The More Things Change...

...the more they stay the same.

Ready for a bit of irony? Here we are in the first post since my little Facebook rant, and what am I doing? Posting a video that my Aunt posted on Facebook. Hah!! I hope the folks who made it don't mind too much...I felt compelled to nab it because they filmed it where I grew up, rode my bike, bought lobster rolls and coffee frappes (pronounced "frap", not "frappay"), and got half-eaten by mosquitoes and deer flies. Ah, good times.

So, take a look while I blather on down below:

I was watching this and thinking about how very long ago I was back there, in those woods, biking those same roads, past those same stone walls. I was thinking about a time when I could look at the future and feel a sense of wonder, of optimism, that anything was possible.

And then I realized that yeah, I never felt much optimism about my future. I was too busy believing the people who raised me when they told me, directly and indirectly, that I was stupid and useless because I could never quite manage to live up to what they wanted me to be - the best I could manage was to be myself, and that just wasn't enough.

As with the town where I grew up, not much has changed in my internal landscape; the feelings are the same, I'm just living somewhere else among different people now. Still being made to feel I'm not wanted, and stupid, and useless...just by a different cast of characters.

Right now, today, in this moment, I am thinking I'm done answering anything but "fine" when anyone asks how I am. Right now, today, in this moment, I am thinking that it would be best for me to say "nothing at all" when asked what's on my mind. It seems like anything other than "Everything's wonderful"is something of an imposition. I already feel like a useless time/energy/resource suck - I don't need to feel it any deeper. Right now, today, in this moment, I am wishing that I could somehow manage to cease existing, cease being worthless and unwanted in my own life, cease being such a fucking burden on everyone around me. Right now, today, in this moment, I am wishing I didn't feel like a fat, feckless, pointless waste if matter who just does everything wrong and gets in the way.

This is not about you, it's about me and my stupid misfiring neurons, the mental illness that never gives me a moment's peace (like my children, but far less cute and cuddly than they are).

If I made you feel bad, sorry - go watch the video again, it'll make you smile. Anyway, it made ME smile...

Status: Quo

Dear Fellow Facebook User,

Hi, how ya doin'?? Enjoying that Farmville, are ya? Judging by the number of game updates scrolling up my screen, you're rolling in rutabagas right now. Congratulations on the birth of that green glowing cow - have you checked your water supply? Your new barn looks fabulous. No, I haven't built one. I know, I know, all I have to do is pester everyone I know on Facebook a few hundred times to send me weird parts so I can build my very own barn, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm lazy - three clicks per person is just too many.

About that Pot Farm game - it's just a game. Chill. Un-pucker your bits. I like watching my Hippie Farmer avatar run around harvesting stuff. Run, Hippie, run!! I am not attempting, via cartoon plants on a Facebook game, to make "connections" and build my own green, grassy cartel in Redneck Central. Relax, yo.

I see your Mafia Wars family is growing. Well done, you. Sorry I haven't been helping you knock over fruit stands, rip off drug dealers, or ice anyone. I haven't been playing in a while. This thing called "real life" keeps popping up in front of my screen. Tch, it's such a nuisance!

So hey, we need to talk a minute, Fellow Facebook User. I'm thinking about blocking you from posting on my wall. Now, don't cry - it's not you, honest! It's me - I just don't have the time to read all those game updates and quirky news stories, or watch all the videos of kitties and puppies and children doing Fun! Amazing! Things!! I know they're all fabulous, but they interfere with my ability to see what's going on with the handful of people on my friends list that I actually know, you know, in the real world.

What's the real world?

Umm...it's the place that starts to smell bad when you're on Facebook too long, cross-posting on Twitter when you have a minute. You know, where the pizza guy actually comes to your door and that big light in the sky keeps coming on, going off, coming on, going off at regular intervals. The place we're all trying to avoid because it is currently sucking. Yeah, the real world.

So, anyway...the thing is, I could probably handle the videos, the game updates, the links, and the weird "Post your shoe size as inches and a sad face but don't tell anyone why and hilarity will ensue" status games, but I just can't take any more of those chain-letter "post this if you love me/I'm sure no one likes me and won't re post/you're an asshole if you don't re post/you hate puppies and kittens and fluffy bunnies if you don't re post/you are Satan's sweaty armpit washrag if you don't re post/you're not a real Ahmuricun if you don't re post/you launch RPGs at soldiers if you don't re post/if you don't re post then you must want the baby Jesus to cry/if you don't vote left, right, or centrist, you clearly want the nation to fail and crumble into a communist, socialist, Zoroastrian* mess/re post if you think cancer sucks otherwise you must love it and want to have its babies/re post or you suck sweaty donkey balls/if you don't re post then an orphan in Somalia will be fed to a starving lion" status updates.

See, I don't do causes just because someone's trying to guilt me. I have no social conscience, in that sense. I do causes that I feel are actually worth my time/thought/effort/money, and I support them in person. I don't show my love by copy-and-pasting on Facebook. I show it by acting like I love people (you know, like not farting in bed and holding their head under the covers), and writing them, you know, personal messages rather than blindly pasting some anonymous, poorly spelled, poorly typed, nondescript status update that will quickly be lost among the newest cause-celebres. Causes-celebres? Umm...you know...fads.

So, dear Fellow Facebook User, I am giving serious thought to blocking wall access to anyone who bombards me with these pseudo-psychological, religious, guilt-inducing, manipulative, chain-letter statuses. I hope you understand...and if you don't repost this as your status then you don't grok where I'm coming from, and you suck**.

*No Zoroastrians were harmed in the typing of this post, and no aspersions were meant to be cast - Zoroastrians are lovely folks and don't deserve to be maligned in any way, I just think it's fun to say "Zoroastrian". Go on, try it. See? Fun!

**You do't really suck - that there was just a bit of ironic license.

Hot, Hotter, Hottest

Holy cats, it's hot around here.

No kidding, I think the driveway is melting a little, and the corners and sharp angles of the Casa are softening a bit. I tried to fry an egg on the stoop, but it was cooked before I could crack the shell!

We could water the garden four times a day and it wouldn't be enough - the cukes, tomatoes, and eggplants are all petering out, producing fewer, smaller fruits. The okra are going great guns, though, and we'll have a fair bit over the winter. I may even have a bash at pickling some! Umm...does anyone like pickled okra? 'Cause I'll make it, but eat it? Thank you, no.

The thermometer and the weather dude say it's only in the nineties during the day. They lie. Cats don't ooze with that lethargic, boneless, graceless slink when it's only in the nineties. I think their paws have been sticking to the pavement. We're getting well into the one-hundreds around here, especially with the heat index. If the humidity is 99%, shouldn't it be raining?? Walking outside is like being full-body smacked by a steaming sponge and then trying to breathe through it.

The air conditioner is trying, bless its mechanical heart, to help us out, but it's too small for the house and is struggling mightily to keep us at eighty-one degrees, running all day and well into the night without stop. Believe it or not, eighty-one feels just fine after a minute outside.

Meanwhile, there's another plant doing well out there in the garden...the Thai Insanity Pepper, after a spindly and questionable start (grower error, not congenital defect), decided that Redneck Central is just fine, thankee, and decided to give the okra a run for its money.

Check this out:

This one's going to be a seed pod:

I've only harvested three so far...while Phelan told me they're edible at any stage, I want them to get all red and tear-inducing. Someone ate the least ripe of the three and pronounced it hot but not unpleasant, good flavor, nice spreading heat with a little ring of fire that traveled from lips to the back of the throat. His face flushed a little, but he didn't cry or burst into flames. I'm thinking of making pepper sauce with 'em - he likes pepper sauce, and I'll use a wee bit on eggs sometimes...I wonder if Tabasco would give me their recipe...?

How're you making out with the heat?

Questions, Questions...

Thank you for weighing in on the homes schooling issue - y'all are terrific!

Meanwhile, I have some questions. I must own up to no small amount of ignorance regarding the national debt issue. I have plenty of debt issues of my own to deal with, and all I understand about the whole national scene is that it would suck if the US didn't pay the water bill because turning Niagara Falls off means a huge deposit and it's a bitch to turn back on again - the valve gets stuck. Don't talk to me about the power bill...if we turn the national a/c to a warmer temperature, I'm pretty sure Kansas will burst into flames.

So...

Why did it take so long for Congress to figure out we have a debt and that it was reaching critical mass?

Why, when we have this monstrous debt, is Congress still worried about spending money on frivolous shit?

Why, when we have this monstrous debt, is Congress still getting raises?

Why is S&P to blame for saying our credit is somewhat less marvelous than it used to be? Isn't it? And what's the big deal about going from a AAA to a AA+ rating? I mean, it's not like they downgraded us to a Z- or something.

Is Congress unaware than when one spends more than one earns, one accrues debt? Because I'm a fiscal idiot, and I know that...

Shouldn't Congress be less concerned with the S&P rating and more concerned about this massive monkey in the room? Are they really mad that S&P simply pointed out that the Emperor's new clothes are somewhat less than the sartorial splendor we're supposed to see?

Why are we happy that China is buying our debt? Shouldn't we be worried? Also, shouldn't we be focusing on paying down our debt and not on whether China will keep buying it?

Why is Congress spending money like a broken water main gushing H2O when the rest of the nation is awfully thirsty??

Is China buying our debt different from making us a loan? It seems like it would be...

Or is it more like when you don't pay a credit card bill and the company sells your debt to a collection agency, and the agency can come after you for debt plus interest, or threaten to send Guido and Nunzio (or Cho Phan and Su Li, whatever) after you with a baseball bat/giant chop stick?

This whole thing seems stupid-simple to me - we owe money, so maybe we should quit spending it on crap we don't need until we can stand on our good credit again. Alas, the people in Washington forgot they were voted in and are actually supposed to represent us and not their bank accounts, which bank accounts are supported by lobbies, special interests, and the votes they buy with social programs funded by Somebody Else.

Can someone explain this to me, using small words and simple phrases??

Hypothetically Speaking, Of Course

I have a friend.

This friend is divorced.

This friend home schools her son.

This friend's ex's girlfriend is, according to witnesses and the child, scoffing at home schooling, denigrating the friend's performance as a home schooler, and telling the child that he'd be much smarter if he went to a traditional school.

The girlfriend believes that my friend is doing a bad job because the child doesn't have a traditional store of knowledge learned on a regular timeline - they're schooling tends to be in clusters, beginning with a subject of interest and following it along different pathways.

The ex reinforces the girlfriend's opinion, echoing it as often as he can to the boy even as he's telling my friend that he's all for home schooling.

People constantly tell my friend how smart, polite, and well spoken the boy is. They marvel that he's only eight. They remark upon his maturity.

The boy is now asking to go to regular school because he doesn't want to be stupid. If he goes to regular school, it will be a public school, and he will likely be forced to take medication to keep him calm as he's used to freely moving and speaking his mind (so very NOT accepted in a traditional classroom), and does not do well when made to focus on one subject at a time for hours on end - the traditional school model for education.

So.

What would you do? Hypothetically speaking, of course?

Thoughtfetti From A Long Drive

I had occasion to haul the kids and myself down towards the Big City today, a drive that should have been an hour or so in fair conditions. Conditions being far from fair, it took two hours, plenty of time to ponder this 'n' that.

Here, then, are a few of the things I pondered:

WWJD? Hang up and drive, likely, and probably use his turn signal, too. I bet he wouldn't cut people off, either, and I'm fairly certain he wouldn't be flailing around the back seat trying to beat the child/ren and/or dog or throwing his cigarette leavings/fast food wrappers out the window. I am certain he would not be flipping anyone the bird or driving right up onto their back bumper and flashing his lights/honking his horn to make them go faster rather than simply passing on the left.

How come every highway or road I try to use is pretending to be a parking lot?

The "Don't text while driving" and No Cell Phone (red circle with red diagonal line through it over a cell) stickers would be much more effective if the driver wasn't going twenty below the limit, swerving into other lanes, while texting on their cell.

I want sushi.

When the baby laughs like that, and I can't see her, I worry. What's she doing back there?

I wonder if a chiropractor would be willing to barter.

If there are only a few drops, does it still count as rain?

If you're driving a Prius with recycle symbols on the rear, you sort of lose all credibility when you throw a plastic bottle out the window.

Why do people feel the need to lie? Especially about stupid shit. What's wrong with simply owning who we are and what we do/think/believe/want/need?

How can a person say "I love you" with one breath but with the next complain about all of the things they wish they could change about the one they "love"?

How exactly does the government think it has the right to mandate that insurance companies pay entirely for birth control? Isn't insurance a private business? And shouldn't private business be, I dunno, private? Shouldn't the consumer be the one to demand products and services and shape said products and services with their purchases? If the government wants birth control to be free, how 'bout the government give it out? Or is it afraid that people will be pissed about the whole meddling with reproductive rights thing? Do we even have reproductive rights? Or did some church/state decide we can't make those decisions for ourselves?

I wonder why the state chose now, the busiest vacation/drive time of the summer, to turn all the major roadways into one-lane nightmares?

If a semi pulls through a light, but the space available wouldn't hold a bug, is it reasonable to give the driver the stink-eye as I miss my turn because his trailer is blocking the intersection?

I wonder why someone would go twenty-five mph in the left lane when the speed limit is sixty-five and most traffic is going seventy-five...

I laughed out loud at the "My ADHD kid can run circles around your honor student" sticker.

I really want sushi.

I'll spare you the rest of the drivel.

And In the End, It's Never Enough

Trying to solve troubles blind, dizzy, and hurting

Trying to find the way down a narrow, winding way

In darkness, unbalanced

Feeling the fall that waits

Waits

Waits

For one misstep

What's the point, except something to crash down onto

Some jagged thing

Made of up indifference

Greed

Selfishness

Petulance

Worthless dreams

Stupid things

Meaningless

And I the fool for having believed.

Never again.

I'm done trying.

Go away, stupid dreams

Go away and pester someone else

Who can give you what you want

What you deserve

Quit trying to shape me into your realization.

I've given over everything of myself

My health

My heart

My mind

Everything

And still you clamor for more

Never seeing that you have taken what little of the best there is

Used it all up

And hate what's left.

Lammas

Today I was busy with vague, time-devouring stuff and didn't post this in a timely fashion. Whoopsie. Anyway, it's Lammas and I've recycled a post below. Meanwhile, to celebrate the day, I baked bread, and for dinner we had BLTs made with that bread and tomatoes from the garden...loverly...
~~~

Happy Lammas, y'all!

Wait, you don't know what Lammas is?

Well, you've come to the right place!

Loaf Mass, it was called long ago, a day to celebrate the first of the grain harvested and ground to flour. It's a day for baking, for sharing the bounty of the field with family and friends, for celebrating the hope of a Winter without starvation and the renewing of the cycle in the Spring.

Sharing bread is old, a tradition rooted back beyond religion to something so primal it didn't even have a name. Bread is life. Bread is a blessing. The wedding cake we have today began as loaves that were broken and crumbled over the bride's head for luck and fortune, fertility and abundance.

When you greet new neighbors, if you follow old traditions, you bring them bread or some other baked good. Houses aren't warmed until bread has been baked, or at least served in them. There are bread traditions in almost every faith.

One of the oldest forms of hospitality is to offer bread and salt - representatives of the elements, the sacred things. To offer them is to offer a place in the home to one's guest, to make them welcome like family, to offer not just food and hearth, but protection as well. To accept them is to promise not to break the peace of the home, to honor the family, the traditions, to do no harm.

Lammas, Loaf Mass, a day to bake, to break bread with friends and celebrate the wonder of grain and all its goodness.

It's also a day for beer and ale, if you're into those sorts of things.

Celebrate the harvest with me today. Take a bite of toast, or a sweet, tart, crisp apple, or a sun-warmed tomato fresh from the vine, or anything that smacks of "harvest", and savor it. The taste, the texture, the hours of sunlight and gallons of rain that went into the making of it. Taste of the wind and the earth, as well. Whatever you've planted, I hope it comes to fruition and will sustain you through leaner times, as the grain from the field carries us all through Winter.

Blessed be, y'all, and happy Lammas.

Catharsis

Dear Low Rent, Water Buffalo, Horse Teeth, 666,

As I held my daughter in my arms, rocking her to sleep tonight, I thought about you.

I wondered if your mother, your father, if anyone at all ever held you and felt such love, ever rocked you and crooned gently as you slipped from wakefulness to warm, limp, innocent sleep. I wondered if anyone ever felt protective of you, looked at you and felt hope, dreamed of your future, seeing it as a terrific brightness, a huge, happy maybe.

I wonder if that was absent, if perhaps the way you behave now is rooted in the lack of strong arms holding you while you wept and wailed and wriggled against inevitable sleep. I felt pity, imagining an infant unloved, perhaps unwanted, left to her own devices to grow into a woman.

Until, that is, I thought about who you are, what you do, all these many years later. Perhaps your roots are sunk deep into a dark history, but you are long past the days when you can claim ignorance or injury as excuse for the hurt you cause others.

I could have forgiven that you knowingly sought out my Someone and offered him what must have seemed like a haven at the time. I could have easily understood and gotten past the idea that you were both acting on the need of the moment, fully conscious of your actions and willing to accept such consequences as there were. He and I have an understanding, have an open, polyamourous relationship with a few simple rules. You were aware of that. You may not claim ignorance, because we discussed it openly and at length when you found out, to assuage your curiosity.

While I may question the depth of your intellect, I am not so uncertain of your ability to think, to process information, that I can believe you didn't understand the small, concise words I used to describe what our particular polyamourous relationship was like.

While some others may say you're brain damaged, that your intellect suffers from old injuries, I have seen the cunning, the sly calculation, in your eye, and I know better. You knew and understood what you were doing, and you chose to do it anyway.

Fair enough - Someone and I had some angry words and he convinced himself that I didn't want him to return to camp, to our shared bed, that night (perhaps ever). His other love was not there to offer succor (she had wounds of her own to tend to), and so he was, he thought, alone. Alone and hungry for touch, for sensation. You moved in, seeking to gain for yourself what I and Lady R had...and he, in a drunken, angry, hurt state, he responded.

Did you think I would not find out? When the community saw you, the community of which I am a part (albeit minuscule)? Though many saw, it was Someone himself who confirmed that you had spent the night together. We talked long and hard about it, about why, about the many things in our hearts and minds that led up to and followed that night. Perhaps you didn't think that would happen. I wonder if you are capable of even imagining a relationship in which there is such openness, such honesty.

So two people were left stung but still standing, both hoping, both trying to understand and to heal ourselves and each other. There was still anger, but it was simmering, cooling, becoming something Other. Our relationship took a direct hit and did not crumble.

But two people weren't enough, were they? You had to seek out Lady R and tell her all about your night's pleasure, about how wonderful it was and how you were going to have a relationship with Someone. You did so pretending you didn't know who she was, but again, I know better. I know better because I had introduced you to her at one point, mentioning casually that she was the Other in our poly relationship, and that we are friends. You knew that your words, your actions would wound, and you made your choice.

Someone spent much of the day looking for Lady R to tell her what had happened - his sense of honor dictated that he not hide, not shirk. He sought you, too, for a conversation of a different sort, but you ran like the low cur you are, hiding yourself from the consequences of your actions, from the light of day, from truth.

And so came night again, and Lady R and I had both spoken to Someone, who was willing to take his licks because he knew he'd broken our rules, knew he'd hurt us both, and was remorseful and determined never to do so again.

Lady R and I had occasion to pass by you in the night as we walked from one place to another. Had you not been rubbing yourself against her Primary, her man, her Husband J, we might have kept on. Indeed, we might have kept on, anyway, but you had to stop me to talk, to spin lies, to gouge deeper and create greater separation so you could...what? I think you actually believed that Someone would choose you, would bring you home and send me away, because you have no concept of Home, do you, nor that I am his Home as surely as J is Lady R's home?

You spoke like a victim, as though you did not know that we were together (despite the fact that we have a daughter, sleep in the same bed, share a house, a yard, four cats, and dreams), as if he'd said it was OK and that I wouldn't care (in a sense, that was right...although not as you meant it), as if he'd sought to be mean-spirited by making it clear he was in your tent in the cruelest way he could think of. You plead that you told him you were my friend (how could you be my friend? We'd only met two days prior...hardly time for acquaintanceship, let alone friendship, to flourish) and didn't want to hurt me, that you didn't want to go with him if I would be unhappy, and that he said he didn't care, that I didn't matter, that we were through. You told me that you'd made it clear to him that it was over between you. "It"? What "it"?? There was no "it". You were someone to touch, to fuck, when he needed contact and release. You weren't a person, you were a receptacle.

Lies, and more lies.

Even when I told you "We've spoken, and we're good", you kept trying. Fool.

You asked me how you could make it right. I told you "The next time you have a chance to go with someone who has an Other, you make certain the Other is OK with it. Ask them. If it takes three days for you to have the opportunity to speak to the Other, you wait until they tell you, themselves, that it's alright."

Three times, I told you that. Three times, as Lady R was talking to J, arranging to meet with him later, I told you that.

Later, when Lady R and I were walking back to her camp, you and J were gone, and we knew what was happening. They did not meet later.

The next day, as Lady R and I were spending time together again, J came to her. He was ashamed...and Lady R could not ask, so I did. "J, I am asking this from love...did you sleep with...?" Yes, he had.

You told him that you and Lady R were bosom friends...that Lady R said she didn't love him anymore, and that Lady R wanted to come and live with me and Someone. You told him that you knew all about polyamoury (funny, I had to explain it to you that first night we discussed it), and that Lady R was fine with you and J being together. You spoke poisonous words with a honeyed tongue and he lapped them up in his pain and confusion.

We talked, did J, Lady R, and I...we talked, and sought to be honest and true,...and Lady R was doubly wounded because with Someone, it could have been a mistake, but that you went after J, too? No, that was no mistake...that was calculation, pure and simple. You clearly thought us blind, or foolish...and you were wrong.

When neither Someone nor J professed their undying love for you, you found another couple having difficulties and enticed the man into your bed, this time a man who was not in a poly relationship (and you knew it).

Throughout all of this, you continued to make yourself out to be the victim, the innocent, the one who was hurt because you didn't know.

Bullshit.

Later, you told anyone who would listen that Lady R and I both decided we didn't want our men and were going to join you as lesbian lovers.

Should I ever choose to go with the Taco and not the Sausage, rest assured I will choose one that is not rotten, rancid, and ridden harder than Seattle Slew.

I have droned on with history because I want you to know, even if it's only in spirit because you will never read this blog (and if you do you will never recognize yourself because you can't bear to look that deeply into the mirror), that I know what you are and am not afraid to name it.

Now comes the part where I tell you what I think of you. I refrained in person because I didn't want to bring more drama into that community. Here, though? In my minuscule part of Blogopolis, far out on the edges? In this tiny little corner of the Blue Nowhere? Here, I will speak my mind openly, knowing full well that I am showing myself to be unkind, petty, mean-spirited myself. That's life, sugar. I can own what I am.

You are an odious toad. You are a liar, a disease, a blight. Where others seek to build, you seek to tear down. Where others seek to achieve, you seek to loot and destroy. You are rotten to the core, and more, you delight in your rot and seek to spread its filth as far and wide as you can. Your body, as well as your spirit, is an ulceration, a suppurating wound oozing infection on all you touch. You hide behind a veil of weakness, but no one is fooled for long, and so you must move on to prey on the next weak, blind fool until his eyes are clear of alcohol's fog (for only drunken men in a place of hurt or confusion go with you, and only after you have touched, rubbed, encouraged, and enticed them). You are toxic in every way, foul and vulgar. You are a thief, seeking to cast your thievery as need, and if others have and you need, they should give unto you, and if they won't give unto you, you have every right to take because otherwise it's not fair.

You demand your fair share of love, refusing to believe, to accept, that sometimes sex is just sex, desperately adhering to the idea that sex means undying love. When that love is not given, when they recoil in horror over what they've done, you tell all who will listen that you are a victim, that you were led astray.

Not content to rend individuals or couples, you attempt to divide entire communities.

In the past, you've had a measure of success, leaving a trail of devastation and mourning behind you.

Not this time.

This time, you fucked with community, and community will fuck (is fucking) back. You cast your malevolence into the water, and the ripples are spreading.

You are lucky that I and a few others who love her kept Lady R from killing you, or at least doing you great harm. You are lucky that I refrained from delighting in some petty meanness of my own because I had wit enough to know that small vengeance would feel good in the moment, but the consequences were lifelong.

You are a lesson that I am done learning. After this, I will give you nothing more of me. You are nothing, and will always be nothing, to me. Should we chance to meet again, I will give you what you are to me...nothing. Believe this: You do not matter. Your lies do not matter. I do not care. You are not welcome in my camp, nor will I ever offer you shelter, food, fire, or water. I do not give Hospitality to nothing.

I wonder...what would that oh-so-long-ago person who held you, rocked you, loved you, what would they think of the person you have become today?

I believe I hear weeping...

Whatta Weekend

I find myself wondering how I'm going to feel on Monday.

I am setting up to sell at a flea market Friday. Friday afternoon, when I'm don, I will be going to K2's house to do some sewing.

Saturday, it's back to the flea market, setting up at 6:30 (the morning one).

Sunday we need to try and go up to Mum's - her yard needs mowing in a bad way, and the garden need some love. I'll be nice and let Someone deal with that while I nap and fix dinner, if we go and stay the night. Hey, I'm thoughtful that way!

What's your weekend looking like?

In Fact, I Can!

Look what I did last night:

Thanks to some friendly guidance from SciFi Chick, Casa de Crazy now has nine jars of home grown tomatoes - two with herbs, one with herbs and pepper flakes - for our stores. There would be ten, but one jar got a little excited and blew out its bottom. Dang.

Next up? As soon as the yard-longs start producing, I'm going to have a bash at pickles.

I am going to need some bigger jars...

Give

I'm not inclined to give up on things. To WANT to give up? Certainly. Even when I WANT very much to just let go, give up, give in...even when I think I must be fucking pathetic for hanging in, hanging on, for facing the wind with my teeth bared and daring it to blow, for shaking my fist at the sun and daring it to burn...even then, I'm still in it.

Y'all, I'm tired of turning in circles, of feeling hammered by futility, of feeling like no matter what I do, what I give, what I make, what I am...it will never be enough, never be even adequate.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum...and at the same time, nemo me impune lacessit....or some junk.

You ever have days like that?

I Need Shin Guards

I've had a knock-around kind of life. When I was a kid I swam in the sea, climbed rocks, trees, and mountains, sailed, biked everywhere, fell off of and into things. I played soccer and went skiing, rode horses and rambled in the woods.

There were bound to be some scrapes along the way, a few bruises and breaks.

I know they hurt in the moment, but I also know that I had (still have) a high threshold for pain. I always healed fairly quickly, too.

Lately, though...I don't know what the hell is going on with my body...but I don't like it. Check this out:

Sorry...I guess I could have warned you that I was about to show you a furry length of cream-cheese-white, caveman-club-shaped getaway stick. Oh, well, too late now.

The smallest of the three ouchies happened one night last week as I was trying to quiet a fussy Sprout - I knew the box was in the hall, and I knew where it was...so I stepped around it, but it wasn't where I'd left it and so I wound up actually stumbling into it. Hurt like a bitch, and I couldn't get a good cuss in because I didn't want to wake the baby. Dang. Then, Friday, I had a job and was getting ready to go. In order to close the garage, I had to move the Evil Genius's bike. It resented my interruption of its sunning and promptly fell over, causing the other two ouchies. Again, hurt like a bitch, but I needed to get going so I slapped a bandage over it and headed out.

Yesterday it hurt. Last night it hurt. I had to take my jeans off and wear a skirt all evening because the jeans rubbed (through the bandage, even) and irritated it. This morning it hurt. I couldn't even walk without wincing. I even gasped twice when I forgot to be careful and tried to move normally. What the...?? That's not like me at all, honest!

I finally decided to do a bit of home medical care, and turned to that old stand-by, peroxide. Am I the only one who digs watching that stuff fizz? Miracle fluid, that peroxide - it'll cure just about anything on the outside of the skin.

Check it out:

That was this morning, after I defuzzed the area around the ouch (because you know what exacerbates the ow factor? Bandages yanking out hairs, that's what), and then peroxided it a few times.

And doesn't it just figure that these ouchies are at the exact perfect height for everything. in. the world. to hit them?? Cats seeking affection by rubbing against a leg, Sprout kicking and wriggling on the floor, laundry baskets, chupa cabras...

Well, maybe not that last one, but if there WAS a chupa cabra and it WAS inside Casa de Crazy, I bet it would be shin height and I would bump into it.

I hope the peroxide did the trick because I don't want to have to resort to scrubbing the area and dousing it with disinfectant. You'll know if I do...you'll hear me holler...

Want To Do Some Good?

If you have a child or children, hug 'em.

Then go read this story.

Give 'em hell, Leah. Don't take no for an answer, don't give up, don't listen to anyone who tells you it's impossible. And mostly? Live.

Thanks for the headds up, Blogger Dad.

What About Bob*?

Somalia has is officially experiencing a famine.

We're giving more than $400,000,000 in aid to the area, and Hillary Clinton says it's not enough, that we have to give more.

Umm...

'Kay...

But...

Pardon me while I pitch a tiny little fit over here in the corner.

What the hell are you thinking, woman?? Where the hell do you think the money's going to come from?

And while I'm having my hissy...what about the people with no food, no shelter, no medicine, right here in THIS freakin' country? Oh, wait, they don't count because...umm...you know? I'm not sure why they don't count...no one has yet satisfied my curiosity in the matter. All I know is, from where I'm sittin', the people who have basic needs going unmet in this country mean exactly bupkus to our nation's so-called leaders and that alleged bastion of compassion, the UN.

There's a record drought going on right smack in the middle of our nation. People, livestock, and crops are dropping dead in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, as far north as Michigan and down into the Carolinas. At the current rate, in a few months you'll be paying a whole lot more for a bucket of the Colonel's extra crispy, or a pound of beef, or your Thanksgiving bird, if you can afford 'em at all. Corn? Tomatoes? Wheat? Ouch... The economy has tanked enough that people can't afford seeds for a garden to raise their own food, let alone being able to donate money to feed others. What does Clinton propose we do? Squeeze a little more out of the people who don't have anything left to give, I imagine...she's a politician, and that's how they roll. Considering what she makes in a year, she can reach into her own danged pocket and leave the rest of us alone.

It's not that I'm lacking in compassion...I hurt for the children who don't make it, for the people who wonder if there will be water, or food, this week. Please believe that if I could, I would feed 'em all. I can't, though...and while I feel deeply wounded that anyone, anywhere is hungry, and while I would feed them if they were in my house even though it meant going hungry myself (because that's how I roll), I also feel that it's crucial to take care of the people in our own back yard before we go looking around the globe for places to dump resources.

I will spare you my thoughts on indiscriminate breeding among humans, about reproductive rights and education and social programs that do more harm than good...they're skewed at best and more than a little likely to piss people off.

Right now all I can see, all I can wonder is why, why, why are we supposed to carry other nations when we can't even carry ourselves (questions the woman who has to be carried most of the time, herself, but that's a whole other kettle)???

I wish Somalia luck...but for now they're going to have to right themselves without my help...I'm worried about Treesong, Scifi Chick, Phelan, the Hermit, and scores of other folks right here at home who are facing hot, dry, and hungry times ahead without benefit of the UN or their own representatives giving a rat's patootie whether they make it.

*Who's Bob? No one. Everyone. The guy or gal who is struggling to get through today, tomorrow, the next day...you know...Bob...

Quite Simply Mac and Cheese

I made homemade mac and cheese for the first time last night. Whoa. Holy carp. I had to refrain from eating all of it. I may never buy the blue box or that frozen stuff again (especially since the homemade can be portioned out and frozen)!

I used to be intimidated by the homemade stuff...cheese sauce can be tricky...but I got a burr under my saddle about making it. I'm glad I did.

Here, then, is a very basic, easy-peasy recipe:

The Players:
8 oz uncooked macaroni, or any pasta that has nooks, crannies, or hollows where cheesy goodness can nestle
3 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Paprika
Season Salt
2 cups whole milk
3 cups plus a handful of freshly shredded cheese (I used a combination of sharp yellow and white Cheddars and Monterrey Jack, this time)
1/2 cup minced onion

Ready? Go!

Combine flour, salt, pepper, and mustard powder in a dish. Sprinkle some paprika (or not) and season salt (or not) in - how much depends on you, and you don't need them if you don't want them.

Boil the pasta in salted water until not quite done...al dente is as cooked as you want it. Drain and rinse with cold water. Drain thoroughly.

In a saucepan, melt butter, then add dry mixture. Cook over medium heat until slightly bubbly. Add milk, a little at a time, stirring thoroughly to prevent lumps. Cook until thick, about the consistency of gravy.

Mix in the three cups cheese, about a cup at a time, stirring constantly to keep it smooooth. By the way, you can use this sauce on veggies, or mix it with rice for a casserole, too...it's versatile!

Put the noodles back into their now-dry cooking pot, add the onions, then pour the sauce it all. Mix. Dump the mac and cheese into a baking dish and cover with the handful of cheese (or more if you like it gooey), then bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until it's all golden and bubbly.

Mmmm...

For some variety you could...

...add steamed broccoli
...add cooked ham
...mix in some Boursin or Allouette style cheese
...crumble some bleu cheese into it (bleh)(but hey, to each his own)
...caramelize the onions before mixing them in
...saute a few mushrooms in butter and garlic, then toss 'em in the mix
...add fresh, steamed peas
...add crab meat (I plan to try this very soon)
...add fresh steamed asparagus and shredded prosciutto
...add fried pancetta
...throw some fresh spinach in
...use a bit of shredded Parmesan
...add some sauteed squash and/or zucchini
...try some Gruyere, Asiago, Asadero, Fontina, or Romano for a different flavor
...stir in a can of tomatoes and chilies, drained
...add corn
...toss in some chunks of cooked turkey or chicken
...stir in some ground beef
...top with bread crumbs browned in butter
...use your imagination

Some recipes call for tempering in an egg before you sauce the noodles. Those recipes scare me - we often lose our temper around here, and broken or curdled sauces make me sad. If you really want to, go right ahead, but it's all you, baby.

If you want to double it up, go right ahead. If you want to freeze it, do so after adding the cheese sauce but before baking. When you want to nom, simply defrost and bake.

Trust me - I am not into difficult, fiddly recipes. This is a bit more advanced than, say, making toast, but it's no more challenging than that blue box stuff and it tastes soooo much better!

What do you like with your mac and cheese?

Lookie, Lookie!

We had company over the weekend.

No, not these guys...
Handy J and his wife The Divine Mizz M came for a visit. Handy J is a glutton for punishment a nice fellow who wanted to help us with a few projects here at the Vortex of Doom Casa de Crazy, and his wife tagged along because who doesn't want to fall victim to the Evil Genius and his relentles quest for attention and someone to play with??

The Divine Mizz M accompanied Sprout, the Evil Genius and I to a drum circle on Friday. Sprout thought the tambourine shaker was tasty.

Sunday, Mum brought me some shirts that needed altering, and a prezzy:

Got any nice, easy dill pickle recipes??

I made macaroni and cheese tonight. From scratch. I've never done it before. Holy Hannah...the recipe will be up in the next day or so, as soon as I recover...

How was your weekend??

Simple Economics

A package of seeds costs a whole dollar at the evil empire. Yeah, yeah, but any seed is better than no seed at all.

Hot house cucumbers are up to $1.49 at the market right now.

If we can get one seed to grow into one plant and produce one cucumber, we're up $.49.

We have several vines of several varieties growing, mostly heirloom/open polinated types. We still have plenty of seeds, too. It's a small saving, but the small savings add up. Not buying cukes means I can put that money towards meat for the winter.

At $2 - $5 a jar for pickles, I need to learn how to make my own...save more at the market, never mind that home grown/homemade is usually superior.

Tomatoes at the market ("vine"ripe my fat fanny) are upwards of $3 a pound. One plant producing one tomato would set me ahead almost a buck. We have a dozen or so, a mix of types, and they are loaded. Again with needing to learn how to can - water bath method as I don't have and cannot afford a presure canner at this time. I really should learn how to use the dehydrator to full advantage, as well - did some blueberries, but they went a bit long and are more crispy than raisinish...oh,well...

We haven't yet purchased okra at the market - no need.

Eggplant, onions, peppers, potatoes, squash, melons, beans, peas, lettuce, cabage, strawberries, blueberries, assorted herbs...on and on...it all adds up.

Considering today's economy, you can hardly go wrong investing a buck or two...

How does your garden grow?

Wanted: $250,000

How much does a dream cost?

I have a dream.

Ok, so I have a few dreams...but most of them are small things, or day dreams that are more "Wouldn't it be nice...?" and less the kind of longing, yearning, hopeful things that make one sigh wistfully in quiet moments.

But this one dream? It's kind of a big one...and it's not just mine - Mum and Someone share it, too.

I want to move.

I want to move out of Casa de Crazy and up to Mum's place - Dragon's Rest. In a perfect world, we would build a house up there, one all of us would share. In my mind, I call it the Phoenix Nest; we are trying to rise from the ashes of our former selves, constantly reinventing who we are, adjusting our sights to new highs, new lows, new unattainable distances. We burn so beautifully - why not a Phoenix?

That's such a diaphanous dream, though...so difficult to grasp, so easily rent and ravelled...

Easier, though only relatively so, is the dream of buying her neighbors place, the land adjacent to Mum's. It already has a house, a barn, and some really fine garden space. There are woods, and the house is within sight of Mum's if you know where to look.

It happens to be the place I pick blueberries every year, because her neighbor is a very nice lady.

It also happens to be off the market at the moment - she had it listed for a while,but there were no takers at the asking price...and as it was going for a song, I don't blame her for declining the low ball offers people made.

Given the right offer by the right people, though...maybe she would sell.

I suspect I'm the right people. She seems to like me. If I had the dosh, I would make an offer of exactly what she wants on the place.

I don't have the dosh, though.

I think about it every time we go up to, or come home from, Mum's. I'd like "go home" to mean a short walk down a hill rather than an hour in the van. I would like to have dinner with Mum more than once or twice a month, would like to share family time with her, would like to have a conversation with her that does not require a phone or computer, would like to be there when the day comes (and it will come) when she needs someone tohelp her with the little things, the big things, with moving into age and eventually beyond this life. I would like to be the one she calls to drive her to the ER when she gets crazy with the sledgehammer, the maul, or sharp objects (you'd be surprised how common that is...no, really, ask her).

I need a best seller, or sugar-daddy, or a patron, or a lottery win. They're all equally likely.

So, my fellow denizens of Blogopolis, my fellow floaters in the Blue Nowhere...anyone have some cash to lend? I'd pay it back...eventually...maybe in bits and pieces, maybe in chunks, but all of it and then some.

Wanted: $250,000.

What's your dream? What do you need to attain it?

Surprised? Hardly. Dismayed? You Could Call It That...

...but outraged would be a better description.

Gettin' a little political, here...

Y'all, I don't want to appear to be beating a dead horse...and I don't want anyone thinking I am against government or all about lawlessness, anarchy, and other social bugaboos...but if this shit keeps happening, how the heck can we call ourselves a nation of laws?

Go read the story...I'll wait.

Don't want to link-hop? Skip to mah loo (or to the summary below).

You may find it helpful to go read the original story if you don't want my hashed-up retelling...again, I'll wait...

OK, here's the summary: A man is sleeping in his home in a not-as-nice-as-he'd-like-it-to-be neighborhood. His wife and one of their young sons are at home as well. His wife cries out that they are being invaded by armed men. Home invasions are not uncommon. The man is an ex-Marine, trained to think and act quickly in combat/tense situations. Intent on protecting his family, he gets his (legally owned) weapon. The safety is on. He never fires a shot. The men breaking into his home fire a collective 70 times. He is left for more than an hour in his home, bleeding to death, his wife and child held outside and unable to offer comfort or say farewell, while the men who shot him will not permit paramedics to attend to him and possibly (although probably not) save his life. A man who served his nation and sought only to keep his family safe dies alone in his own home.

Had this been a movie, the men who broke into the house would be Bad Guys, and Bruce Willis would kick their collective asses for two hours, with a grand finale of several explosions and at least one gruesome but totally karmic impalement.

Instead, it had a rather different ending.

The SWAT team was exonerated of any wrongdoing. Never mind they lied about him firing the first shot (the safety was engaged, remember) or that they found absolutely nothing in his home to indicate drugs, home invasions, or any of their other cocked-up bullshit about why this man's home needed breaking into. Never mind that they let a man bleed to death alone, unsuccored, for over an hour. Never mind that they sealed records after the fact to keep the public from learning about what happened, and almost immediately started a smear campaign to villainize the victim. Never mind that they didn't even know his child was in the home and entered with guns blazing. Never mind that not one person has owned up to what really happened to an innocent man, the participants instead seeking to justify or shift blame rather than face the consequences of their actions. They were exonerated.

Again, I pose the question - is it any wonder that the majority of the people living in this country either distrust, dislike, or outright hate law enforcement? How can we trust law enforcement to self-regulate, when it is the norm to say that they are not to blame for raiding the wrong home, for destroying property and lives, that there is no accountability?

Who watches the watchers??

To paraphrase Goldie Hawn in Protocol...I'm watching...like a hawk...

And one day? The governed will no longer consent to give these people their just powers...and then what?

I Am From

I am from blue jeans worn thin at the knees, ragged at the cuffs, dirt and grass stained, faded from indigo to near-grey, from Marshmallow Fluff and peanut butter sandwiches and long summer days at the beach beneath the hammered-bronze sun.

I am from the woods and shores of New England, clammy, foggy mornings redolent of salt and seaweed.

I am from the beach plum in hidden places, the sugar maple's blazing Autumn glory.

I am from lobstering and clam boils, stubbornness and fire, from Papa and Mum, Spousie and Dad, madness (Mary Todd Lincoln) and prose (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).

I am from sailors and lawyers, artists and musicians.

From "Sit up straight!" and "Suck in your gut".

I am from "God is a nameless stranger in the sky who we pay lip service to a few times a year" and "If you don't donate money, you're not a good Christian" and "There is no God" and much later "the Earth is my religion, my church".

I'm from many places, from Lloyd, Mason, and McRae, from swordfish and Jell-O.

From landing on Watupa Pond and losing a pilot's license, burning down the yacht club, and feeding a pig Ex-Lax before releasing it in a spiteful woman's house while she was away. I am from sailing ships, the Coast Guard, the Air Force, from sailors, fishermen, a silversmith, wealth and poverty.

I am from stairwells hung with massive oil paintings, stern faces watching up,down, transitory wanderings, from sun-filled niches and pastel softness, slight smiles and a face the was my great-aunt, but not, cheap silver frames around fading copies of old black-and-white prints and square photos turning sepia in forgotten albums. I am from attics and shoe boxes and the brass bed that has dulled with time but shines in memory.

I am from Zippo lighters, fine china, sterling silver, and champagne, from horses and tennis and sailing, from bologna and Kraft dinners and throw-the-leftovers-in-the-crock-pot, from fishing for crab, digging clams, shucking corn, digging potatoes, gleaning peas from their pods and moldy cheese. I am from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, from the United States of America, from places long gone save for my recollection of them, from nobility, statesmen, Gypsies, horse thieves.

I am the sum my ancestry, from long lines dating back to the beginning, diverging, rejoining, from past, present future. I am from primordial ooze and the song of the stars. I am from here and now...and I am where tomorrow comes from...
~~~~~
I found this exercise/Meme at Mizz Magpie's...

Where are you from?

How Sprout Grows

Boring baby-stuff post ahead...fair warning!
~~~~~
Just after her fourth month, Sprout had her first "solid" food - rice cereal. She took to it like a Swan to water, and it's been go for solids ever since.

Now, at five-and-one-half months, she is not satisfied with mere bottle feeding. Solids twice a day? I think not. We're up to four time a day. I am introducing new foods slowly, making them here rather than buying jars of flavorless paste at the store.

So far, she has tried and liked: rice cereal, oatmeal, banana, apples with cinnamon and ginger, and sweet potato.

She has tried and not very much liked: avocado. On the advice of a friend, I will try mixing some avocado with banana.

Next up: mashed turnips and carrots - if she won't eat 'em, I will. Lentils. Peas. Pears. Squash. Blueberries (bonus, I picked them last summer, so I know where they came from and they are definitely organic!), and spinach.

That should get us through the next couple of months, when I will introduce her to the wonders of yoghurt.

As soon as she has teeth...oy...I imagine I'll be busy in the kitchen, trying to keep up with her.

In a few weeks, we'll have her six month check-up, and we'll see how all this new found eating has treated our Sprout...but judging by the ache in my arms, back, and shoulders, she's growing like a weed!

Independence Day

Yep, this is a repost, but why re-write what already suits??
~~~~~
In writing the Declaration of Independence, in ratifying it, in signing their names to it, the men named at the bottom risked the very things they hoped to secure for themselves and for future generations. They were performing an act of treason, and by putting their names to it they made of themselves targets for the man, for the nation, they accused. They fought for the principles they named, fought for their families, for their lives, and for the burgeoning life of the tender new nation they hoped to nurture into a great place, a free place, a place where anyone could hope to not just survive, but thrive - a place where anyone willing to put their all into it, to do their very best, could find success, no matter what their gods, their nation of origin.

Since that time, people have tried to follow their lead, standing up and making their voices heard to help secure their rights, the rights of future generations. They have added color and sex to the list of things that cannot determine success, cannot be used as an excuse to deny equal opportunity.

You do the same when you vote. You do it when you attend council meetings, board meetings, town hall meetings, and speak your piece; when you ask the hard questions, protest with signs, songs, shouts; when you show people who think they own this nation to the exclusion of others, people who think they have the right to amend your rights to suit them, that you are watching them, that you SEE them, that you know better.

You do it when you tell our armed forces "Thank you for your service" whether you agree with whatever conflicts we're embroiled in or not - because they are standing up for our liberty doing a hard, dirty, often thankless job - and they are there, ultimately, to preserve our nation and its principles (As an aside - thank you, men and women of the armed forces. Thank you, and blessed be, and come home safe to the families who love you, miss you, and hope only for your swift return.).

You do it when you teach the children in your life what it means to be free - freedom to fly means freedom to fall, and freedom to rise up again; freedom to succeed means freedom to fail, and to try once more; freedom to speak means freedom for dissenting opinions to be heard; freedom is not comfortable - at times, it is downright terrifying...but it is necessary to the human spirit.

Given a choice to be cold, hungry, ragged, poor, weary, worn and free, or to be clothed, fed, housed, succored, safe and bound - I will be free. Do not make the mistake of giving up your freedom for the illusion of safety - you will one day wake to find you have nothing left but the yoke you bound yourself to.

I could go on, but to what purpose? You understand or you don't - and my little rant won't sway anyone, I fear.

Here, then, is a transcript of our most essential document, the one that began it all, the one that first gave shape to our name, to our identity as a nation. Read, if nothing else, the first two paragraphs. They are as stirring, heartfelt, and powerful now as when they were first written.
~~~~~

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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 men 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 King of Great Britain 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.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, 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:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries 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.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

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 Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, 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, therefore, the Representatives 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 Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, 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.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1 - Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Column 2 - North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Column 3 - Massachusetts: John Hancock Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

Column 4 - Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Column 5 - New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Column 6 - New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton
~~~
If you've made it this far, thank you. To support out troops, go visit Any Soldier or Troop BeBop (I know this woman - she's a force of nature!). I wish you a safe, joyous, and happy Independence Day

Just Then

There was sunlight, warm honey pouring through the window, spreading across the floor. There were motes of dust caught in the sticky heat, glinting, winking, semaphore reminders of housekeepery undone. There were beads of amber catching the light, upping the ante with their stillness. There was the baby, frenetic motion shattering the Zen, beads clacking as they flew through the air.

Among the fey we drummed and sang "Fuck you, fuck you...", only she didn't, she stared up at the trees, green against sky, and softly babbled my secret thoughts to the unseen. She didn't mind that some of those thoughts included rocks and possibilities and finality. She was caught up in the trek of the transparent wee snail inching its way along her arm. I was caught up in promises and the way the sun shone on the blue stones.

I wonder if she knew, when she babbled and wriggled and snuggled in and slept deep and hard and limp in Jenny's arms, I wonder if she knew that it was the only, the last, time, that in a few hours Jenny would carry the memory of her weight and warmth beyond life and into what follows.

It's all now. There's no yesterday, no tomorrow. All she has is now...hungry now, wet now, tired now. She moans, whimpers, whines, eh-heh-heh-heh, until I find the thing that now demands.

The cat curled at her feet, but she slept on against me and I dozed wrapped in the coolth of cotton sheets and the warmth of content in cat form, both of us lulled by the quartet of purrs and little mewlings.

What Happened To Compassion?

I read a story this morning about how the budget shortfalls in Illinois are causing some issues in an interesting area - it seems prisoners are having to wear soiled, worn clothing, with laundry done only twice a week.

The story itself was not remarkable, really...it's hardly a surprise that the state will cut funding anywhere it can, and prisons are an easy mark because the people inside are either employed there and can leave or are lumped under the heading of "If you're there you must deserve to be so suck it up".

What struck me was the tone of the responses to the story. The comments left were horrid, to say the least, full of smug self-righteousness and ignorance. They ranged from"Who cares?" to "They deserve to suffer."

Excuse me??

People are wrongly convicted every day. Not everyone in prison is evil. People go to prison for having the wrong kind of herbal entertainment in their pockets. They go to prison for defending themselves. They go to prison because they made a mistake and society wants to punish them soundly.

Whatever the reason, and whether they are nice, stupid, evil, intelligent, kind, guilty, or innocent, they are still people. To try and deny them their humanity is a mistake. To treat them as less than human is to take away the one thing that connects them to society and helps them change for (one hopes) the better.

Forcing people to wear filthy, worn clothing while living in crowded conditions is unhealthy, to say the least.

Saying "Oh, well,they can wash them in the sink" would make sense...unless you know how unrealistic that is. Prisoners don't get full bars of soap. They often get tiny bits, smaller than those motel soaps. It's hardly enough to wash a body, let alone laundry.

Asking why they need underwear at all is just plain stupid. While not everyone wants underthings, a prison environment is hardly the place to make someone...erm...freeball, as it were. Think, people.

The comments about how the vicitims suffered, so should the criminals? How do two wrongs become a right?

And before you jump all over me for being all soft or whatever...I havebeen the victim of crimes, with the perpetrators unpunished. Were they in prison, I would not want them to be treated inhumanely...I would want them to come to understand how they did me (and others) harm, to change and grow, and to emerge better people. Naive, yes, but there you are.

I wonder what those hateful commenters would think if it was their son, husband, brother, sister, mother, daughter, or friend? What if they, themselves, were the prisoner being made to wear dirty, threadbare clothing?

Prison itself is the punishment...being locked away from the clear sky, the freshening wind, the gentle rain, the sun, moon, and stars...to be locked away from friend, family, kind words and soft touch...that's the punishment. Fer cryin' out loud, clean skivvies are hardly a luxury...or at least, they shouldn't be.

If Illinois needs to cut their budget, perhaps they should consider trimming from some truly inhuman sources - perhaps a few politicians could use a paycut. I'm sure the bribes will more than make up for it.

But We Made It

We left Casa de Crazy on the 17'th. I drove, because while I'd only slept 2 1/2 hours the night before, Someone had even less.

The Evil Genius watched movies on the portable player (thanks for the loan, Mum) and Sprout alternated sleeping, playing, and bitching about being stuck in the car seat. In Virginia, we were stuck in traffic for several hours because of construction in or near one of the tunnels through the mountains. Sprout did not approve. By the timewe got through that mess, we werevery low on fuel and patience, but we managed not to run out.

What is normally a nine hour drive took fourteen.

Domino's Pizza in Pomeroy is wonderful -despite my calling just after they closed, they delivered dinner to our motel, saving me unhitching the trailer and finding something to eat that didn't come out of our cooler or a plastic package.

Saturday, we drove to the site and set up. We managed to get the canopies up before it rained...it was nice being able to unload trailer and van under cover. As soon as we got there, the Evil Genius shucked his clothes and ran to find his Wisteria friends. For the rest of the week, we saw him for a few minutes a day, usually when he was hungry or ready to go to bed. We will be washing the mud off of him for a month.

Sunday was more setting up and fluffing the camp, Jenny got there. She snagged Sprout and ran off with her for a few hours. Later that evening, we gossiped while Sprout drooled on her. We talked about Lo (her man), about his death last year and her new life.

Monday morning, Jenny died.

Typing that hurt.

Monday evening, we held Lo's memorial anyway.

You know what? I was going to write in detail aboutthe rest of the week...but I'm tired. Here's a nutshell:

Someone's girlfriend and her boyfriend came by, and we did some serious talking about our relationships. It was not always an easy conversation. It rained all week. I didn't sell much of anything, just about enough to cover the cost of ice and an unplanned motel stay on the way home -thank goodness for shitbag motels with cheap rooms! My relationship with Someone took a serious hit mid week, but we managed not to crash and burn and are continuingto work on it because we're not going to give up. I'm not a violent woman, but I will admit to wanting to perpetrate some ugliness on another person who will have her comeuppance, and I hope I'm there to see it beause I try to be all Zen, but sometimes I can't let go as easily as I'd like. Someone's girlfriend and I got a chance to hang out without our respective men about, and that was full of the awesome. I like her. All of us had some serious thinking/healing to do. Someone drummed every night, usually not getting back until after sunrise. It was good for him. I made it to the drumming once...it's difficult to go down to the fire when I have kids in camp-I won't leave them alone, sothatpretty much ties me to our campsite unless someone is available to watch them. I wasn't missed. The one night I went, I took Sprout with me - she loved it, and she was a rock star, collecting love and cuddles from a hundred different people. She likes fire, drumming, and glow sticks. I made it to the fairy shrine for the first time, and told the little batards to fuck themselves. It was cathartic. They gave me a blue stone, so I guess we're good. The woman who angered me beyond reason managed to compound my pissivity by hurting Someone's other girlfriend, too. Evil thoughts abounded, and Lady R and I have a common target for our ire. Low Rent (our name for the woman) is going to learn that when you fuck with community, community fucks back. Also, I learned that there are a lot of folks there who give a damn about me, about Someone, about our family and well-being...and there's nothing like the grapevine, is there?? It rained rather a lot during pack-out, so everything in the trailer is wet and will need washing/drying in the next few days. I didn't get stuck, though, so that was nice. On the way home Sunday night, I blew a tire on the trailer. It tore off the fender and shorted my dash display lights. It was my first blowout/flat ever. Welimped down the shoulder on the rim until we could find a gas station to drop the trailer at, then got a room - at midnight, there's not much more one can do. Monday morning was a flurry of finding a tire/wheel for the trailer(we got two - thanks, Mum, for saving our bacon...again...and again...and again...) and getting them replaced, then getting our butts home. After unloading a bit, I went to pick up something for dinner and ran out of fuel - the first time I've ever done so.

Someone is taking a long, hard look at himself and doesn't like what he sees. I am hurting for him and because of him. I want to be here for him, but Idon't know what to do to help...so I'm just here, hoping (believing) we can make it through this very bad place and back onto Tera Firma.

Despite everything, it was a good trip, and I want to go back next year. Strike that. I WILL go back next year.

Today is laundry and unpacking, and (if I canmanage to) napping.

How was your week?

Home.

Got home yesterday evening.

Tired.

Unpacking.

Rough, amazing week.

More later.

Learn To Be Still

Thank you, baby girl.

Last night, in the midst of frantic oh-my-gods-I-still-have-so-much-to-pack-and-sew-and-where-is-it-all-going-to-go-and-what-about-dinner-and-I'm-hot-and-tired-and-light-headed-and-there's-no-tme-to-rest-or-breathe-or-pant-pant...

In the midst of that, you needed to bechanged, fed, and be cuddled until you went to sleep in Mama's arms, and so Mama had to sit. Still.

Everything had to wait a precious few minutes.

Thank you for reminding me to breathe.

Almost

We are almost ready to head out on our annual Solstice trip - nine days camping in Ohio at a campground that's a reclaimed strip mine.

We have almost finished packing the trailer.

We have almost finished packing our clothes, the kids' clothes, and all the attendant crap that goes with taking children camping (especially as I camp comfortable).

We have almost all of our groceries.

We are almost done sewing.

I almost feel ready...but...not quite...

Ready or not, Casa de Crazy goes mobile tomorrow at six. The morning one. I have not pre-posted anything, and probably won't - everything takes longer when the baby is in a "hold me" mood, and it's difficult enough to type one-handed, let alone when the dang space bar still doesn't work correctly! We'll be home by the 27'th - if I don't see you before then, have a good week and happy Solstice!

No Way

I was coming back in from the garage and opened a box on a whim.

Me: "Oh. My. God."

Someone: "No way. You're kidding."

Me: "I'm so not..."

And into the house I came, because...yeah...

See that box?

The grey one, there?

Yeah, that one.

Guess what's in it?

Go on, guess.

No, not a body. I'd hide it better.

This box we looked through several times, each of us. While he was looking, Someone carefully emptied each box to thoroughly search it.

So how come we found this?:

Let me help you out, a little.

Here would be the coffee pot and the one-burner:

And here would be my beloved nesting pots:

There were other things, but those were the main missing items.

Damn faeries...must have heard me thinking about hiring an exterminator and hosing the Casa down with faerie repellent.

Oh, well...at least now we can make coffee. I wonder if they realized they went too far, stealing Someone's Java supplies. Some things a man won't take lying down.

I AM glad they returned everything....before I had the trailer packed, even.

How was your day?

Damn Faeries

Casa de Crazy is lousy with faeries.

Not the Disney kind that laugh and frolic and twinkle and occasionally save our bacon from disaster - no we have mean-spirited little fuckers, trickster-faeries who hide things or steal them outright, often returning them only when we've gone halfway to insane looking for whatever we know, damn it, KNOW, was right there THREE MINUTES AGO!!!

They mostly pick on poor Someone, who isn't used to having so much house to hunt through for things he can't find where he last left them. I think they like to hear him swear ans watch him turn red, see the thunderclouds build over his head, listen to him mutter. They love to steal his lighter, his socks, and especially his tools.

We have witnesses, by the way, to our tricksters' antics. Several visitors have seen Someone open a cupboard to get something to find said something not there. A twenty-minute search ensues, after which Someone will open the same cupboard, look in the same spot, and there the something is, right up front, right where he looked before.

Once, when our friend Handy J was here, he watched Someone go through the search, then witnessed as Someone called me to ask where the item he was searching for would be - when I told him, he went and looked, and there they were. Handy J was insistent that they'd both looked in that very spot...

Of course.

Usually, if Someone finally enlists my aid, I'll either walk right to what he's looking for or be able to tell him where it is...or, it'll reappear where he knows it should be and he finds it soon after.

The trickster-faeries don't like to mess with me too much. I'm a finder-of-things. It's difficult to hide stuff from a finder-of-things. Not impossible - they've zinged me a few times - but difficult.

I've been told I should give them milk. Bah. They don't care for dairy products. They don't want baked goods. They are not traditional faeries. Offerings of whiskey, wine, or beer seem to please them a little, as well as rib bones, Quahog and scallop shells, Oreo cookies, and shiny, shiny things. We have even built them their own little shrine in the woods, loaded with the things they seem to like. Nothing keeps them entirely at bay, though.

Right now, we are trying to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time - we have, realistically, three days to finish sorting, packing, sewing, cooking, and loading. We don't have time for trickster-faeries...which is why, of course, they are more than happy to make time for us.

This morning, while sorting through camping gear, I noticed some things missing. It made sense that they weren't in their regular box - Someone took them with him last Autumn when he was helping a friend with her business, travelling to shows and vending with her. They were in a different box, a smaller, more portable box. THAT box, however, was nowhere to be found.

Both Someone and I clearly recall washing things, putting them in the box, and putting the box in the trailer for the winter...but it's not among the things we unloaded...and we looked into every. single. box. twice.

I would shrug and say "Oh, well..." but I can't - what the little fuckers stole this time is a handful of items we need for our trip but cannot afford to just replace (coffee pot, nesting pots, Coleman one-burner, and all our fuel ) and I don't have time to play their games and hunt high and low for stuff.

I am...irked...dismayed...frustrated...and irked.

I hope they return our things before we have to leave...because camping with Someone when there's no way to make coffee? Daunting doesn't begin to describe the prospect...

Lots to Do

We're going up to Ohio for Solstice in a week. Between now and then, we need to:

Move the trailer, empty it, patch the holes that the neighbor's tree made in the roof and side, sort out what we're bringing and what's staying here, and re-pack it.

Pre-cook and freeze all the veggies and sides for ten day's worth of dinners for five people.

Wash, fold and pack clothing for the whole fam-damily.

Clean the van.

Sew shirts to sell.

Cut wood blanks to make into jewelry.

Buy last-minute groceries.

Figure out a watering schedule for the gardens (thanks, Gypsy!!).

Arrange and implement visitation for the Evil Genius and his father so the boy doesn't have to wait until July to see his dad.

A myriad of other small things that add up a very busy week. What are you up to?

The Spam Knows

Rough night.

Feh, not rough, plain awful. Never mind. Let's look at The All Knowing Box O' Spam to see what kind of day it'll be, shall we?

Hmm.

I can earn up to $87 an hour, and apparently a hitherto unknown relative in the EU died and left me a fortune. There are two offers for the quick, free delivery of pills of unspecified origins or type.

Woo-hoo, party at the Casa!! One way or another, our cares are over!

The Things About A Baby Is...

...just when I think I'm hitting my stride, that we have a pattern to our day...she up and changes things.

Sprout's eating a bit of cereal twice a day. She had her four-month check-up last week - at 25.5 inches and 13+ pounds, she has nearly doubled in size.

She does not approve of shots, but recovers from her ire quickly enough. Yes,we immunize,and yes,we've read reports and personal anecdotes and considered the possible repercussions...and we've decided that we'd rather have some of the immunizations and chance the possibilities than have a baby or child die or be disfigured or come to harm from a completely preventable childhood illness.

She's trying to figure out how to roll over, getting closer every day.

She loves the bath - now, she likes to watch the water dribble from the little cup we rinse her with.

Look:

She thinks it's amazing.

Nap times are ever-changing. I try to get at least a little sleep-time with her every day,but some days we're too busy.

Speaking of busy...it's time for me to pack up these kids and hit the road...we have errands to run, and Someone could use a few minutes of quiet after his weekend of solo parenting.

What's new in your world?

I'm Here...

...but not entirely...heh...

I the chance to work this weekend and I took it. I'm tired - going to take a bath and go to bed. See you tomorrow.

How was your weekend?

Thoughtfetti

I have a "new" oven/stove thanks to a friend, Someone, some sweat, the loan of a circular saw, and a bitof wiring. I'm very happy, both to have saved Mum the cost of a new one (thanks anyway, Mum) and to have a working oven again.
~~~~~
The space bar on Bob the Wonder Computer is still only working intermittently. Fun.
~~~~~
The same evening that Someone and our friend Handy J replaced the oven/stove, we had a big storm. Lots of wind. The neighbor's tree fell on my utility trailer. The utility trailer I need to use in two-and-one-half weeks. The one we'll be living in when we head to Ohio for our annual Solstice camp out. It has two holes in the roof. Someone and Handy J both assure me they can repair the trailer, make it waterproof again...just as soon as we get the tree off it.
~~~~~
The same tree took out our satellite dish. With some more sweat, some creative language, and a dollop of determination, Someone got the dish back into place. The tree that came down had been partially blocking our signal. Now that it's down, we can watch hockey again. Silver lining.
~~~~~
I had to make a choice...pay the phone bill or buy nappies and formula. If you don't see me around for a bit, it's not 'cause I don't love you.
~~~~~
How're you doing?