The Sunday Morning Muse, December 29th, 2013

The last Sunday of the year, cloudy and 40 degrees this morning. Strange. And there was the sunshine and 50 degrees of yesterday.  Grateful for the chance to air out a blanket, walk the property, and just sit outside on the porch awhile and wish it was spring.

Christmas is over. There is plenty of leftover ham, cookies and dreams.

 And I hope I never have to hear Michael Bolton on that car commercial ever again. Ugh.

The Sunday Morning Muse, December 22, 2014

A foggy, rainy and damp Winter Solstice with unusually warm temperatures. But a lovely evening nonetheless with a roaring fire outside to welcome the coming of the light. The snowmelt that came with the warm temperatures brought back some of the green of the landscape. You could almost pretend it was an April evening, strolling around in mud boots and raincoats. Last week's snow shoveling, but a dream.

Now Christmas is closing in, and I feel good. Ready for the new year to follow. 2013 was a bad year. Probably in my top three. Just as the sage chases away the bad spirits, I hope the spell will linger to help scatter any gathering clouds coming my way. Open things up for new possibilities, perhaps.  Fight any lingering darkness. And shield friends and family, too, from further accidents and illness.

The Sunday Morning Muse, December 15, 2013

It's slow moving kind of morning.  Sore from snow shoveling. We got about four inches of "heart attack" snow. That's the heavy kind of snow that is perfect for hurling snow balls, but torture for clearing driveways. Even the big snow blower protested a bit. Oh well.

Started Christmas shopping yesterday.  It's fun to watch the faces of people as they shop. I can imagine the little conversations going on in their heads. Few people actually are smiling.  Except the kids. I saw a little wee one going down the aisle telling her dad,  "I want THIS for Christmas. And THIS, and THIS and
THIS...etc." So sweet and innocent. At the age where an IPAD or XBOX is irrelevant to her. Or at least should be.

The war on Christmas continues to live on in the loons that run the Fox News echo chamber. I did have to laugh at Jon Stewart's take on Megyn Kelly  emphatically telling everyone... in her well practiced indignant manner, that Santa Claus and Jesus are WHITE.  Get that? And Festivus? Well, you have to watch the clip to see the fake outrage she managed to whip in to a frenzy over a beer can pole.

Last time I checked Santa wasn't even real, and Jesus...well,  let's just say that clueless irresponsible fembot had to "walkback" those words yesterday a bit.  Duh. To me she is the human embodiment of nails on a chalkboard. I leave the room if she is on.  Every Time.

Media Matters is even getting tired of watching Fox "so you won't have to," in order to debunk all that
partisan garbage passed off as news over there. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. The war is over. Fair and Balanced? Never was, never will be. Keep walking, and look away. Move on to other things.

Smiling

I just love Grumpy Cat.

The Sunday Morning Muse, December 8, 2013

A bitter cold morning.  Goosepath delayed due to Candy Crush Saga.

My Kindle Fire arrived and I have been loading it up with stuff. Bought it for books, and haven't loaded a single one. Too distracted by games and apps and figuring out what all I can do with it. TED Talks and NPR and Facebook and the list goes on. I can Twitter my soap opera very efficiently now. Reading the tweets someone posts let's me know what happened in a whole show. All in about 5 minutes. That's great if I miss an episode.

I find myself concerned that a whole generation of kids are so lost in their various hand held devices. I heard one parent complain that her kid wants an IPOD, a Kindle, a TV and even a 200 "gift card," for Amazon for Christmas, and even asked if you can ask Santa for CASH.   This is a child under 10 years old. The kicker is that the grandmother had already bought the kid an IPAD last year!

No doubt all the sparkly things and constant action and movies and games is a delight to kids. But is it for the best to be hooked into them with such constant stimulus?  Not that I want to go back to Walton's Mountain, but certainly, something of value has already been lost. Some kids have SOOOO much. And I truly believe they need to learn the spirit of giving more than receiving at this time of year. Lost among all the distraction is the truly needy.

Also, I watched a TED talk about group work and how the teaching model is changing. Not for the better. There just isn't much alone time. Working in groups, team projects, etc. does teach things in and of itself. But introverts, especially, thrive on having alone time.  Deeper thoughts. Pondering. Just letting the brain digest and take in new information and process it without constant interruption and distraction.

And while I'm at it, my pet peeve right now is people who ignore you completely when you walk into a room and just continue to text, surf, flick pages, and stare into their phones.  It's as if a real person standing in front of you doesn't have to be acknowledged, but heaven forbid you miss a text.

Anyway, that's my rant this morning.  I'm limiting my Kindle use.  And my phone is still just a phone. And some of these kids weren't even born yet when my Windows XP was invented. They will probably never know what it is.  But it still works for me.

Thought for Today

Happy Birthday Bette!

The Sunday Morning Muse, December 1, 2013

Gosh it's dark. Cats are still in bed. It's only December 1st, but it feels like it has been Christmas for month. Maybe it has been in some capitalist way.  I'm already sick of the Christmas clock that plays music at the top of every hour. Seemed like a nice thing to put up at the time. A week ago.

Nice to see Eric Martsolf of Days of our Lives in the Macy's parade in the 'Burg. I saw the pictures of him. Handsome as hell. Nice smile.  Wish they would make his character smarter on the show.

The Soap is one of my Guilty Pleasures. Got hooked on it three years ago when mom was in the hospital. Marsolf plays Brady Black who was to marry his dad's old flame who happens to be a loon who once tried to kill Marlena, who is his dad's wife (for now). The wedding was spoiled (during Sweeps week) when Marlena inadvertently played a video tape during the ceremony that showed the priest (Marlena's son) having sex with the bride to be.. The loon had drugged him and taped the act as part of a vengeful plot (too involved to get into here) but regretted it when she really did later fall in love with Brady.  Oh did I mention the priest is Brady's half brother?

Today I'm feeling rather grumpy and irrelevant. Being stuck in the house most of these past five days has made me realize how far behind I am getting with technology. Am I the only person without wifi in their home, an Xbox, a really cool smartphone, a tablet, and the biggest, most pixilated TV on the planet? Maybe I have a distorted view of reality from watching too many commercials. Okay, I'm not exactly in the horse and buggy stage, but I'm close.  I have a 3 year old IPOD,  a free Verizon phone, Windows XP computer, and a reasonable size TV but not in HD.  If someone wanted to invest a little money in upgrades I could catch up eventually. Anyone have me on their Christmas list?  I've been awfully good this year.

For those who care, the Eustachian Tube Dysfunction thing has continued to be the bane of my existence. I can't hear right and it is driving me insane. After Antibiotics,  benedryl, Claritin, cough syrup, generic crap, gum, and plain Sudafed didn't help, I'm plodding forward with a new steroid nose spray and Mucinex D, which also has Sudafed in it.  Had to show my driver's license to buy it because there are regs about Sudafed sales and anything with Sudafed in it because of idiot drug heads who use it to manufacture drugs. Let me say I could never understand why anyone would want to take this stuff for fun.  It makes your heart flutter. Not in a good way, like when I look at Eric Martsolf.