Sunday, July 29, 2012

The Sunday Morning Muse, July 29th 2012



So much fog outside today I can't see the bridge in the distance or even the trees and houses across the valley. I'm living in a fog. Hmmm. Little Sambo is here with me. Sleeping on the desk with her head upside down, like cats do sometimes. No interest in looking out the window today. Nothing really to see.

Another week of summer is gone. The welcome rains this week made me happy (especially since I have no storm damage), and the greener grass makes me think we are going back to June.... although I know a hot August lies ahead and the green-ness may soon change back to brown-ness rather quickly. The blueberries are almost past their peak, still so many to pick though. They were small this year, despite half hearted attempts semi-weekly to carry buckets of water up the hill to put on the roots. Just not enough rain.

 I am juggling a lot lately, so I try to limit any daily outrage that uses up energy and puts me in a bad mood. That is why I'm not ranting today about the Voter ID law. I actually ranted quite a bit about it this week to anyone within earshot and I'm in overload mode, so I'll suffice to add a link here to Sally Kalson who said it better than I could without using four letter words.  On a personal note I have a disabled, elderly mother, so this issue hits me in the gut. The logistical issues alone for the handicapped and older people should postpone this needless law at the very least. Though I think the blatant politics behind it should stop it cold. Thank you ACLU for taking it to court.




Saturday, July 28, 2012

Saturday Night Stream of Consciousness...


    I'm reading an old book of my father's written by Deepok Chopra about aging well, living a long time.  If you can beat the odds and not get cancer or heart problems, there seems to be a lot you can do to make it to 100. That said, some days I feel like 100 now.  I just don't know where all these aches and pains come from. I'd still have a whole second life to go.... I wish they can speed up science and figure out how to manipulate genes already so cells don't wear out as fast. Seems like people want to live a long time but they don't want to get "old."

  The cat is getting old, but I don't know how old. Coco showed up here sometime in her mid life and her teeth are bad...and she is having kidney trouble now, too. Got a tooth pulled yesterday and she is doing better but the kidney thing scares me. She is such a sweetie.

  Don't ever let anyone scare you away from Yoga. The year I spent in Yoga class taught me lessons I will have for the rest of my life. I try to use some of those lessons everyday. Breathing, stretching, letting go of stress and centering yourself. Yoga is a good thing.





Sunday, July 22, 2012

The Sunday Morning Muse, July 22, 2012

  

Here it is Sunday Morning again. Hard to believe, but I don't have a lot to say this morning.   I rarely dream but last night I had this seemingly endless dream and I woke up exhausted. The dream centered around ants. I had ants in my desk where I work, and ants all over the floor and in corners.... and no one would help me.
Finally after pointing out that the ants were now spotted in other places in the building, someone agreed to look into the problem, if I would go to Long John Silvers to get lunch. And also run an errand involving getting some kind of plane ticket straightened out with the airlines.

Bizarre. So I went and ordered lunch at Long John's and while waiting, I went to a "ticket counter" to try and arrange a return flight back home...get this...for someone who died years ago. I wasn't at all concerned that he was dead. I was just trying to get him back from San Diego, or where it was that he went.

Well, the snags that occurred involving the plane ticket became a lengthy ordeal, and now the fish from Long John's was getting cold....and I was still thinking about all those ants... and I really didn't want to deal with any of this anymore. I just wanted to wake up.

Stress. 

When the alarm clock finally rang, I was thankfully launched back to reality, but still left with that feeling of
stress.

The dream book says to dream of ants, as pests, will mean "a lot of frustration and hard work before I achieve independence."

Nice.  Why can't I dream of an "antelope" instead?  (A sudden improvement of financial status...)

Hmmm..browsing through the book now...

I couldn't really find anything in there about flying a dead person back home. If I had to guess it would probably be even more frustration and hard work.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Watching the British Open Today



As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round. 
-Ben Hogan 


 At the British Open: Not many roses as far as I can see...mostly pot bunkers and bleachers. Go Tiger!

Bulbs



One of my favorite VM songs. "batteries are corroded...and a 100 watt bulb just blew."


Friday, July 20, 2012

Who Elected this Guy?




After all the hype and excitement surrounding the new Batman movie, now the nation is mourning the loss of a dozen people at the hands of a crazed gunman. We don't even have a motive in the shootings yet, and already a Republican, (from Texas, of course) is trying to link it to attacks on Christian beliefs.

I saw in the comments section of that article that someone asked, wouldn't it be something if this shooter comes out and said "God" told him to do it.  What then? 


It's stupid, inflammatory and self-serving to even inject religion into this situation without letting the facts unfold. It's just as stupid, this early on, anyway, to suggest that perhaps this guy was just enraged by Rush Limbaugh's comments this week....that the movie was somehow a liberal Hollywood plot to put the name "Bain" in a bad context in an election year to hurt Romney.  (Read more here, if you missed that trumped up outrage. Great column, Tony Norman)

And since this Texan still wants America to be the wild west, he is also lamenting about why didn't someone in the theater have a gun to take down the shooter? 

Of course everyone wants to live in a place where you feel you need to take guns with them to the movie theater, "just in case." 

Sheesh. 


Sunday, July 15, 2012

I Love My Shirt- Donovan

The Sunday Morning Muse, July 15, 2012



"Be polite to all, but intimate with few." Thomas Jefferson


Good advice from a very smart man with big ideas and wild hair.Today I am musing about how Jefferson would have handled Twitter and Facebook. I suspect he would be quite perplexed at first. Why would anyone put out half baked thoughts and serve up their private life for public scrutiny? Isn't that what newspapers do?

After all, this is a man who worked on heavy things like the Declaration of Independence.


 He would probably warm to Facebook in some way. Accumulate a lot of "friends" but, on his Close Friends list....now that is where the real thought provoking ideas would go. Assuming he can figure out the privacy settings....which can confound  Mensa members, I'd say he would really love it.


Twitter is another story all together. I'd say Jefferson wouldn't tweet. That's just me basing it on nothing other than lack of gravitas. I think he'd want more than 146 characters to get his points across.  And he wouldn't tweet short sighted, unpondered thoughts. He was a letter writer after all. Loved to put quill to paper.



Saturday, July 14, 2012

Losing A Sole


Being thrifty is a relative thing.

Like, I'm pretty thrifty. I recycle, I reuse plastic bags, I've been known to wander yard sales and thrift stores for bargains, and I don't own a lot of big gawdy jewelry or designer clothes. I've made birdhouses out of plastic pop bottles. Well, one, anyway. I have other birdhouses, too. Probably too many around here. We are switching to something called "chicken scratch" instead of bird seed because it is getting expensive to feed the birds, and that certainly is not being thrifty. Day old bread torn up and thrown outside would be the thriftiest choice, but I digress.

I pitch things or donate things I don't need. And I don't ask for a receipt either. To me that is not really "giving" just to give. I just give because I'd rather someone be using it than it taking up space here.

But on a scale of thriftiness I'm not, say, an extreme coupon clipper or someone who buys 10 of something to get a deal. I do own about eight pairs of tennis shoes but they have been justified (at least till now) as too good to throw away but something no one would want. I could "garden" in them or do really dirty jobs where you get muddy, and throw them away if they get too bad. Besides I have two other "good" pairs to wear in public. Muddy jobs have been few and far between for a few years. I'll be ready though.

Talking to neighbor Al today I got a better picture of where I stand on the scale of thriftiness. Al was wearing his "good" tennis shoes (I can relate) and mentioned that one of his other pairs (gardening type) lost a sole.

Huh? How do you lose a sole? I pondered the Zen-ness of this for a moment and then kept listening. Yeah, one day he was walking, and it caught on something or another and the sole got separated from the shoe. Just like that.

My first thought was, I wonder if they were made in China, but instead I said, well, you threw them away right? No.... the shoe part is still good, he said. But it felt too strange to wear them with one sole on and one without, so he ripped the sole off the other one and still wears them as "garden" shoes.

Mom suggested he wrap them back onto the shoes with furnace tape. I'm not even sure what furnace tape is, but I know she was kidding him.

Can you keep your sole by wrapping it with furnace tape? Zen again...

I glanced up at him.

For a split second, I think he considered it.


Sunday, July 8, 2012

High Summer

The Sunday Morning Muse, July 8, 2012



Today is the day we get a reprieve from the hot weather. It is only going to be 85 degrees. (Everything is relative I guess.) The oppressive heat of the last few days (94 on porch yesterday)led to a big increase in perspiration but also a huge decrease in inspiration. There I times I was content with doing nothing at all. Just open a book, sit my butt down, and banish any thoughts of yard work, messing with with flowers, painting the porch, cleaning out the garage, washing the car, or doing much of anything  really.

Not like me at all. 

So I'm trying to look at it as a recharge of batteries. Time to let go of the stress of life. Rest, peace, enjoying what I have instead of fussing over rearranging and taking care of things. Just details, after all.

But with "better" weather coming my thoughts today turn to reigniting the match. Inspiration....literally "in spirit." Where will that spirit to get back at it...whatever "it" is, come from? What inspires you?

If I had to answer that one, I'd have to say seeing others do good work inspires me. Even something as simple as watering the flowers. I coveted my neighbor's new "watering wand" gadget for their hose. The spray of water on the extended wand with a shower head on the end was perfect for hard to reach spots, baskets and such. Efficient in ways that my leaking nozzle that didn't shut off anymore could ever compete with. A dozen settings, water amount adjuster, nice bicycle type squeeze handle. 

The neighbors were having "fun" watering, whereas I was like an old mule hauling water from the rain barrel up on the hill,(empty now, anyway,) or worse yet, battling the bad nozzle, getting soaking wet everytime and wasting all that water. I need the new watering wand. In fact, I deserve it. I grew most of these flowers from seed, and this is the hottest summer, in almost ever....and may even be the LAST summer if you believe the Mayans...

There ya go. Now I'm inspired. I got the new watering wand. It has all kinds of water spray settings and it reaches baskets without me struggling with water jugs. It saves on water because it actually does shut off. It's gonna pay for itself in a year or so with all that saved water.

And yes, it is kind of fun with it's squeeze handle, a nice spray, a good soak...and that intense Jet setting....take dead aim. My personal blaster.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Thirty Minute Love Affair...Paloma's new one!

Last to Know Department- News Flash



Anderson.... Gay?  Wow, can you imagine? The next thing you know we will find out Liberace was gay too.
You mean he is? I mean, was? I mean, like, sheesh, what is the world coming to? I thought it was bad enough that under Obamacare we will be forced to marry gay doctors. Or is that Let gay doctors get married? Hell, I don't know. It would be nice to marry a doctor anyway. Best way to get free healthcare.

What is the world coming to? Andy Griffith is dead, Mayberry was an imaginary town.

Happy Freaking July Fourth!


Sunday, July 1, 2012

The Sunday Morning Muse, July 1, 2012


It's gonna be hot again today. But I got no complaints when I see the wildfires out west, the flooding in the south and the many states where the temp is over 100 degrees.

I heard Van Morrison is coming out with a new CD on October. Born to Sing: No Plan B. It's been awhile
since he last put out a new one, and I'm anxious to see what it will be like. I really have gotten away from music in the old traditional way of buying a CD and putting it on and playing it over and over in the car. Lately, I just put on Pandora and punch around to the various "stations" I have set up and it plays me more or less what I want to hear. 

But somehow something has been lost in this generation. Back in the days of Top 40 radio being the biggest source of music for me, at least, until I could save up my allowance to buy cassettes or records, everyone was listening to pretty much the same thing.  People bonded over the music. Now everyone can listen to anything from anytime in any order....in any genre... and it is as if we are all in our own little worlds. Listening alone. That's how I feel anyway.