So, we are en route to Florida to visit my mother for a couple weeks. Today we made it almost to Richmond, VA only to have smoke come up through the floor of what has now been dubbed "The Beast," an old RV we rather impulsively bought last October.  I was totally freaked out. My husband, D, pulled over, grabbed the fire extinguisher, as I grabbed the dogs and we fairly lept off the monster in a desperate attempt to save our lives, well, maybe not "fairly" but it was an impressive leap. We couldn't decide if it was smoke or steam, but agreed there was a whole hell of a lot of the stuff going on and so distanced ourselves from the thing. We were on 95 south, and the trucks roared and barreled by and made The Beast shake side to side as the great grey clouds kept puffing from it like some unholy dragon. I was so scared and cold my butt actually started trembling uncontrollably. I have never had this happen before. I now know it to be a sign that my inner self is convinced of impending doom. I am embarrassed by my inner self's notification system.

We stood there a great while, waiting for The Beast to be engulfed in flames...the air cleared a little...still no flames but both of us still too scared to approach. After a good while, when it was clear no fire was actually occurring, we approached the crippled monster. The whole under-carriage as well as my car, being towed behind, was coated in something. It could be oil, could be coolant, we're not sure. We are thinking now that it was a blown hose and that coolant sprayed everywhere, at least that is what we are hoping for.  We called for a tow truck who towed us to some place near King's Dominion.  The shop says they can't even look at it until Monday. The owner of the shop wouldn't let us stay in the poor forlorn Beast, which we had hoped we could do. He said it was a "bad area" and we would be safer elsewhere.

I'm not too happy about that since D's upright bass and my guitar had to be left behind, but we are in a hotel now somewhat close. We've been here now for three hours. During that time Maya, our little dog, to her, and our, horror peed on the rug and D announced that the toilet had backed up. I felt so bad for little Maya. She was horrified and actually shaking in shame. This has never happened before and I blame us for not taking the two of them out earlier. I suppose I was basking in the relief of not being immolated. She has become ever so attached to me and I had to cuddle with her for some time before she became herself again. I so adore that little beast!

Meanwhile, it is 11:30 pm, I really need to pee and the hotel clerk says no one is on staff. A $70/night hotel and the answer is take this plunger and try it or wait till morning. D took the plunger, to no avail. Now we are in room 312 instead of 310 and my bladder is relieved.

Despite all this, I'm kinda excited to be forced to check out Richmond. It has always been a drive-through town for me and it really shouldn't be. It is rich with history. Tomorrow we shall explore. As my father used to say "Why hurry? You pass by more than you get to."

What is the Point of a Sparrow

Today I found a wild baby bird underneath my outdoor laundry line. Actually, I didn't find it. My little dog Maya picked it up in her mouth ever so gently and it squeaked , I noticed, and yelled “NO”! And she dropped it. She was so so gentle though, no harm came to the little thing. Ah, it was ever so young. eyes not even open. My husband and I searched in vain for the nest. Alas, none to be found. And so, the inner voices came began debating what to do next.

My immediate thought was “let nature do its thing. I won't interfere.”

My next thought was of my chickens in the yard who would kill it, my cats, the same, my dogs, um well....

So, I picked the wee thing up, and carried it into the house.

I don't know anything about raising wild bird chicks, so I put it in the chicken chick incubator and called friends and posted my dilemma on Facebook. I followed up on one offering of a wildlife rehabilitator. She wanted to meet immediately (damn, there goes the dinner plans) and so we did.

We hear all the time, literally ALL the time, of horrendous individuals doing unimaginable cruelty to other humans, animals, the planet. Tonight I met someone really excited and happy that I had called her to save a sparrow.

As I was thanking her for taking this little bird off my hands, she was thanking me for calling her to do so.

It struck me as I was driving home from my meeting place with her. What sort of a person spends her life saving sparrows?

The answer is-a very good, kind one. Sparrows are not endangered. They are not pretty, really. They are not “necessary, ” to the environment, or anything else, that I know of. Yet Robin, clearly loves them and saves them and spends immense time and money to do so. Indeed she would for any animal, sparrow or other beastie brought to her.

So, why save a sparrow?

Because you can. Because that little thing is a little living conscious soul. Because doing so validates its being as well as your own. Because it lives and I live and we have that, at least, one thing in common. Because it, blindly, desperately thrust up its open beak begging, desperate, to be fed... to live. Because it lives and so do I and so does Robin.

A Day With a "Novice" Human

Today, my husband's daughter asked us to watch her child while she and her boyfriend went to a baseball game. It didn't seem like a bad idea. Haydin is darn cute. How much work could it be? “Sure” I gamely responded. Here are my thoughts since then.

I swear I chose right in not having kids.

If I'd have had them, they never would have lived. Four year olds are like puppies with thumbs and cleverer thoughts. They don't chew up feather pillows, but they do: spread kitty kibble all around your porch and swear it was the cat's tail that did it, notice a basket of vegetables you recently brought in from the garden and decide much joy can be had by squishing one of the tomatoes over all the other vegetables, decide it is great fun to pretend to be a dog and proceed to bite grandpa in the calf over and over, and take my collection of peacock feathers and proceed to either give them to Maya the puppy or dip them in water and sprinkle it across my school books. At one point she demanded we play hide and seek. She hid behind my chair. I said, "um, there you are." I did it wrong apparently.

"NO! You have to only look one way like crabby crab (from some cartoon I don't know about) and say 'Where is Haydin'. "

I said "but I can see you right there!"

“NNNNNOOOOOOOOO! You have to look one way and say where is Haydin!"

I obediently stared at the door and said “where is Haydin?”

There was no answer. I looked at the fish tank “Where is Haydin?” I tried again. I look down at her crouching behind my chair. “This is silly, I see you right there”

“NOOOOOO.... you have to pretend you don't see me”

And so I pretended to not see her. This gave her much pleasure. I remained completely confused.

Thankfully, or not, she discovered the bell on my side table and proceeded to ring it about the house endlessly. Earlier she had discovered the flashlight, which obviously brought her great joy, especially when she could shine it directly into my eyes.

It was a long day. It was a lovely day. It was a very unusual day for me. I spent it learning from a four year old. 

Thank you Haydin. 

A Game of Thrones Gone to the Dogs

I think the only reason dogs have survived as our pets is because they are cute. Forget loyalty, forget that “man's best friend” nonsense. When you walk into the living room and it looks like a flock of geese exploded because the puppy discovered the wonders of disemboweling a feather pillow, when you discover your once very nice set of leather furniture has been relieved of much of its leathery parts, when you go downstairs to the kitchen in the morning for a cup of coffee only to find three days worth of trash have been flung about the room in a joyous frenzy, it is then you realize that the dog is neither man nor woman's best friend, but quite the contrary. One would never put up with a roommate who behaves in this manner.  So, the obvious question is: why do we let them live with us not only rent free, but with food and medical and emotional needs all tended to as well. What does one do when one's “ward” behaves in such an unseemly (and oftentimes costly) way?

Well, this is what I do. I stare in disbelief, then shout “HEY! Did you do this?” to Maya the puppy. I have several degrees and can quote Shakespeare, but this is all that comes to my mind at the time.

Maya says nothing. She just looks at me wagging her tail. She has very pretty brown eyes I notice, but I'm not giving in. I need to assert my alpha dog position and make it clear how very bad she has been.

I try to get my point across again. “BAD DOG!!” I say most forcefully. I point at the trash, couch, feathers, (insert sin of choice), glaring into those soft beautiful brown eyes, then point at her.

Maya responds by dropping to the floor and showing me her stomach.

Dammit! I will not give in and rub her stomach. Not this time. This is an egregious act on her part. I ignore her her kowtowing and continue to glare my alpha laser beams into her eyes. As a more intelligent and superior species, surely I will get through to her.

Maya stays on her back and proceeds to wag her tail while upside down. Somehow, she also manages to wag her body in the process.

Here is where my thinking, clearly mastered by thousands of years of Darwinian dog adaptation, causes me to say the following to myself: “Damn dog, she's so cute, damn dog, that was an expensive couch! Look at this mess! God, she is so cute, look at those eyes. NO! Don't look at her eyes! She is very bad. Damn she's cute! What pretty brown eyes.

And so the belly gets rubbed.

Survival of the cutest. I swear. They've got us figured out.

No Surprises

Today my mom was raped and murdered. She called me on the phone at 3:30pm and told me she had just picked up a homeless man on the side of the road who was holding a sign that said “painting.” I was horrified. She lives in Florida, I in Maryland. Mom, living alone, at age 82, decided it would be a good idea to get the kitchen painted and so she picked him up and took him home. He was only going to charge her $40. She only called to ask if I remembered her hors d'oeuvres recipe. “I want to make some for him,” she told me. I confessed what I knew of it and spoke of my concern. She promised to call when he was gone. She didn't call. I was worried. I did call her....repeatedly. There was no answer. I called my brother. He called her neighbors; no one answered there either. We discussed when to call 911. She was raped and murdered.

Four hours later, she called me. She had dropped the dude off then went to the local YMCA to work out. She was neither raped nor murdered and is planning on picking him up again tomorrow to finish the job. Everything was fine. As for the man, I'm sure he is enjoying the hors d'oeuvres as I write this.

Why does my brain inflict this stress on me? Why must it torment me with horrendous imaginary potentialities non-stop? Granted, picking up the homeless dude wasn't a great idea, but still, why must I just jump to the worst possible conclusion? I don't know if it is imagination or worry, but I think through such scenarios almost daily and in great detail.

The other day, I am walking my dog down the road through the state park in which I live. A lovely day it is too. As we are walking, a car comes by. It slows down and stops next to me. In the front are two young men and in the back, a woman. One of the men asks me if I've seen a woman walking around. I say no. They thank me and drive away. Maybe it is because I'm in the country and can tell if the people are not from around here, or maybe I am just paranoid, but when I hear the car go down the road and then back up into a drive and turn around to come back again, I freak. I imagine they must be coming back to kidnap me or shoot me or......I don't know.....clearly something bad. I jump over a barbed wire fence, through the prickers (dragging my poor befuddled dog behind me), trip, land in the stream, and get back to my feet, staggering onto my own property. The people in the car must surely see me now, surely they see this idiocy, but they don't even slow down. The car disappears over the hill. Having successfully arrived in the “safe zone,” I make my way back to the house. Do I laugh at my silliness and resume enjoying the day? No, I continue to think about the whole scenario wherein the car of three comes back and enters our driveway and my husband and I have to once more get away. I actually plan out the escape route through the brush. Alas, this is how my brain seems to operate. It is beyond my control.

Over the years I have thoroughly planned out what my husband, I, and our animals will do in the event of: me failing out of grad school, a serial killer on the loose, a tornado, an earthquake, a Chinese invasion of our country, a new plague striking humanity, a nuclear attack on Washington DC, and an alien invasion from outer space. Some small minded people might call this excessive imagination or possibly foolishness on my part. What they fail to see is that very fine and most important line between paranoia and good planning.

A blank page. That is what I'm staring at now. An unsoiled blank page. I can write whatever I want. You will read the first sentence and judge me by that. “What Crap”! , you might say “Inspirational”! “wtf is she talking about”?!

I was speaking to a friend recently about just this phenomena we seem to have nowadays in our society. Because of the internet, because of the TV, cellphone, Twitter, what have you; we have, myself included, become instant judges of content.

One line speaks all. It is judged, if deemed ok, we move on.

You see now how I am putting spaces in my writing? That is to keep your interest. If I wrote it all as one paragraph, as they did in those “olden days” you would never be able to follow me.

Seriously.

I mean it.

See, you are paying attention still because I am short in my verbiage. Watch this though and see if you can still follow.

This quick edit/judgment aspect of our living has me quite concerned. “In my day” we were highly conscious about stereotyping people. Usually that took a couple of sentences. Now, it takes about two words. To have one's character judged solely on a sentence fragment-that is the world we live in. That is not the world I want to live in. [I'm so tempted now to hit the enter key and so draw your attention back in but I'm not gonna. I'll prove my point, dadgummit]. I swear, I think the Luddites had it right. Those damn factory machines should have been bashed in and down 150 years ago. Look at us now. All our “conveniences” all our “time saving” devices have only enslaved us, not liberated us. Ah, I can't bear not to give a space, and yet, yet, I yield.

Recently I read about a tribe in Africa. They have not yet been “civilized.” They have no running water, no electricity, no plumbing. They are living as their ancestors have lived for eons. They have no stress, eat well, live happy lives. Pictures presented children watering the oxen, all smiles, totally relaxed, joyous. They have no fear of crime, terrorism, or Facebook hacking. They are living right. God help them should they get “what they need.”. Compare that to Baltimore, MD-major stress, eat crap, the great mass of men living lives of “quiet desperation.”

Severing ourselves from all other species, severing ourselves from our environment is the height of not just arrogance, but suicidal ideation. There are very few who still remain in contact with the Earth and her movings. Most of us just “get along” and pop pills to prescribe our mood. So many are “depressed” in our society. Well, maybe that is the most rational way to be. Maybe, if you are depressed, you don't need a pill, you need to “get back to where you once belonged.”


What do you think?

A Good Loaf of Bread

Why is it so difficult to get a good loaf of bread? I don’t mean that it is difficult to buy one; our grocery stores have shelf after shelf of various loaves wrapped in colorful plastic. What I want to know is why it is so difficult to get a good loaf of bread-a loaf of bread that is not only tasty, but good for you, nutritious, one that will be an asset to your body, not simply another ingested alien item that it must detoxify from your system. I never realized such a thing was so difficult until I recently took a class on nutrition.

Let me give you an example, one of America’s most beloved breads, Wonder Bread. Here are its ingredients: Whole wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup, contains 2% or less of: soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono- and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate (to retain freshness). Even my spell checker is not recognizing some of those ingredients; it’s underlined them in red. I randomly chose one of those mystery elements to google. Here is what Wikipedia says about diammonium phosphate:

DAP is used as a fertilizer. When applied as plant food, it temporarily increases the soil pH, but over a long term the treated ground becomes more acidic than before upon nitrification of the ammonium. It is incompatible with alkaline chemicals because its ammonium ion is more likely to convert to ammonia in a high-pH environment.
DAP can be used a fire retardant. It lowers the combustion temperature of the material, decreases maximum weight loss rates, and causes an increase in the production of residue or char.[4] These are important effects in fighting wildfires as lowering the pyrolysis temperature and increasing the amount of char formed reduces that amount of available fuel and can lead to the formation of a firebreak. It is the largest component of some popular commercial firefighting products.[5]
DAP is also used as a yeast nutrient in winemaking and brewing mead; as an additive in some brands of cigarettes purportedly as a nicotine enhancer; to prevent afterglow in matches, in purifying sugar; as a Flux for soldering tin, copper, zinc and brass; and to control precipitation of alkali-soluble and acid-insoluble colloidal dyes on wool. [1]

I need to stop myself now from Googling Wonder Bread ingredients, fun and horrifying as it is, or this will turn into a research paper. Each ingredient seems to have quite a tale to tell. Let’s just leave it by saying, Grandma didn’t make bread like that.

I find it both amazing and distressing to live in a society that knows more than any other about health only to be the least healthy society I’ve ever heard of. In the world today, there are more books, movies, studies, ads, clubs, clinics, and workshops than in the entire history of humanity combined, yet, the modern way of life is the least healthy way to live. We’ve tried hard and successfully for many years now to make things easy, accessible, and cheap, only to seemingly have forgotten how to make them good, nutritious, and life enhancing. In fact, we’ve gotten so far from such things that to obtain those most important aspects of a diet has become quite a chore. If I desire a loaf of bread and go to the store, what I find there are odd chemical concoctions mixed with flour and preservatives. That cheap common store-bought bread bounces like a ball when squished into one (try this with Wonderbread; it’s quite a disturbing sight). Realizing the horror of the “Frankenfood” and taking it upon myself to make a “good old fashioned” loaf, I still need to examine all the ingredients at length. Ingredients ain’t what they used to be. For example, I must consider what kind of flour to buy. I don’t want white. I don’t want bleached flour from wheat that had pesticides on it. I wonder as I buy my nice unbleached whole wheat if it has been genetically modified. I wonder about the processing plant it came from. There’s no way to tell these things. A dash of salt? No, better get sea salt and avoid the additives in “regular” table salt (I just found out a month or so ago, after 46 years, that my good old iodized salt doesn’t just contain salt. I’d never thought to read the ingredients). Should I really add brown sugar to it? No, that’s not good. Cane sugar is addictive. I’d better get honey. But where did that come from? Is it even real honey? Has it been processed? And so it goes down the list of ingredients. That one staple bread, the one food item some say was the cause of civilization when people began to grow grain rather than hunt so that they could bake a loaf, has nearly become extinct.

I think I shall become a food preservationist and rescue these dying and endangered food species. They are highly vulnerable right now. If not protected and preserved, they will certainly fade away into the distant memory of humanity. One by one they will vanish into embodied modern chemical metaphors of food. The only thing left will be a fossilized rye or sourdough with a forlorn spent Red Star Yeast packet by its side. Alas, how the mighty will soon fall! The fresh cow’s milk, the chicken eggs, the homemade bread replaced forever by Lactaid, egg beaters, and Wonder Bread. This must never happen. Somehow, we must ensure that in days to come Mommy and Daddy never have to gather the family around a microwave to tell a story of the magical bread that once could sustain whole civilizations as little Timmy and Mary listen doubtfully, bouncing a ball of Wonder Bread back and forth under bright fluorescent lights.

16 Things That It Took Me 45 Years to Learn

I just read an essay by one of my favorite writers Dave Barry. It is entitled “16 Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn.” If you would like to read it, it can be found at: http://www.appleseeds.org/Barry_50years.htm

And so, after reading his essay I am now inspired to write out my own 16 things. Here they are. If you wish, please write out your own and send them to me. I’d love to read them.


16 Things It’s Taken me 45 Years to Learn


1. Good friends matter more than anything else in life (even though at times they drive you crazy).

2. Whatever you think is going to happen well...um...that won’t be it. Ha ha.

3. When you are feeling up, don't worry, soon you will feel down. When you are down, don't worry, soon you will feel up. This is not manic depression. It is the nature of life.

4. Living with another species or two (or five) soothes one’s soul, even if it involves a lot of slobber and sweeping up of hair.

5. True love does indeed exist.

6. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY (I’m talking to you Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, etc..) has ever really figured out what is going on. We all just take our best guess and go with it. If anyone says otherwise, don’t trust them.

7. One always has the option to change their mind (at least I think so at the moment).

8. The things that bring the most joy don’t cost money.

9. It’s really not worth worrying about what other people think. Just be yourself. They are all worrying about what you think.

10. I am both my worst enemy and my best friend. Me, myself, and I really need to get together and have a serious discussion about this.

11. One should always trust a gut feeling.

12. Make choices so that when you look back, you won’t be embarrassed but proud. This also helps to keep you from murdering a cheating lover and hence keeps you out of jail (I know this from experience).

13. When you are really really angry at someone, don’t respond to the person for 24 hours. You’ll never regret the delay; you may regret a quick action.

14. I’m not in competition with anyone despite what they (or sometimes I) think.

15. It’s fine to do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt others and keep in balance. In fact, it is really best to do so.

16. The only thing we actually really have to do in life is die.

We Are But Infants

Yesterday, David and I went to the Fortscape event in Baltimore. We are both part of the Fortean society and have been to many of these festivals before. Ah, you don't know it? It’s not as bad as it sounds. It is no cult of people in mauve wanting to castrate themselves and follow a large 14 legged cat (though David said he met someone there who claimed she actually was in contact with a 14 legged cat). It is named after Charles Fort, grand collector of anything odd -- raining frogs, ufos, Bigfoot, pyramids, 10-foot lizards, and so on. And so the festival is really a series of lecturers who lecture about anything. Some are clearly daft. Actually, whenever I go to these things, I guarantee you I’ll be either leaving the room on account of either laughter or boredom at some point. However, it’s worth sitting through the paranoid schizophrenics to just hear one brilliant person blow my mind. Here are my thoughts after listening to that one lecture.

The current average human is a moron. I include myself in this condemnation.

Yes, yes, we have roads, we have light bulbs, we have chocolate pudding pops; but, only a select few know how to make these.

The current humans are idiots.

We are helpless. We are totally dependent upon our society to provide for us. We cant make, we cant grow, we can’t eat. We are babies.

Go ahead, move to the wilderness and see what happens. Get electricity? Um, I suppose you must first need a generator-this means metal-guess you better go mine it somewhere and smelt it. Build a house? Nails…damn….same problem. Glass….hee hee. Plastic…ah plastic.. best drill an oil well. Ah, now what? Um…how do I build a house anyway? Plumbing?

The “average” person 1000 years ago knew how to manage these things (ok well not the electricity or plastic, but they figured out how to exist without it). I just saw a picture of a building built 5000 years ago. The roof was made of stones. They were stones laid upon stones just loose in a spiral, each somehow supporting each so that now the roof has stood for 5000 years. Go ahead, get any local builder to do that!

So odd, so strange, so foreign to think that rather than "evolving" we have de-evolved. Our brains are less strong. Where once we had to memorize stories from elders verbatim, now we have the web. Whereas once we had to calculate in our heads, now there is the calculator. Once we had to do all for ourselves, now we do nothing, our brains are nothing but sheep jelly. Baaaa......office world...cubicle world.."little house little houses and they're all made of ticky tacky."

Finally, after all this "evolution"-The nature-less people.

In sum, our "evolution" and "innovation" and discoveries has reduced us to the level of infant.

Our society as a whole has many things. As individuals though, we are babies. And babies are very very VERY vulnerable.

Heaven or Hell-it is our choice

I’m feeling like I should write something. I’ve been negligent, as always, in keeping up with writing. Somehow it seems like I never have time, though I know that is just an illusion.

We (my husband and I) watched Grey Gardens tonight. If you haven’t seen it, it is well worth watching. The acting is astonishingly brilliant. It is about two women who shut off the world, shut off their surroundings, and continue in such fashion until they are living basically in one room of a mansion with no water, phone, or heat, and every room but the bedroom is piled high with cat food cans and trash. They are not depressed about this. Not even disturbed by it-or if so, only mildly.

Meanwhile, I grouse at my loving husband because he didn’t do the dishes the night before.

The mind is a powerful blessing or weapon. With it we can create a paradise out of a dung heap or a fiery hell out of a Shangri-La. In the Washington Post Magazine this weekend, there is an article about a man who decided to become a Hare Krishna. Now, he is revered as a saint, but when he first came into his beliefs he ran into trouble in Argentina. There, they didn’t look kindly on “cults” especially at that time, so he was imprisoned. The jailor, in an effort to humiliate him, demanded he clean up a floor smeared with human feces. At first he balked, and who wouldn’t? But he decided that it must be a test that Krishna had sent him. And so, he cleaned up the floor in joy (as he put it) and did so over again much to the amazement of the guard. Of course, it was not Krishna who gave him this joy, it was the decision he made within his own brain that resulted in the joy. He could have done it all for an eggplant, it would have made no difference (no offense to Krishna).

C.S. Lewis once said in his story, The Great Divorce, that those who end up in heaven will feel like they’ve always been there, while those who end up in hell will likewise seem like they’ve always been there. I see this around me all the time in the people I meet. I’m sure you do too. There are those individuals who seem just set on being miserable, victims, unhappy with everyone and everything. It doesn’t matter their circumstances. They could be rich or could be poor; status is irrelevant. They are settled in their state. Then, there are those who are always happy, content, smiling, hopeful, loving and again, the status is again irrelevant-they might be rich or they might be homeless. Somehow, they are just always happy and peaceful, no matter the circumstance.

Obviously it is the mindset that makes the life. Circumstances have nothing to do with it. Choices of how to react to circumstances have everything to do with it. True happiness comes from one’s own mind, not the swirl of the world and its happenings

The truly great thing about being human is having the power to choose. The truly tough part about being a human is that we have choices. In many ways, it’d be so much easier if we didn’t. Yet, the fact is we do. A person cuts me off in traffic and it is a multiple choice exam. Do I: A. honk at him and give him the finger B. Snarl and cuss and comment on his mother C. Laugh and sing D. Pray that he is okay, for something must be wrong for him to be so clueless. The options are endless. That is our great dilemma as humans. That is our great power as humans. We are never victims. We are choosers. We create. We either do this consciously or we just go into default mode and we do so unconsciously.

Let us embrace our humanity and consciously choose to create heaven here and now despite whatever gross and unfair circumstances have been flung at us. We do not need to be in denial of reality. We need only to smile in the face of it and choose peace and joy in full knowledge of it and despite it. When Jesus said “the kingdom of heaven is within you” maybe this is what he meant.

beagles and humans

I’m not a very good blogger. I rarely do it. Tonight though, I feel like writing so here are my musings.

This morning at about 3:30 am I was awoken by my three dogs barking like crazy because they heard some other dogs outside. We live in the country with no other house to be seen and in the night coon hunters are nothing rare. So, after trudging sleepily downstairs and out onto the porch with a flashlight and seeing just a couple of beagles, I assumed hunters and went back to bed and quieted the dogs. I awoke about 7:30am to the same yelps and yips. Looking out my window, there were the same two beagles still that I had seen by flashlight four hours earlier. I knew then what had happened.

Snow boots on, forget the jacket, forget the bed-formed hair, in my Barney purple fuzzy bathrobe, a ragged blue nightgown, and long underwear, I stomped out onto the new snow and down the driveway. As I approached the dogs (of course) a car pulled up. Ok, nowhere to run in purple fuzzy shame, I met the woman who asked me if the dogs were mine. “Nope”
And so we together tried to catch them. It should have been easy. They were both obviously in distress, old, not very healthy, shivering, limping, had had way too many litters of pups so that their teats were almost brushing the ground. It was easy to capture the one, for she was rather fat and quite friendly. My husband David came out and actually picked her up and brought her into the house. The other though was small and very scared. My new friend and I tried to first entice then grab her but she scooted away into the woods. “Mary” said she had to go to work and drove off and so I, in my purple fuzzy glory, marched down the road hoping the skittish one could still be found. I feel honored to have given so much amusement to the various landscaping trucks and cubical bound hominids who drove past me. I wondered what story they might attach to this purple rumpled bathrobed women stomping about in a state park at 8 in the morning seemingly in the midst of nowhere. At some other time I would have been amused or horrified, but this morning, I was only worried for the other beagle as it was only twenty degrees here in Maryland this morning and tomorrow night it is going down to twelve. I couldn’t find her and was highly upset, imagining the worst. Thankfully, my husband found her later in the day. Tonight they are both downstairs curled up together fast asleep (the dogs that is; my husband is up here soon to be curled up with me).

I’m not sure what to write here. I want to write “WHAT SORT OF GODDAMNED SCUM WOULD DO THAT TO ANOTHER BEING?!!!!” I want to rant. I want to rage against my species! How can the most intelligent mammal be the cruelest and stupidest as well? How can the most humane also be the most inhumane? Surely we are the worst of all species! We torture our own- what other mammal even conceives of that? Surely, a cat has no feeling for the mouse it tosses, but then no cat sits about in committees conceiving of tortures for other cats, and no cat breeds the same female mice for years only to drop off the mothers in the local park to die when they are no longer useful!

So now, here is my rant.

We are oblivious to the species around us like no other creature on the planet. We’ve wiped out all our predators and shrink wrapped all our prey, what need do we have to think of them?

We have lost our trust, our balance, our beauty. We are the ultimate control freaks of Earth. We do not realize that control is the ultimate illusion. Change is the never-ending law of this universe. Yet, we think we can avoid it by mowing our grass, working a “good” job, investing, saving, having good insurance policies, getting religion, and helping our children do the same thing to “insure their future.” We are completely consumed with the control of our lives. Silliness. Illusion. Pathology.

And so, with such mentality, there is no wonder that a couple of old, over-bred beagles become “waste” and end up dumped after their long years of “use” in our driveway.

I find my species to be an embarrassment. I am ashamed at times to be called human. But now please, allow me to de-rant.

Other times, I feel proud, I feel enlightened. I feel more than what I think I am. For there are those among us who don’t use and throw out other beings. There are those who give hope to this great festering mass of control obsessed, frightened, desperate souls. I could list the obvious: Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., the usual suspects, but I’d rather not. They are not greater than those the closest to us. I think we all can say we have known one individual in our lives, though they never will get the same worldly recognition. It could have been a parent or a child, a teacher or a student, a neighbor or a stranger, but that one person made all the difference to you. Because of that one person you, or I, am now a better human. Because of that one person in my life, I cannot dump beagles off in the middle of the woods to die. There but for the grace of _______ go I.

The Death of Michael Jackson

I never liked pop, but I must admit, I loved Michael Jackson. He charmed me, he fascinated me. At least to a point. As a child and teen and early 20’s, he was magical. He glittered. He whirled and seemed the perfect mix of confidence and vulnerability. He had an incredibly beautiful voice, was a wonderful dancer, and seemed shy and sweet and good. The world was better for his presence.

As he aged, he got weird; we all know that. I suppose it was from having such a wacko childhood. He changed. He became a caricature. The real person disappeared. Chimpanzees, the Elephant Man's bones, pedophilia, endless plastic surgery, the sweet kid died. In fact, I think Michael Jackson died at least a decade and a half ago, just no one would admit it, including him.

Was it his fault? Did he give into fame? Did it go to his head?

Stupid questions. When one deposits a normal, sensitive, sweet, person, whatever their talent, into the fishbowl of craziness that he had to swim in, the only question that makes sense is why he didn’t die decades ago. He should have. Any normal person would have under such scrutiny.

What an odd society we now have. Never before has any individual be able to be under such scrutiny. Obama farts, and it’s on Twitter; one Jonas brother picks his nose and it is instantly seen on TMZ, or the like.

Having all awareness is not always good. It does not necessarily give insight, wisdom, or really, knowledge itself. It skews the truth as much as silence does. It enables quick judgment on an entire being by soundbites-or really visual bites. Go ahead, as an experiment, pick one sentence of this blog and define me by it. Examine it. Analyze it. Define me by that one sentence.

If you do so, you know nothing about me.

If someone were to do so to you, they’d know nothing about you.

What a useless exercise!!! Yet that is what the media does continually. It doesn’t matter if it is FOX, or ABC, or TMZ. All that matters is that the person’s name be known. That narrows it down to: politician, actor, musician, sports person.

This is exactly what is happening to Judge Sotomayor at present. Sure, take one sentence and define the person’s life. What idiocy! What arrogance and ignorance!

I didn’t intend this particular blog to become a rant against the media and technology. Obviously it has become so.

So here is my thought of the night. For all our technology, for all of our ability to immediately “know” things, we are no better off than we were 200 years ago. Sure, we hear more, but we really know less. And, our abilities now to “know” damage the very persons we want to “know” about to the point that such penetration into their existence warps and kills them one way or another.

And so, today Michael Jackson died. Why? I’ll let you answer.

Divorce and Marriage and the non-randomness of the universe

So, I got married again. I don't know though that the first marriage counts. We were only married about 10 months until he found another woman, the wife of a millionaire, and ran off with her. We had been together for 11 years before he asked me to marry him. That "marriage" just doesn't count. This marriage does count. For all of you out there wondering if, doubting if, your soul mate exists, the answer is yes. Or, at least, mine certainly does and he is lying down in the other room with a bad cold.

It's odd, to say the least, how this universe works. What seems to be the worst of things mutates into the best of things (and of course vice versa as well). My good friend Carin came by last night for dinner and we got to talking about this very subject. We both have a mutual friend (ok, so he's a mutual ex-boyfriend who is still good friends with us both) who is a firm believer in a person creating their own reality. According to his philosophy, what happens to you, the people in your life, the things you experience, are all there because you drew those things to yourself. You are to credit or to blame for your reality. There is for sure an amount of accuracy to this. Certainly, the way I am living my life and the people I have in it, I chose. It and they were not random. However, and this is where Carin and I depart from Steve's philosophy. There is also something beyond us that acts. We create, but other forces do too. Sometimes that is to our destruction via a tidal wave or a hurricane, sometimes that is too our benefit. When it is to our benefit, it is then that it seems to be quite personal.

For example, if Billy, my ex-husband, had not run off with the millionaire's wife, I would never have met David, my soul mate and twin. I would never have cheated on Billy or left him, even though he was a rather abusive manipulative person (this doesn't say much for me). I truly believe the universe (or god or creator or...) removed that toxic individual because I was just not getting it and I wasn't removing myself from that situation. Someone(s) was/were looking out for me despite myself. Because of that I am now with my beloved one.

This is probably the greatest mystery of life. We seem to be so very alone, as if all were up to us and so very not alone, as if nothing were up to us. Clearly it seems there are hands on the other side. Why they choose to come through when they do is a mystery that cannot be solved in this dimension. Just before I walked into the bar where I was to meet my beloved David I had the thought, which I've never had before or since, that said to me I was about to meet the beloved one of my life. I laughed inside my brain at the absurdity. It turned out to be true though. I can't explain it, but it happened.

I'd love to hear what others think on this. Randomness (a plane goes down, a flu epidemic, etc..) vs. non-randomness (a miraculous person to save the day, a serendipitous happening, etc..). Both seem equally weighted, equally true.

My thoughts, I'm glad it is not all up to me. Sometimes greater forces than me know much better.

Death and the house finch

I’m sorry to have been so negligent in updating my blog. Much has transpired since my last entry. First, and foremost, my father died unexpectedly on November 7. It was the most peaceful of deaths. Enviable really. He had been cutting bushes during the day, ate some blueberry tart, drank a bit of sherry as he watched his favorite Sherlock Holmes on TV, then fell asleep. He never woke up. My mom called me around 7:30 am to tell me she thought he was dead. I live only 2 miles from her house and zoomed down there. Sure enough, he was gone. Before me, she had called 911 and the EMTs were walking out of the house not even wanting to make eye contact. I ran upstairs to the bedroom. There he lay dead with a half smile on his face. He hadn’t even woken up to say “ouch.” He was two days shy of his 80th birthday. It was the perfect death. I wondered what he had been dreaming.

We were all devastated yet weirdly happy he could go like that. Much crying ensued though. He was the perfect father to me and the perfect husband to my mom and her soul mate. We both cried and were grateful.

A week to the day later I was talking to my friend Sibyl on the phone. As I did, I opened the front porch door to let out the latest stray kitten who had appeared at my place the month earlier. Not one minute later I heard knocking on the side window. The new stray kittens have learned to leap up onto the window and somehow claw their way down the door as a signal to be let in. It was about 8pm and pitch black and I was amazed how quickly the kitten had gotten around to the side door. And so, as I talked on the phone, I opened up that door. There was no kitten. There was a house finch. It flew into the dining room. Now, I must say, never has a bird knocked on my door to be let in. I was stunned. Here it was, a daytime bird, flinging itself against the door to be let in. Birds are symbols of spirit. Even the dourest of skeptics could see this was no normal bird. And so if flew on in and circled the dining room then flew upstairs into my bedroom. It was not my father. Of that I’m sure, the poor thing was too frantic, too freaked. It was however, I am convinced to the core, sent by him. It was a “token” as they call it in some parts. It was a sign, and a very clear one.

In any case, I followed it up to my bedroom and closed the door. The kittens were way too interested and I do think it rather bad juju for one’s kitten to kill one’s token. I opened the window and turned off the lights leaving a lit candle in the window. It landed on a ceiling fan and I caught it in a towel and released it into the night.

When this was all done, I was beside myself. One friend called, then I called another, then I called my mom who started crying at the tale. “He always wanted to see what you did with the kitchen,” she said (I had begun remodeling that recently and had torn down a wall). 40 minutes later my boyfriend David came in. I told him the story. He said how sorry he was that he couldn’t have seen the little bird then went upstairs to do one thing or another.

Not five minutes later he called to me. "Christina! I think it is back!"

I ran upstairs and sure enough the little house finch was flinging itself against my bedroom window to be let in again. I opened the window and it flew again into the room. From that room it flew to my office where my altar is and so landed upon it. It then flew and landed on my alien mask hanging on the wall then back to the altar then onto a box of stuff my father had given me that belonged to his father. I’ve been absorbed with genealogy lately and it all related to that. And so, the little house finch landed on the box and looked at me for quite some time. At last, once again, I caught it and set it free.

And the rest of the night, I smiled.