup.  Would ye be unreasonable to buy another freezer or three?  Maybe beginning Christmahannukwanzakyule baking.

How is your week shaping up?

Declaration Revisited

 A repost from a couple of years back.

~~~~~

Given what has been happening all around the country, and the general disillusionment of the many people inhabiting every side of the political fences, and given the great social unrest that is swelling from grassroots dissatisfaction to a tsunami of anger, I took the liberty of making free with one of my most cherished historical documents.

Underlined bits are the changes I would make to make the document more current.  I do hope the founding fathers will forgive my brazen theft and re-working of their creation.

Feel free to tell me what you would add or change, were you writing a document meant to radically alter the course of a nation...because I'm one woman and not necessarily the best or brightest, nor the most politically astute, but I do think my heart's in the right place.
~~~~~

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all beings are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Government of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

It has refused its Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
It has forbidden The People to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance to The People unless suspended in their operation till its Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, has utterly neglected to attend to them.
It has dissolved the rights of The People repeatedly, for opposing its invasions on their rights.
It has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing its Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
It has made Judges dependent on its Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
It has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
It has kept among us, in times of peace, militant law enforcement forces and Federal agencies given special permissions to disregard out natural and legal right without the Consent of our people.
It has affected to render certain law enforcement and federal agencies independent of and superior to the Civil power.
It has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution (see:  The UN), and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States (diplomatic immunity from any and all crimes):
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent (and enforcing with terrible vigor and no accountability via the IRS and bloated, incomprehensible tax laws):
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury (by threatening dire consequences if the accused refuses to plead guilty, and by denying accountability for abuses of the system)):
For taking away our due process, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring itself invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
It has abdicated Government here, by declaring itself out of our Laws and waging War against us.
It has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people, selling natural resources and public lands to foreign interests without the consent of The People.
It is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries  our servicemen to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
It has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, by fomenting violence, paranoia, distrust, and fear and engendering bigotry, class warfare, unfair taxation, unjust enforcement of laws, unjust protections under the laws,  and lack of accountability for those charged with the equal and just enforcement of those laws.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A government whose character is thus marked by every act which may define Tyrany, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by our legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our ancestors' emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the People of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these United States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the current Federal Government, and that all political connection between them and the current Federal Government, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.