Snow and Sun and ya da ya da

Slow weekend, first snowflakes, actually a ton of them. Thank God the ground was warmer than the snow and no accumulation occurred. Holy Hannah! October and snow. Yikes. Hubby's birthday dinner was Saturday night. We went to an extravagant but well worth it restaurant with a couple who love the food as much as we. Not only is the food beyond excellent but the service and the ambiance take the place over the top. I guess that saving such an experience for only the special times makes it that much more special. Forget the fact that if we did that sort of thing more often we would be filing for bankruptcy.

Now, today, sunshine and 60 degrees. Yes. I live in the state of schizophrenia, well at least as far as the weather is concerned.

I have to go now and dust, vacuum, fold clothes ya da ya da ya da......Later.

Draft mode

A thought while strolling the neighborhood this am---before I left I was listening to the radio and so in my head, during the stroll, were the recent headline issues. Number one was a to-do over bullying in a middle school, number two was a hissy fit over two little white girls who sing about wanting to stay white and number three was some nonsense about Louis Farrakhan (sp) who wants to stay black.

I thought that maybe it's time that we start to stress commonalities instead of diversities. Emphasize the fact that we are all human to begin with and the only truly major distinction is gender. Yes, no matter how you fight it, there are men and there are women.

I had an epiphany regarding Moses and the Law. The Law was to set apart the children of Israel and also to teach them that they couldn't be saved by the Law. No matter how stringently they worked at following every single do or don't, they failed. Men decided that they knew better than God, what else is new, and added to the perfection of the Law. Organized religions, cultures, societies, families, all have their own rules of behaviour and each of these man made rules tend to set apart the groups who share them. Language puts the frosting on the cake and truly separates one group from another. When groups are separate, they tend to feel either inferior or superior. Rarely does it happen that a feeling of equality permeates these diverse groups.

In recent years various groups have been encouraged to firm up their unique mores and to keep their cultural bonds as well as language. The USA rather than the "melting pot" it claimed to be is now housing many different cultures and languages within its borders and is attempting to honor each and allow each to be loyal to itself rather than the common culture and laws of the country it lives in. Since each group tends to feel either inferior or superior to any other we have to deal with the respect or disrespect issues. The PC nonsense of our age applies to each of these many groups but not to the country they dwell in or the structure of government which has provided all of the opportunities these groups are enjoying.

I am struggling with this. I am. I don't understand how we can make progress if all of parts don't mesh and worse than that, don't want to.

Sweet Sunday

Best day of the week, Sunday. It's gloomy and misty damp with a bit of a breeze. Whitecaps on the ocean and a slate gray sky make you glad you have your wool socks on. A neighbor walked by carrying her Yorkie. "She's freezing and wants to go home. Everytime I put her down she shivers, shakes and sits down refusing to move. " We laughed and I said I was glad my boy kept moving...of course he weighs in at over 100 pounds so if he refused to move I would have to get a two wheeler to move him.

Anyhow its a sweet day since, at the moment, all is well. Sunday is always the day we cut the strings and relax into God's care. We rejoice and if possible worship in an organized way at church. If we don't get to church we worship in a less organized way. Either way we send our thanks and love and appreciation to the God of the Universe who created all and yet still has our name in His heart. I am always staggered that we specks of dust are known by our Creator as intimately as we are.

Journals and more

This posting thing is getting to be a habit. Reading all the blogs and websites that I do became a habit several years ago and now ... this. Well, as a kid, I always kept a diary where all of my inner thoughts were stored...I fussed more about where that diary should be kept than I ever fussed about anything. I wore the book out by moving it from hiding place to hiding place. I mean, what if my mother or brothers found it and read it out loud at the dinner table ? I would drop down dead in my seat of embarrassment if they discovered that I LOVED Billy Smith. My mother would never recover if she found out that I thought Donna Mitchell's family was picture perfect and never wrote a word about her that suggested she was the measuring stick for perfect.

There, see? one more suggestion in the Ladies' magazines that is not correct. Keep a journal they say. It allows you to get all the day's events out and by so doing you are relieved of pressure. Riiiiggghht! Now find a way that no one will ever get that journal and find out who you really are...Yikes. Especially my family who loved to turn over rocks and find a weak spot and poke and prod and sneer and ...well maybe they weren't quite that bad but you understand that when one is 11 and chubby and rather reserved, the last thing that kid needs is a circle of pointers and laughers. Thus, the worry all day at school wondering if my mother would discover my new hiding place and the panic when, upon returning from school, I couldn't find the damned thing. It was never because someone had moved it. It was because I couldn't remember where the hiding place of the day was.

Point being -- this is my new journal hiding in plain sight. I have to share where and who and I won't. Safe at last.....maybe...

Winter's Coming !!

Cold last night. Thirty-nine degrees. Yow! That's cold, especially when one of the household members (not me) feels that the heat should not go on until after the Thanksgiving turkey carcass has been bubbled away for stock and the tree is about ready to be hauled out of the attic. Yes, that is what I said....Attic....no real tree here thank you since one of the members of the household - again not me-- thinks real trees spontaneously combust as soon as you turn your back on them. If all progresses as it usually does, 39 degrees will be fondly recalled as a balmy evening during Indian Summer. Can we still say that by the way, Indian Summer? Anyhow, as I started saying, it's cold and more than likely will get colder and heat will not be turned on for quite some time.

Ah well. That's why God made sweaters and afghans and socks.

Early Morning

I love early mornings. It's like the world is entirely yours but you know company is just a floor or a room or a house away. The empty streets and sidewalks are great and so is the seemingly empty house. I love the aloneness feeling but with a safety net. I know I can wake up hubby or pooch or pick up the phone and call a couple of friends up this early.

When I gave up smoking I would walk whenever I had the urge to smoke...this was before the patch. I was always walking. I would leave the house early, early, early and it would still be dark. The streets were empty and my imagination would just be revved up. I would imagine that behind those closed dark windows were all sorts of things occurring and someday, someone would see me walk by and think I had witnessed something I didn't and I would begin to feel that someone would be following me, found where I lived, place heavy breathing calls, show up in the shadows in the parking garage at work etc etc and so forth. Early morning walks would turn out to be not the stress relievers those ladies' magazines said they would be.

Even now, in my quiet house with the sun just coming up I could imagine that the person in the house across the street is ..................Never Mind!!

I'm going to turn on the lights and wake up the dog...

Waving goodbye

Walked to the beach this morning with my dog. It's a beautiful fall day, warmish in the sun and there is plenty of sun, leaves just starting to turn, mostly brown but turning and they are falling too. If the breeze picked up and the leaves blew a little it would look like the opening scene of one of my favorite movies, Arsenic and Old Lace. The streets are really empty now since this is more of a summer spot than a year round place. The town has loads of year rounders but where I am is a smallish enclave of summer places that close up this time of year. It kind of has an abandoned lonely sad feeling. It suits me.

My family has been here for decades, closing in on a century for heavens sake. We came here every summer of all our lives, day after school closed we packed up and headed here. Day after Labor Day, we packed up and headed back. I used to have nightmares when I was young that the car was loaded and pulling away leaving me here alone. Everyone would be waving from the back window and I would be watching them drive away. Funny....although each has left at different times, they have still all gone....Mother, Father, brothers.....here I am on that street of my nightmare and if I close my eyes, I can see them all waving goodbye.

How did I know all those years ago that I would be here without them?

If they had to all leave, and we all do sooner or later, I'm glad they waited until I settled here, in a place I love with all the spots I walk to, visit, look at, bringing back happy memories when we were all smaller and together.

Just a Bunch of DooDads

My uncle Jim has been gone for a long time but I think about him frequently. He was always so glad to see me. He was probably always glad to see everybody but I never thought that way back then...I just so appreciated how glad he always was to see me. He had a big smile and a huge voice and used both all the time.

Once, I was telling him about some group in school that gave me a hard time and he listened and listened and listened. Loved that. When I was done he looked me in the eye and said that they were just a bunch of doodads and I shouldn't give them any more time.

That was such good advice and I still to this day think of that when a DooDad thinks they can use my time. There's a lot of them out there you know.

And Now ...

In a word..

Now see? I should have had a word for that spot but no, I didn't. Why am I attempting to write something when, as they say, words fail me.

I do have something to say. I sent an email to Pajamas Media telling them how pleased I am with their concept and how pleased I am with myself for discovering each of them independently. I have them on my bookmarked list and check each every day usually. I also have more than that and maybe the others will catch up and be included in PJM but at any rate, here's the deal...I got an email back from PJM to me thanking me for my encouraging and complimentary words..................Yow! that is so cool.

The day commences....have a fine one and I hope I do too.

Thanks for listening - or is it reading.....whatever.

What's it All About????

I am so sure that my whole family is together and listening in and hovering about ready to swoop and help -- but how does that compute with absent from the body present with the Lord? They are all present with the Lord. Does that mean they are disconnected from me totally? Can I talk to them like I do with the Lord? Can I ask them to help me like I do with the Lord. Years ago I remember someone saying that if we spoke to those that passed over, somehow we held them here in opposition to what they wish.

I am not sure of those things and need to wonder which always gives me a ponderous headache. Thus the pondering part of searching and.................a small chuckle here.

On with the day ..

The Family

Found an old book by John Bradshaw, former priest, guru of PBS fame, called The Family. I read it and re- read it when I first encountered him on TV. With my recent loss I pulled it out again. He had a handle on interactions and dynamics within a family group, that's for sure. I am stuck on his opening paragraph for chapter 10:

"Growing up means leaving home and becoming a self-supporting adult. I think this is the hardest task any human being has to face. It means breaking the fantasy bond and facing separation and aloneness."

Leaving home may never happen physically but the group that surrounds you and that you feel "at home" with may leave, one by one. Self supporting may not mean in a financial way. Being left alone rather than leaving is a shattering event. Emotional self support is not possible--you need a cushion of something other than you .............. you find that people always leave, they die, they move, they bond elsewhere. Where to look for that support..the one thing that never changes ever is God has established His throne in heaven and His kingdom rules over all. Be lost in God's immensity. You will come out as if from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated.

I wish I could think of these things. In lieu of that I have the radio ministers. Thank you God for the airwaves.