Under the Weather and Gloom Post

The weather here has been heavenly the last five or so days. Just heavenly but I'm under it as the saying goes. Not so much physically sick but bitten by a mental bug. Funny how much words can hurt. Especially when they come from someone you're related to and love. Someone you've known your whole life.

"Machines and relatives get most of the yelling.

But never trees. As for people, well, the Solomon islanders have a point. Yelling at a living thing does tend to kill the spirit in them.

Sticks and stones may break our bones,

but words will break our hearts."

Robert Fulghum

It always amazes me when we treat relatives with so much less care than friends and acquaintances. Several years back, I read something about this phenomena. Shortly after reading that article, I stopped watching a number of television programs where family members belittled each other or treated each other poorly. One in particular was "Everyone Loves Raymond".

This also was a prime example of how poorly spouses treat each other. Now, I don't mind an occasional dose of sarcasm and so on, life is like that, but not all the time. The Middle is another show I have a problem watching. It just seems so negative, so damaging mentally to watch. And of course, how could I forget Two and a Half Men? So very many bad examples there.

Life is too short to waste time viewing such cynical drivel. Seems it also makes it "okay" for people to turn around and treat others in real life virtually the same way as they've seen characters on TV shows behaving.

"Think of what a better world it would be

if we all - the whole world

had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon

and then lay down with our blankets for a nap."

Robert Fulghum

Maybe I'm just feeling gloomy as another birthday is slowly approaching. It's funny, speaking to a friend several months ago, she mentioned how turning 26 was devastating for her. Quite a few of her girlfriends had voice the same opinion. I almost fell over because 26 for me had been a truly depressing birthday...not 25 or 30, but 26!

This feels a lot like the same oppressive weight I felt at the approach of that birthday. Mind you, I have...holy c#@p! I was just counting and it's about two months away! Yikes! We won't be talking numbers here, but it's not one of the milestones you'd think would have such an effect, just like 26 wasn't.

Maybe it's a lot of things combined. The economy, the divorce, the loss of family members, the loss of my life as I knew it, the upcoming, inevitable surgery and so on. Who knows?

I want to thank you for stopping in and visiting, it's such an honor. And for getting all the way down to the end of this gloomy little post I'm going to leave you with another quote, also by Robert Fulghum from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten:

"Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave

something and take something away.

Most of this "something" cannot be seen or heard

or numbered or scientifically detected or counted.

It's what we leave in the minds of other people

and what they leave in ours.

Memory.

The census doesn't count it.

Nothing counts without it."

The Significantly Insignificant Things Post

Years ago, while sorting through my parents' belongings with my brother, small discoveries were made. My dad's shoes had holes in the soles with cardboard covering them. This, from a man who always prided himself on his dapper style of dress.

Dad circa 1953-4

It's from him (along with my mom) that we inherited our love of well-made leather shoes. If you want good foot health, leather soles are a must IMHO. They breathe and cushion your tootsies in a way no synthetic sole can.

Guess I'll never be a vegan. A good pair of classically styled, well-made leather  shoes...worth every penny. What I find interesting is that they were ahead of their time in that it's certainly more earth-friendly to buy quality and then preserve it with minimal waste (re-heeling and resoling), rather than just tossing used shoes out and buying more.

We were taught a few cardinal rules of proper shoe care:
     -one never wore the rubber part of the heels down to the actual shoe heel, you had them reheeled
     -if the soles wore through, you resoled them (not with a synthetic product)
     -you polished and buffed your shoes with shoe polish and a proper brush regularly

My parents were not rich but weren't lacking in money for the basics, so this little discovery shocked the heck out of us.

Why had this happened? How? When? Maybe as you hit a certain age, you just stop worrying about the details.

All I can say is that I'll never forget the look on my brother's face as he carried the shoes over to the bed where I was sorting other things. The look of shock and dismay was so intense. It was as if he were a child again and a parent had disappointed him. But now, he couldn't ask "why?"....

While on the subject of holes in shoes, I ran across this which I thought was interesting. It's what I call the "Depression" mentality on holes and resoling.

The problem is that this mentality doesn't explain my dad allowing the holes to go all the way through to his feet. One doesn't wait that long, because then the bed of the sole is ruined. On top of that, there's the covering of the holes with cardboard...makes no sense.

In mom's closet I'd discovered boxes of S and H Green Stamp books with the stamps all glued in place. What was she saving them for? I also found a gift type box filled with old red cancelled postage stamps from the early 1950's.

Again...why? It wasn't like these were in the spare room that she used for storage. These were in her day-to-day bedroom closet with things currently in use. Yet another question never to be answered.

S & H Green Stamp Books

Some things you simply can't prepare for. For example, let's just imagine what my mom's reaction would have been if I'd said (excuse me while I peel myself off the floor where I was rolling in fits of laughter at this thought) I wanted to go through her closet...the answer would have been a firm "no". The "don't ever go there again" would have been implicit.

But there's so much else that you could think of in the way of completing their histories and thus yours. It's information that will be forever lost to you. Never forget Mark Twain's words,  "...years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did...."

So if you're reading this, take a little time to record what you remember. Often, simple retelling of stories is the easiest way to do this. By doing this while you still have your family, they can help fill in the blanks!

A few months before my parents died, I was "home" and the three of us were sitting in their den. I asked them how they met. Mom became all shy and school girl-like. Dad looked off into a distance only he could see and after a pause, began telling the story. He'd glance every now and then at mom, in a way one looks at a another when seeing them as they had appeared so very long ago, in the very memory they were reliving.

It was truly magical and something one doesn't witness often. They seemed to see each other as they had in that moment so long ago. I'll never forget it. It was like being a witness to time suspended.

It's a romantic story that will be with me forever but would have vanished into the winds of eternity had I not taken time to ask. I'll share it with you, but in a future post. I'm going to go and be alone with the warmth of this memory for now.

I think I've written this before, but it deserves repeating,

Memories don't belong in drawers.

George Burns (1896 - 1996)

Gloom, Sleep, Corporations and Poverty Post

Regular (non-daylight savings) time is such a pain. Although I must say that keeping all my clocks set to DST, is helpful in avoiding the winter blues that come when it gets dark at four p.m.! Today's plan had, among other things, a list of over half a dozen pictures to take (meaning I'd have to snap four times that to get a decent pic) so I could complete several posts that are in the works.

Circumstances did not cooperate however. First was the heavily overcast sky. There's a 60% chance of rain tonight and 40% tomorrow. All I can say is that we'd better get some rain in trade for all this gloom. It isn't just a white grey yet bright sky, we're talking Portland-type gray skies. Cement skies. Taking pictures, at least the kind I want, is just a waste of time in this kind of limited light and a flash doesn't help at all.

The second thing that put a wrench in my to-do list, it was my body. Didn't sleep well (or much at all for that matter) last night. Finally fell asleep about 7 a.m. which is very annoying. Woke at 2:30, which by my clock is 1:30. Yes, I'm an odd duck, what can I say? On top of that, I felt under the weather physically; rather sick to my stomach so I stayed in bed for two more hours.

It reminded me of something I read the other day by Ronni at the blog, Time Goes By. It was an article on sleep as one ages. She wrote about how every now and then she'll wake up, go through her normal morning routine and after a bit, just not feel quite right. She follows her body's signal and goes back to bed. Though she's tried to define the problem or cause , in the end she just attributes it to getting older.

Of course, I just felt like a wimp since she's older than me, but that aside, the comments she got were fascinating. Apparently, a wide range of people come across this "malady without a cause" in their lives. Anyhow, I don't know if it was a delayed power of suggestion or what, but I felt better about it and just revised my plans for the week. No big deal.

As far as her blog goes, it isn't something you'd necessarily run across or pay attention to if you were under 45 or 50. It addresses a wide range of topics and is labeled as an "Elder Blog". Now this is a shame since it contains a world of information (and not just on aging) that most people would be amazed at; articles both obscure and targeting current events.

What I like is the variety. For example, a Guest Blogger wrote an article about the whole Susan B. Komen charity debacle where they cancelled funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides basic services like mammograms and other cancer screenings to women who couldn't afford it. (Note:  scroll up in the link for the article vs. the comments.)

She also questioned the endless churning out of licensed "pink" merchandise under the guise of a potion of the profits going to breast cancer research. The guest blogger included a quote from Huffington Post in 2010 that said "Komen trademarked the phrase “for the cure” and according to several reports, spends at least a million dollars a year defending that trademark against other, smaller charities". An interesting and questionable use for charitable funds I thought. So it seems breast cancer has become "big business".

This post had an excellent video by Barbara Ehrenreich on the "corporatization of breast cancer" that is a "must view" in my book. There's also an excellent video by Stephen Colbert talking about the Komen Corporation in the first part of the video addressing Komen's suit happy activities to protect its trademark, "for the cure"(TM). Stuck the trademark symbol in there, just in case....

Well, it's almost 10:30 p.m. and this was not the post I intended to write, but it's what popped out of my brain after yet another "nap".

Funny, back in the late 80's, I had a party for all the neighbors (whether I knew them well or not) who endured one of our longer house re-habs. During the event I finally met the woman across the street who drove the latest Mercedes, always wore lots of diamonds, and had a vintage '59 Mercedes 190 or 300SL in her garage.

Photo Source:  Wikipedia

While I don't begrudge anyone hard-earned wealth, I was taken aback at the party. We were chatting which led to her profession. She was owner/organizer of two large homeless shelters in L.A. To my complete shock, she laughed  and bluntly commented "there's big money to be made in poverty".

Since that day I've always looked at charities with a jaded eye, especially the huge, incorporated ones that license their logo for profit. There's a fine line between real charity fund raising and flat out product marketing for profit in my book. Especially when donations like $1,000,000 per year go towards things like frivolous lawsuits, huge media campaigns and TV commercials. I'm thinking of the United Way which caught a lot of heat in the late 80's for using more donation money for running their organization and executive salaries than was spent on actual charity work. I guess nothing's changed in twenty or so years.

Out of the Mire and From the Heart Post

Hello again and thank you for your kind patience. I truly appreciate it!

Now for the *"critically important news":  on the weather front...it sprinkled Sunday evening, most of  Monday and on into the evening. Very nice, quite refreshing. *Sorry, I couldn't resist! Lol!

Just to the left of center is the silhouette of a tiny little finch drying out on Monday evening.

While on my little mental holiday, I had lots of time to think, read and surf the internet. Funny what one can come away with after a little silence of the brain...stopping ceaseless output and just quietly absorbing...quite amazing. I ran across some quotes that gave me pause...such as:

To live is the rarest thing in the world.

Most people exist, that is all.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Written over a century ago....

(Note:  two other quotes have been added to the right-hand side column.)

Let me see if I can explain a bit better. It seems to me, life is so over-sensationalized, so hyped up, so oriented to the next best/biggest thing...what can top that event, this story, that person and so on. And, I should add, always in a negative context.

Even the poor old weather, going about it's daily, seasonal business cannot escape the glittering generalities, but instead becomes "the worst (insert impending disaster and/or doom here) of the decade or century or all recorded history". There is no pause, no escape from the bombardment. In fact one recent weather headline made me think of "Chicken Little" and "the sky is falling" from ages ago.

It's not like I didn't write any posts while away, there are, in fact, about thirty-something of them. Just none "good enough". There was my post (which you'll never see) about the events leading to my post on the oblivious and rude manner in which most people go through life. No sense of common courtesy (or even common sense for that matter), personal responsibility for one's actions or thought of others...only self-involvement. Take Twitter and Facebook, what are they (for the most part) other than electronic billboards for what "you're" doing, following and liking (or not liking). Someone "un-friends" you and you die of mortification. Really? Seriously?

Is life so very tiny? It almost seems that existence has just turned into a glorified pile of superfluous nothingness. I don't want to sound preachy because I hate that kind of thing (yes, I said hate, a real feeling requires a real word, not a polite cover up) plus, I am the very last person to tell someone how to live. Really, I am! The absolute last! But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try in whatever small way I can, to make the world better and hopefully myself with it.

By the way, this is the reason that the list of favorite blogs on my site is so small...I'm very picky. Someone's writing has to speak on a deeper level. These blogs may have the elements I'm bemoaning above, but they also are written with heart.

When I went on hiatus it was because I felt I was a "bad" blogger. My posts were (and always have been) about things that I encountered as my life went on, starting with the hideous five year divorce. I thought I was getting better and personally, I think I was, until, the beginning of the second week in January, when life just kind of started sneaking in, again (serves me right for talking about miracles). I was faced with events that were less than positive (ha!) and would affect the quality of my life. So yes, this is/was all quite selfish.

Important thing was that my "vacation" started making me pay attention to articles, posts, and information that addressed life as it is not as defined by the world mass media. I found blogs on aging, poverty, on the disenfranchisement of large sections of our population by all the classics:  government, big business and of course the media. Segue:  One article I ran across was this...Link here...it disturbed me a great deal and illustrated the cold callousness of today's society.

Very few blogs address real life issues (IMHO). What one finds are diversions such as how to make a better blog for income, crafts and recycling materials into art, sites whose sole purpose is to show "pretty" photos they found and so on.

The heart will turn to a prune if love is always by the numbers.

How will you know if someone really loves you 

if they only meet your expectations and not your needs?

Robert Fulghum

It's not that such information is in any way bad, in fact if we didn't have something uplifting out there, we'd all just wither from some of life's uphill battles. There simply seemed to be a lack of people really talking about real life with any depth and without fear of their blog being unpopular. Sites I did come across that at first seemed to do this, were about subjects addressing political, religious or personal agendas. But they weren't offering thoughts about changing things other than for you to, in some way, agree or join in with whatever they were currently embracing.

Again, this isn't bad, it just seems to be a limited perspective. The more I thought about it, the more I felt compelled to speak. Not just about what was going good in my life but what wasn't. Things that are facing or probably will face everyone at some point in time. So rather than just crawl back into the shadows and stay on hiatus, I decided to be true to my feelings, thoughts and experiences.

I'm not saying this is going to turn into some sort of ranting platform, rather, as I run across bumps in the road, I am going to write about them and how I feel. I learned in my twenties that holding negative energy ("stuff") in, eats one up inside. Maybe something I find on my path to making my life better will help someone else. Who can say? I just know that I love writing and in order to be popular, I'm not going to pretend that life is a bowl of cherries, well...maybe it is, but cherries have pits.

Life is messy, forgot who said that but I couldn't have put it better. And the sooner we show up for life*, acknowledging it's not always a cakewalk, the sooner we may find a way out of the mire we're currently in.  (*someone else said that too, but I forgot who)

Lines from the Dylan Thomas piece that I read at my dad's funeral were floating through my mind before, during and after writing this..."Do not go gentle into that good night". Here is a link to a beautiful essay explaining Thomas' poem. I hope you'll read his poem (below) and then take a look at the essay.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

P.S. I've loved and been moved by this piece ever since I first read it in grade school. Even then it struck me as a powerful statement on living fully and not just fading away in the face of life's battles.


To be continued in a day or four.

Rude Awakening Post

Life is what happens to you

while you're busy making other plans.

John Lennon 1940-1980

Hard to believe its been 31 years since he was shot. It only underscored (for me) the amazing viscosity of time and its ability to slip right through our fingers. My first cognition of its finite quality occurred when my parents died. The permanency of death and loss hit me like a ton of bricks.

A decade later, I'm beginning to see people my own age losing family and friends. It starkly illuminates the limitations of hours and days left on this earth.

This season, everything I've been experiencing has contributed to this vivid realization. Yesterday, I called my neighbor in the house behind me to let her know UPS had dropped a package for her on my porch. While talking, she invited me to a get-together on Saturday. She said it was mainly their families. Somehow we got on the topic of her mother and mentioning that she was 63 years old.

This caught me by surprise, it knocked the wind out of me...her mom is in my age range! The date stamp on my forehead burned with this realization. For so long I've lived my life as if it would never end. What was I thinking? Maybe we all live in this fog. Possibly if we didn't we'd go crazy.

I do think the media and advertising in this country, the ceaseless promotion of the concepts of youth and beauty, lull us into this delusion. I could get up on my little soapbox here and launch into my thoughts on the complete lack of ethics paraded in front of us by the banking and investment industries as well as big business and the talking heads in Washington...but I won't. I'll stay more focused.

Anyways, I don't know what I'll do with this kick in the head of reality, I'm pretty much just trying to wrap my brain around the concept and what my place in this world is at the moment. This much is clear, I can't just continue to "wait around" hoping for inspiration. As I said in an earlier post, this is "not where I thought I'd be at this point in my life".

Prior to the end of the world as I knew it, aka the divorce, my life lay mapped out before me with each step of the journey revealing itself to me at the appropriate time. Now, I'm lost, wandering aimlessly in a desert.

This quote (above) came to me, out of the blue a few days ago. I didn't realize that today was the anniversary of John Lennon's death till after this post was complete. The energies that can be harnessed in this world continue to amaze me. Appears as if a universal awareness of what today was, came from so many people that it permeated the ethers. A single universal consciousness of this day spread across the world.

Today, I wish you the gifts of clarity and peace. Don't wait and learn the hard way that things are not always what they seem.

Imagine......

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Post

Just fair warning, I've been unable to fall asleep for the whole night and as a result, am rather grumpy. In an effort to fall asleep, I exhausted shows to view on Hulu; even tried re-watching a few things, hoping for boredom and zzz's. Listened to 6 episodes of A Prairie Home Companion which usually works because of Garrison Keillor's melodic, even-toned voice. Nothing helped.


Being unable to sleep is a rarity for me, usually it's the opposite. I've always been able to sleep without problem, which is fortunate. So the experience of being wide-awake for so long is disconcerting.


I'm still awake and it's 11:02 a.m. on Sunday morning! So I decided to look at food blogs in hopes of nodding off.  Unfortunately, this just annoyed me and woke me up. Why? Because, as I said before, I'm so sick of pumpkin, squash,  yam and sweet potato recipes that all I could just roll my eyes. Not to mention the amount of desserts containing those ingredients and.......and...... and its not even Halloween much less Thanksgiving. It's fine to focus on seasonal ingredients, but to the exclusion of everything else? That's just sad.

Maybe I can't sleep because I'm still in"limbo" as far as living and what to do with the rest of my life. By now, most people are on a course they charted in their twenties or so. If they got divorced, it happened when they were younger than fifty, with time to re-adjust.

When you're over fifty, have limited funds, what are you supposed to do? If I were to go back to school, what would I study? What degree would I choose? After several years of graduate or trade school, would I be able to find work?  Maybe I'm just once again being a negative Nelly, I don't know. I'm sorry you have to read this but it is my blog, my life and you always can "change the channel" so to speak.

Although you may not want to do that. Before all this happened, I thought my life was set and the end pretty much determined. However, the only thing one can count on in this life is change and you never know what the universe or "God" as you perceive her/him to be, has in store for you. You just may need this post so you're not complacent and assume what you planned will happen.

No matter what your age, read up on financing, retirement and be aware of your circumstances. Don't just rely on someone else, who you think you can trust to take care of it all (and you). This doesn't just apply to marriages, but to jobs, friends and so many other areas of life. All you have in this life is "you".

A recent episode of Private Practice just aired where one the primary theme was "people plan and God laughs". So, I should never have forgotten the Girl Scout motto I learned decades ago, "be prepared".

As an aside, I finally fell into yawns at about noon after reading a few tech articles on computers. Have to remember that trick, although I think I did something similar about six months ago when sleep was eluding me and I found that reading my digital camera manual knocked me right out. Lol! Crawled into bed and slept like a rock till 6 p.m. Oh my, that felt so heavenly.

Darkness Encroaches Post

It's not even 6:20 p.m. and it's night time! AAAUUUGGGHH!!! With darkness encroaching earlier and earlier with each passing day, I decided to look up when the clocks get turned back. Daylight Savings Time will end Sunday Nov. 6 this year. While I'm very glad that the government expanded DLST a while back, I wish they'd just keep it year round. Darkness at 4 p.m. is just a pain in the neck. I'm already annoyed that sunset today will be at 6:08 p.m. Of course, I don't mind the sun rising later in the mornings...all the better to sleep in. But on Nov. 6 that'll change.

So now begins my love-hate relationship with winter. I love the coolness and the ability to use the "big oven" (have I mentioned this before? lol!). I love the coziness of my bed with layers of quilts and blankets. I love winter clothes although I really need a new coat since mine is over twelve years old and starting to look like it (ditto the rest of my winter wardrobe). I love that so many plants can weather the "winter" so well here, and that many citrus (and my half of the avocado tree) offer their treasures at this time of year. I like that it may rain washing everything off, even if the garage leaks.

What I don't like is the mental race I get into, watching and waiting for the longest day of the year to arrive so we can be on our way to spring and DLST once again. Sounds nutty, I know, but that's how it is. I dislike summer in California extending into late October. It never gives me enough time to get in the mood for the holidays. Poof! They're suddenly upon you and gone! Blink and you've missed them.

I don't know why this popped into my mind this afternoon. Maybe because it's after 5 p.m. and I still have to run out and get something to call dinner, another pain in the neck. Actually I enjoy grocery shopping just hate getting myself out and about. Maybe it's part of the process of trying to leave California.

This will probably be my last move unless someone (heaven knows who...drags/sticks me into a nursing home...) so I want to make sure I pick some place I'll be happy in. I used to be happy with this state when I moved here ages ago, but then I was married, had a job, a home, garden and my Siberians. So much has changed. It's not the same state any more. Now I'm adrift with nothing to really keep me here.

This reminds me of my father, who, when I moved here, could not down-grade it enough. Whatever good thing happened here, something better always happened in Wisconsin. My parents visited me only once in the twenty plus (more like 30) years I lived here. While here, my father had nothing good to say about it. Or my husband...although that, I now understand.

It's so very sad what people "do" to others "they love" with their words. The pain that's forced upon them for whatever sad reason.

Not Snakes on the Plane Post

This is one of the reasons I don't like daytime (like before 5 p.m.) "naps"...nightmares. Doesn't happen too often, but when one hits, it's usually a doozie! I decided while reading an instruction manual online for my old but beloved digital Olympus that I couldn't keep my eyes open one...more....second........zzzz....

I couldn't bring myself to show any slithery closeups so this will have to do.

Do you dream in color? Are you aware of yourself in your dream, can you control things in your dream? I have to say yes to all the above. This time I was a participant and I was transported back in time when my brother and I were young. It was a problematic dream and as it progressed I probably actually screamed out loud. I was left in charge of my bro and a little friend of his. No pets were allowed in the house. (Note:  this is not a memory.)

My brother was being snotty and had a ferret hidden in a shoe box. For whatever reason I went to bed and warned them to behave. While sleeping (in the dream) there was a commotion at the side of my bed. My brother whispered "the ferret got loose". Frankly, I was fine with this, since I thought ferrets were cute.

Well, he lied. What really lived in the box was a snake. It was a very tricky kind of snake because it would twirl back upon itself like a rubber band wound too tight and spring from there. Problem was, you never could tell in what direction due to the way it curled.

Of course, it didn't shoot out it the direction my little brother predicted but rather into bed with me...and so the nightmare begins! I was so "in" the dream, I recall trying to use my arms to roll over or get up so he could grab the snake which was curling around underneath me. My muscles had fallen asleep. So had my facial muscles thus, when I tried to yell at him to roll me over, nothing sensible came out. This feeling of my body being numb continued (this is when I probably began screaming out loud). I could feel the snake crawling the length of my leg.

Rolling my body to and fro, I finally got on my side and there was the snake. It had crawled down my legging and was head-first into my boot. Why on earth I had boots on...in bed?? Anyhow, my brother grabbed it only to have it spring away. Before I could catch my breath, a smaller one jumped onto the bed in it's place. OMG!

Did I mention the color? It had the courtesy to at least be olive green with purple and lime-green stripes. This little one was even harder to locate. At that point I must have hit that point in dreaming where you can make yourself wake up. It was just so gross and slithery!

It was like waking from surgery. All groggy, unstable and exhausted. Have you ever had any experiences like this?

Aftermath Post

Took care of one of the last things in the divorce process last night and all I can say is some people truly disappoint. I won't go into it other than to say, that the aftermath has once again left me drained and exhausted. I went to bed at 10 last night and slept through till 6:30 p.m. today, finally forcing myself up and out of bed. I seem to have less and less reserve battery power.

I'm starting to really think that I am damaged (see Pity Party Post) and not sure what to do to change or alter the path I'm apparently on. Just don't have the energy for it. 

When this whole thing first began, I still had my store and so I was occupied and in touch with other humans. Now, I've gotten used to sitting in this rental with the blinds closed basically waiting for other people to do what needs to get done in order to get on with my life (like the idiot commissioner taking a month to sign the divorce papers).

Maybe this isolation is magnified by not having a television. It was my last contact with the outside world on a regular basis. 

My outings are solely food-related which seems really pathetic. The problem is that I am still operating on "normal" in one part of my brain where I used to prepare decent meals from scratch (even if just for myself) to non-functional. How can I explain this better? When I'm in the store, I'll see some things that would be a perfect and easy dinner or meal to prepare, so I buy them. Once home, I don't have the energy to follow through with simple food preparations. I talked about this in an earlier post. 

I really have to try to get myself to buy pre-made meals. In the end they're no more expensive than buying the ingredients, having them go bad and then tossing them out. Problem is, I still find myself looking at the price of prepared foods (i.e., coleslaw...$3.99 per pound) and telling myself I could make it better and for less money. The trouble is that I buy into this mentality and get the ingredients but never make the item so I loose money and don't eat.

I know, it sounds so simple to resolve but it's not when your brain is in a land of uncharted thoughts and feelings. Thus, leaving me to wonder if I'm now damaged and how long it will take to heal, if ever.

July Fourth

There are some holidays I just don't like, such as Halloween and the Fourth of July. Both these days involve loud or scary things at night. My imagination is just too vivid for Halloween and I hate opening my door to strangers at night to dole out candy. Back when I was married, my ex used to handle that task. Now, I just hide in the bedroom with all the lights in the house off and wait till about 9 p.m. which seems to be when people stop "trick or treating". It's also annoying because virtually no effort goes into making the costumes any more. When I was a kid, my mom made a costume for each of us every year.

As far as July 4, it's a fine holiday commemorating our independence and I love looking at fireworks. But it also brings with it idiots setting off illegal firecrackers which remind me in a small way of what it must feel like to live in a war zone.

My response is to run and hide. Add to that the other bunch of fools who shoot off guns into the sky...Hello? Those bullets come back down! So I find myself just living for each of these days to be over.

The thing that put July 4 over the top for me happened four years ago when the ratty teenager who lived in the back house on the property next to mine, and his friend were playing with firecrackers. They'd light them, drop them in empty plastic water bottles and throw them. They made a really loud explosion.

At the time, Alpine had never been afraid of noises of any sort. Then the kid threw one of the exploding bottles into my yard near Alpine and scared her to death. She hid in the darkest corner under my desk for the next two days shaking like a leaf and refusing to eat. After that, any loud or sudden noise made her drop to the floor with her ears pinned back. It was so sad. I'm glad to say that man and his kid have moved out since then. But I still just want these two holidays to be over with.

On a similar but totally different note, I went out at about 5 p.m. to get poppy seeds for the Wine Country Chicken salad. I was struck by how empty the streets were. While at the store, I picked up a chicken on sale thinking I'd make Chick on a Stick, but when I couldn't find any fresh thyme decided to freeze it for another day, besides I really didn't feel like cooking. I mean, I haven't even completed the chicken salad I planned on making today.

The emptiness I was feeling as I drove home, turned into loneliness compounded by having to drive without air conditioning in 95F heat. Makes one a little daft. Then without warning I suddenly decided to  just go to Subway and get a sandwich, screw the holiday. I was all alone any way. As I pulled in the empty parking lot I wondered if Subway would even be open. It was and I was the only car in that area of the lot as well as their only customer. Leaving, I was enveloped by a sense of anger that here I was totally alone while doltoid had set himself up with not only new friends but a girlfriend he lived with. Meanwhile my holidays are spent alone and I resent him for cheating on me on so many levels it's remarkable.

To get myself out of this funk, I'll end with this magical video I found online. Be sure to watch it on the full screen and with the sound turned down.

What To Make For Dinner

That is the never-ending-question on this planet and visiting food blogs can be very frustrating when it's too hot to turn on the oven. Oh, I know there are those who'd be thrilled to have grilling season all year round. It can, however, get very boring and now that there is NO shade in the patio area, I have about as much desire to stand in front of a hot grill with the sun broiling me as I do to stand in front of a moving train. I believe it's time to break out the patio umbrellas. Luckily I bought a new one on sale at the end of the season last year.

Since the sad little window air conditioner in the bedroom is now exposed to sun all day long, it'll be far more inefficient than it used to be. (No, I'm not going to get over the new lack of shade any time soon.) So I'll probably put the old umbrella over by the unit to give it and that side of the patio some shade. The new one will go over by the back porch.

Funny, it seems like the workers have been pounding, jack-hammering and sawing on the place next door for at least four or five weeks now...I checked and it's only been an eternity of two and a half weeks. Amazing. At least they turned off the polka-like music they had on at 8 a.m.

Anyhow, back to cooking. Spent part of the afternoon visiting Ree Drummond's blog, Pioneer Woman. Lots of good recipes but many require using the oven. Ugh. I think I'm going to have to break out the little counter top oven I bought on sale last fall just in time not to use it because it was big oven time at that point. I'm actually toying with putting it on a table outside and plugging it into an outlet right by the garage side door in order to keep the heat out. Sounds kind of trashy, but I want to keep the house as cool as possible without turning on the air conditioning for as long as I can.

You'd think with the amount of food blog browsing I do and with the 58 plus recipes for salads and 108 plus for pasta dishes I've saved in my cookbook folder on the computer that I'd have plenty of ideas. Well, I bought a head of cabbage Sunday when I went errand running, so I do need to make coleslaw today and I cooked macaroni noodles at about 9 p.m. last night when it was cooler, so I just need to chop celery and onions to throw a tuna salad together. I found my favorite tuna in the large can, on sale at Pavilions at two for $5.00 which is a steal, saving me over $1.50 a can.

But I've already shared those recipes with you. Maybe salmon patties...just one burner needed with a salad on the side. Hmmm.... I've saved over 16 salmon patty recipes. Only one problem, I'd need dill for the cream sauce I like to have with them. Looks like I really need to break down and visit the Home Depot. For the last two years I've bought herbs at Trader Joe's because they were inexpensive. But within a few weeks they'd die, (even when repotted into a better pot and watered) so I won't buy herbs there. I've had better success with Home Depot's herbs as well as Target's. Well, it's pumpkin time, referring to the fairy tale where Cinderella's magic carriage turns back into a pumpkin and where my office turns into a little piece of hades that I must escape from.

Meandering Post

Welcome to the land of whining...I am sooooo sick, I could just die. Seriously. Whine, whine, wimper. I really do not make a good sick person. I hate having to give in to it, rest, drink plenty of fluids and so on. Being sick is such a waste of time and frustrating because you just have to let it run its course no matter how annoying it is.

As a result of coughing so much (as in hacking up a lung) I couldn't lay down last night to sleep, so I wound up watching an old black and white movie about WWll. When you rely on rabbit ears (antennae) for TV reception, there's not much to choose from late at night. So I saw "Battle of the Coral Sea" circa 1959. It had so many cliches in it that it was actually watchable! Lol!

I knew I had to write about it the second I saw this:  we're inside a WWll submarine and the air is totally stagnant as you can imagine. So there we have Cliff Robertson, the Commander puffing away on a cigarette! I almost died laughing at how hokey old movies can be. The plot reads as follows:  "A Eurasian girl helps a U. S. submarine commander and two others escape from a Japanese island prison". Story lines don't get much more predictable than that. According to the "Zap2It" guide for TV it starred Cliff Robertson, Gia Scala, Teru Shimada and Paul Wendkos.

Actually it was quite a nice ride down nostalgia lane, grade B acting aside. 1959 doesn't seem that long ago and yet 52 years, five plus decades, half a century have passed in a blink of an eye. The ethics, attitudes and beliefs of that era don't exist any longer; well, maybe they do in some people and places, but it's hard to see these days. In the case of some stereotypical attitudes and beliefs, that's good, but there was a kind of inexplicable, unspoken belief that if you do right, right will overcome. Heck, look at all the shows today about justice/criminology, they're all pure fiction. In reality, nothing like that exists in today's justice system (okay, I could really go off on a tangent right now, but won't).

I think every generation goes through this kind of realization at some point. I recall my dad telling stories of how back in the first Great Depression, bread only cost a dime, but no one had a dime. As you read back through history, be it factual history or historical fiction (which I enjoy), you can see a pattern of each generation looking back in longing to a past that was more peaceful, gracious and safe. Perhaps that's what one should think about when getting somewhat despondent about the current state of the world today where it seems there's always uncertainty, fear and regret. Maybe that's the lesson, not to let what seems overwhelming get to you. Each generation seems worse as you live through it, but it's all proportionate.

Look at all the wars, previously unimagined and unimaginable that those who lived from 1900 to 1950 were witness to. Each was a new and unanticipated threat to life as one knew it. Think of the natural disasters from that occurred too and those prior to that in the 19th century. Yet, somehow each generation survived for the most part. So maybe, in a sense, it's true that nothing is really new, it's just the past in a different suit or costume and now it's our turn to act out this round of the play.

Why...

Frankly, I think a lot of women all over the globe can relate to my situation. Men control the world. Sorry guys, but you DO and you have ALL the "boys' networks" set up everywhere. Women are apparently more trusting...or stupid...or...I give up! What makes us (women, married or not) not likely to reach out like men and help each other? It boggles the mind...mine, at least!!!

Come on ladies! I don't care what your nationality/religion/ethnicity and so on, is. You HAVE to have an opinion! And if English isn't your language, I'm SURE someone out there would volunteer to translate for you! Plus, there's Babel Fish (I think that's the site).  Though some translations can be mangled; if we all got together, possibly, just maybe, something would change for each of us. No, I don't think the world will because it's all patriarchal. But maybe if we made a teensie dent in the wall/armor/facade, a wee bit of difference in each of our lives would be noticed.

Sorry all, for going on, will get off my soapbox now, but DO think about it...just a wee difference, here and there and then a wee bit more....  Life is CHANGE/OPPORTUNITY.

Thank you for listening, and for your visit to my blog. Hope it wasn't too negative, because it was meant to be positive and give us strength in all our gods' names. He/She never meant for the world to be so very horrid.

Sorry, with that I will give you a little picture of happiness...  It's my late Siberian Husky who was the dearest soul. With me for so many years and in her favorite place in the back yard, sniffing spring air.

Spring smells SOOO good! I'm in heaven!

P.S. If you don't like this post, don't bother commenting because it will be deleted. But thank you anyways for reading.

As Promised

Yesterday, I said I would elaborate on my connection with Leonard Cohen who wrote the song "Hallelujah" on yesterday's link. When going to college in the late 60's and early 70's music was a big deal. There were no computers (well, except for the giants in the basement of the engineering building) and one's term papers where typed on a manual typewriter. Just picture that.

Anyway, since I was going all of 80 miles "away" to school, I had to stay in a dormitory the first year. You were automatically partnered with a roommate. None of this finding your own or renting an apartment. So my roommate turned out to be from Shaker Heights, Ohio. I'd never heard of it, (not Ohio silly) Shaker Heights. It's a well to do suburb of Cleveland. Her name was Rachel, and she was in love with everything Leonard Cohen. She was also crushing on a guy she met at a camp in Canada where she was a counselor every summer. His name was Marcus; they were star-crossed, age and religion-wise. I can't really say they were lovers, but he was a lover in her dreams.

She brought her entire Leonard Cohen LP collection and portable record player with her and played it more than often. When I think back, I can see where an I Pod would have been a real blessing. I do like his music but back then, it had a very depressing quality to it which is the thing that drew lovesick teen girls to it I think. I myself was into Santana (yes, he was around back then), The Doors, Janis Ian, of course The Beatles who where kind of off on their own little journeys about that time. I liked The Temptations, Otis Redding, The Four Tops...oh and so many others.

But Rache was stuck on LC and Marcus. The following summer, she was mortified by her love. She'd invited him down from Canada to a wedding for a family member and he showed up in a sport jacket and sandals. Her beloved, her knight in shining armor had failed her...sandals! She felt she would never live it down.

As time wore on, she gradually gave up the fantasy since she was pretty much indoctrinated to marry a doctor or a lawyer. Her father was a psychiatrist and she wound up following in his footsteps to become a therapist. In her late 20's she finally found her doctor and they married. I had the fortune to meet her again about 7 years ago when at an experimental aircraft show in the northwest with the idiot I am still married to, though have tried to divorce for over almost 5 years.

Her ideal husband was pretty disappointing in my opinion. A kind of scrawny, wiry, short guy who had a mean streak, a huge ego and no qualms about involving me in humiliating her. He brought up a number of embarrassing things just to make her feel bad about herself in front of me. I was so surprised. What made this more shocking was that this was a man whose mother had survived the holocaust. As his mother had gotten older, he bought the land next to theirs and built a house for his mother to live in.

It was just so incongruous with his treatment of my friend that I felt sorry for her for being with such a jerk. Little did I realize what was just a few years down the line in my life.

One Simple Post

Yeah, once again I'm WIDE AWAKE! I just detest this. To add to that, the temperature tonight is about 40F (4.444C) which for Southern California is quite cold. If I haven't mentioned this before, very, very, very few houses/buildings in So Cal are insulated. Yes, of late, they're built to earthquake standards (such as they are/were prior to the recent EQ in Japan). But insulation? No. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Having lived in the northern Midwest and northern New York, I know what the difference is and it's not pleasant or economical, but try to convince your landlord of this. So tonight I have a fleece blanket, a quilt and another quilt piled upon the bed in hopes of sleeping (note:  beta blockers which I take for high blood pressure {just ask me about the 5 year long divorce and the toll it's taken} slow down the heart and therefore circulation, meaning that my feet and hands get very cold at night). I will be wearing wool socks, a hat I knit as well as a set of fingerless gloves that are a true life saver in the sense of being able to fall asleep.

As I write this, I feel guilty for my feelings since so very, very many people are trying to sleep with so much less. I am lost at how to help. I am so close, due to the divorce, to living in my 11 year old car and not a house of any form, that I can't even think. I will loose my ability to pay for health insurance and therefore will not be able to renew my prescriptions at the end of this month. So my hypothyroidism will put me to sleep and my blood pressure will skyrocket and my depression will no longer be at arm's length. What fun. (Note:  that was sarcasm.)

Fortunately, while I still have electricity and the internet, I checked one of my favorite blogs and she had several links. One stood out and took me by the hand and I listened to it over and over and finally found sleep. More on the history behind the songwriter tomorrow.

The way that things, experiences and events circle about us and in our lives is utterly astounding to me. As the saying goes, "what goes around, comes around"...in so very many ways. It restores my faith in the plan above the plan.

The MOST

Have you noticed (or is it just me?) that in March and now following into April, most bloggers in general seem to post less often than the rest of the year? I myself have noticed it and must say I am guilty of this. I've been absent and I can't quite put my finger on it. Bloggers seem to be a sort of representation of people in general. It seems there's an energy that has left. Has winter over-stayed its welcome and spring taking too long to arrive?

Or is it just the last few years and this economy? Is there nothing for people to write about since gardening hasn't really begun, or if you live in a climate such as So Cal, you're just not in the mood. Too much weighing on the brain? Too tired from the economic and political climate? Just when the pundits start spouting how the economy is turning around for the better, some report is released or natural disaster hits and it all goes back to hades in a hand basket. It just seems that we're all in a holding pattern and I don't know why. At best, it seems we take one step forward and then we're pushed two steps back. Thus, no real forward motion.

I sometimes think of people like little orbs of light with slender glowing wisps extending outward in a gentle floating manner. The happier people are, the stronger and further these tendrils extend. Those who might be brushed by this illumination in passing are touched in a positive way though they may never actually know it. For the last year, and probably longer, it seems these little glimmering threads have withdrawn into each orb and the golden glow of the little spheres has diminished. In some parts of the world, the globes have a fiery red glow, hot and painful to the touch. In other areas, orbs emit only a dim grayish light with little energy.

Well, that's my pontificating on a whole lot of nothing for the day. Embrace and enjoy any happiness you may find, no matter how small or insignificant...it's the MOST important thing.