Did I Forget to Say Thankyou?
I try not to, forget that is. A wise person once said that if the only prayer you ever say is thankyou, that will be enough.
Easy to forget to say, however. The world is too much with us and all that. But I watched a beautiful starry sky last night with floating many-silvered clouds and it was a revelation, yet again. There is so much good built into nature, thoughtful interactions and rebirths. I often think of that Gary Larsen cartoon showing God making the World in a mixing bowl, saying, as he adds a few tablespoons from a bottle marked “Jerks”, “just to make it interesting…” Some days I could do with a good bit less interesting.
I was also thinking about how it is we get along with each other. I once had a client who was a former Nazi, and was one of the most intelligent, charming and aware people I’ve ever met. Another client, a regulation dyed in the wool U.S. Conservative (which? what does that really mean???) who overall, prefers to stay in place with prejudices intact. Other people I work with have wildly diverging philosophies from mine, and in different circumstances, who knows what might happen. It seems to me, though, to be a question of whether we learn from our experiences or not. If we don’t, and continue on the same way always, I’m thinking we aren’t really alive. It’s a shame to miss those stars.
Procrastination and Global Warming
There’s something about having a complex “thing” to do that makes the mind turn to blogging, I’m finding. But the mind, Gentle Readers, gets overwhelmed and kafuffled so easily and concentration on one, perhaps more lofty, activity becomes like setting up base camp atop Mt. Everest. ( Or anywhere, really. You should see me set up a tent! It’s funny.)
We had to go to the DMV yesterday, which in itself is Quite The Endeavor. BUT. I made an appointment! We were in and out in twenty minutes! Amazing! As I sat and waited, though, for the Partner to be wrangled through getting his picture taken, I noticed at least five people who probably weighed 400 pounds. Many others were closer to 250. This really made me stop and think. What are these folks eating? Nothing that’s very good for them and probably not alot of it, either. Probably surviving on multiple $1 meals at whoever it is that’s offering them- all fat, refined sugar and corn syrup, and simple minded carbohydrates. Given that this particular DMV is in a, um, challenging part of town, I wondered how anyone functions at that weight. You can’t really DO anything, not even walk easily. It can’t feel very good. But at a certain economic level it may well be the most practical alternative, which is bad enough just in itself.
When you combine the public health issues in all this with the basic loss of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that ensues when you can’t really fit into a chair, even, and the fact that hamburgers and tacos- beef, in other words- are primary ingredients in alot of these fast food diets, AND the fact that producing all that beef is a major contributor to carbon emissions and thus global warming- wouldn’t you think that someone would go, heeeeey! waaaaaaaaait just a dern minute here. This is all bass ackwards! But, so far? Apparently not.
So, it’s hard for me to get my teeming brain focussed on what it needs to focus on. I’m just kind of stunned by it all, really. We were talking then, too, about all the shooting and whatnot that goes on in these neighborhoods, such as we found ourselves in at the DMV yesterday. The fact that alot of the shootings are, in fact, just that: Someone shoots someone, probably in the arm or leg or someplace, not killing them but disabling them. The people you read about who really DO go around killing people are actually people who are not well. So there’s a difference between the kinds of violence that take place, we might say. Those who aim for the arm are just trying to survive. Those who shoot to kill are damaged and need some attention other than the criminal system. And really, what do you expect from such an environment? Terrible nutrition, no education, no family infrastructure. The fact that we live in a world where this is, to some extent, accepted practice, is- well, now THAT is crazy. So many people consigned to the trash because of a circumstance of birth. Such a huge trajectory required to get out of it. Then there’s Lagos! or Rio de Janeiro. Or any number of other places. It’s not just Compton. Or Oakland.
As a species we simply must snap out of this mindless selfishness and we have, it looks like, about twenty seconds in which to do that. What you do to one, you do to all. It just seems to me that there has to be a better way. A better way than throwing people in harm’s way to gain power, wherever it is done: In Iraq or here, or there, or anywhere.
On A Happier Note
We just now had our first tomatoes!!!! YAYAYAYAYAAY!!!!!! The Partner has been slaving away in our garden and has managed to produce two over six feet tall tomato plants. Bliss for a moment.
What Page Were We On?
Sometimes, well let’s face it, most times, I feel that we in Rancho Boozilla are not even in the same book, let alone on the same page, as our happy neighbors around us. Having come to terms with the disorientation of all that and forged ahead nonetheless, things still pop up that leave us with our beaks hanging open.
I was reminded over the weekend of something that I knew, but had swept under my mental rug. This reminder had the physical effect of making me throw up. The issue was this. People are being sent back to Afghanistan and Iraq with active, full blown, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We all ‘know” that people are reassigned and what not. But it is all too easy to forget what that really means. For one thing, it means that any work toward healing the PTSD and returning to any kind of normalcy goes right into the dumper. For another, it most likely means that any time stateside is poisoned with terror about the impending return. Those two things alone are going to demolish families and lives, not to mention the other potential corollaries like coping with major physical injuries. For a third thing, which should have some meaning to the average citizen, it means that ultimately society at large is going to have a really big pool of vets who are in so much pain and have been so severely traumatized that help is going to be a long, long way away. This affects YOU, as I try and say to my neighbors. (I do engage in pointless activities from time to time.) That person who goes ballistic in the shopping center? Where do you think they came from? Not to mention the, I’m betting large, pool of opium and heroin addicts who will be returning to a society that will not understand them. In the lowest, and I do mean LOW, common denominator this will cost money. Pure selfishness should make society rethink how this issue is being handled, if nothing else. If not a sense of compassion and respect for our fellow beings. If not a deep sense of heartbreak about all this suffering.
This whole thing makes me so angry I can’t think straight. The whole thing is so wrong. Historically Afghanistan has been a deal breaker in a big way. If you pay attention to history, that is. Which we seem not to be since we are repeating it. The euphemisms used on television about returning service people, if they are mentioned at all, make me nutty(-er, OK, OK. NUTTIER. Happy?). Our country is engaging in something that has never worked in the past, that is, war and violence. It isn’t working now, I don’t believe it WILL. We are sending our kinsmen and women, basically, to destruction and danger, and then behaving as though we don’t know what is going on. It needs to stop.
The Mauling Continues
Just to set your anxious minds at rest, Gentle Readers, the Cyber-Mauling continues unabated. Is Sunday no longer safe, either? I’m trying to remain calm through it all, all those invitations, bizarre queries, my goodness and! OMG! Someone sent me a PICTURE attached to one query, which with a great application of character, I did not open. I’m familiar with the appearance of body parts.
Also, we are absolutely back to status quo Otherwise. My nemesis has revealed itself to be The Common Tile Saw. In place early this morning grinding away on concrete. This time it was all in Bellowed English, from “Senior” as we call him. (Not just the grandfather next door, he’s an almost exact replica of Senior on the motorcycle show.) This, in combination with a 7:30 a.m. phone call from someone wanting to sell me refrigerator magnets set me up perfectly for my day.
Therefore, learning that while Cat Stevens can’t get into the country but Mr. Qaddafi can- not only can but owns a palatial spot in NEW JERSEY? just made me shake my head and emit a croaking, rueful laugh.
Mauled in Cyberspace and Elsewhere
Firstly. To our alert apparently Moscow-adjacent reader. No, I do not sell envelopes. Indeed, since these dismal economic times have been upon us, I make my own, for personal use only. If envelope has another meaning then perhaps…? Thank you for reading, anyway.
Today started with The Partner announcing, first thing, that we are “dinosaurs”. Neither one of us has a Blackberry. Uh oh, I thought. I brightened temporarily, wondering if, if I were a dinosaur, would I get to be one of the ones with the spiked tails? Prudence prevailed and I did not actually ask that question. So, I went back to pondering where all this stuff comes from, these envelope sales queries, along with where the money went, and a few other things provoked by random social encounters. Take today. The checker at the grocery store looked at me, looked at the several things in glass jars I’d purchased, and said, well you won’t be wanting a bag will you? I sighed deeply and said, YES IWANTAFREAKINGBAG. Thankyouverymuch. Anyway, I’ve decided it’s all emanating from, and hidden in, the Kuyper Belt. Really. The Kuyper Belt of ****, if you will. That’s where it all is. Circling Neptune. Chilly willy. I’ve heard from reliable sources there are no envelopes there, either.
Mysteries of Cyberspace
I noticed I actually had comments today! Whoa! But then they, upon investigation, turned out to be spam gobbledygook. One was from the Norwich County Council Office, UK, and one from Macau. I can’t help but wonder what these folks are doing, Gentle Reader. I EVEN got one of those postcard thingys that are supposed to crash your entire life. Some fun person in Romania, apparently. But really? Just for the record, we’re Mac powered here in House of Boozilla, anyway. So, neener neener essentially. Then there’s the endless stream of pornographically tilted messages I get in one of my website mailboxes. If I have high spam filters, they junk the mail from one of my referring sites, which is not good. If I have low filters, I get How 2 mk a wooomyn moan every day. Clearly, people do not have enough to do with their time. It’s astonishing. Well, onward. And, wxcyzzwwwdlbt.com to you, too, out there ruining your eyesight peering into your screen and peppering the world with this whateveryouthinkitis nonsense. Also? I can already make just about anyone moan. Humph.
The Importance of Honesty
Naive thing that I am, Gentle Reader, I generally assume people are telling me the truth. Boy howdy, is that DUMB. Well, I mean, there are the obvious exceptions, of course. Television news, politicians, advertising….but still. I had been feeling a little queasy for a few days and finally realized it was because of…dishonesty overload. Sins of omission, and all that. This sort of thing is what really drove me bananas when I worked as slave girl of the divorce court. People would lie when they didn’t even NEED to. It is SO complicated to lie, after all. Then, the inevitable horrifying denouement when the actual truth of a situation puts forth its shaggy rear end.
No good deed goes unpunished, is the bottom line here. Favors are something that probably should never be done. Your critical thinking has to be on all the time, friend or foe alike. I truly hope I have learned my lesson this time, although for me it is a hard one. No more favors. I suppose by “favor” I mean those instances where there is not an appropriate exchange, in whatever medium you may choose, for what is being done. Maybe this is part of the never ending story of how one ceases being co-dependent. *sigh*
It is a lot of work to become an adult, let’s just say. In the end I think it is easier to be an adult but it is easier, in the beginning, not to be one. There are just so many things I don’t understand at all , like calculus for example, or Japanese grammar. The fact that people do not treat each other with the truth but rather with some kind of touch up job that makes their teeth look white is something that I doubt I will ever understand.
These days we’re getting dishonesty at megawatt levels, anyway. I could have laughed, but didn’t, at all the Town Hall meetings where people are expressing fears that the elderly won’t get appropriate treatment, or they won’t get the medicine they need, etc. if we get a national health care coverage plan. People! Get the paper bag off your heads and think, at least a little bit. The insurance companies are already doing this for you!!! Yes! Death Panels, give me a freaking break. I had a client in his 80’s who had cancer. His HMO decided that since he was basically “terminal”, and old, there wasn’t any further real care they were going to provide. He died sooner than he should have because of this cessation of attention. But not without a honking big ICU bill. So, I think? We already have those “death panels”. And they fulfill their mission which is to bring in money, not focus on care and healing. Meanwhile you have to ask yourself what is being thought about when it is more important to discredit the President of the United States by defeating his programs than it is to truly sit down and address some pressing and dramatic crises that are not going to go away on their own. It is, to say the least, dishonest.
Just To Amuse Myself
A header change. Or whatever these theme things are called. We’re still on the high seas of crazy, apparently, and such things amuse us.
However! I have been thinking, mulling things over, as per usual. A book on my shelf demanded to be taken down and opened, and it opened to some thoughts on Resonance. An ancient sage was asked what the real meaning of the I Ching was, and he responded: Resonance. Wow. THAT set me right. “An essential essence or sound within the Universe….the idea of putting yourself in touch with (this) essence of the Universe through the use of chance…..the essential ebb and flow of the Universe, if it is possible to tap into this at any time…it simply remains to find the correct or best method of doing so….” (from THE FORTUNE TELLER’S I CHING, Palmer, Ho and O’Brien.) For a minute I had been drifting in a seemingly chartless Sargasso Sea of Blah and Yeugh. This little paragraph reminded me what it is I have been in search of, working toward, however you want to say it, in my life. It is Resonance. No coinkidink then, that I am a practitioner of vibrational medicine. Glad to get that cleared up finally, especially since I’ve been wondering lately if I’m just a hardheaded misguided relic. People ask me what I “do” and honestly? I often don’t know what to say. It’s hard to explain. Plus one doesn’t want to sound like one is issuing an invitation to the Hall of Windchimes and Unicorns.
So. Other than that? Just waiting for the Partner to return so I can make my visit to the Shrine of Trader Joe’s. And, it IS Friday. We made it again! Ghastly failure was at times a matter of touch and go, just like in A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME, but we made it once again. For which I am thankful.
Where We Are Now
We have been wandering around for a while of late. I found that my brain was feeling a bit like a hockey puck each time I looked at my trusty laptop and for once, said, hmmmmmmm…..I think today perhaps I won’t look…..
I’ve been hearing about lots of things in people’s lives, and lots of it is the kind of story that makes you shake your head and wonder. Why is there so much difficulty and suffering? Is there a point? Are we really any different than ants, say? Who have jobs to do and places to live and sometimes get squished en masse, leaving families behind?
I think there always is something, something that presents itself in the darkest times if we can be still with our pain long enough to hear it and see its’ glimmer. Still, there really is nothing helpful to say in the face of the apparently growing tide of lost hope, the growing wave of feeling that it is too late, we’ve done what we were to do and still….the basics elude us, love eludes us, peace eludes us, basic physical security eludes us. Telling someone in that place that “it’ll get better” or “you should…” or “that’s wrong…”– none of that really helps. I’ve learned lately though that LISTENING really helps. When someone sits and listens and witnesses, it helps. When something helps, we can find the strength to go on. When we can go on, we can find that something we must find to be whole. Even though we don’t really know what we’re looking for. When someone sits and listens, you can find some peace. I know this because The Partner has sat and listened, and these past tempestuous weeks have contained some peace because of it.
So, I still think a continuing salute to truth and beauty is in order. And, remember to smile.
{ I had to try really hard today because, guess WHAT? As I was actually backing out my driveway, in my car, to get to an appointment, some idiot person pulled into my driveway (D.F.H.) while doing a U turn. I almost ran into her. Instead, I smiled. I have a feeling it looked like a lion’s grin. }
Onward.
