How Quickly Things Turn

Shortly after I posted that last entry about giving people a pass, a friend of mine called and unloaded about her week and how people hurt her and on and on.  Interestingly, I was able to quote that fellow I quoted in my last post and I waxed all philosophical urging her to be gracious and let go and so forth and so on.

Later in the conversation she started to talk about something and I was half listening.  I don't know what grabbed my full attention but it developed that she was talking about my late husband.  She told me things she thought about our relationship that she had never revealed before.  She was and is the friend I have known the longest.  She lived through every minute of my first marriage.  During my troubles she never once let me know what she felt she must let me know now.  She shouldn't have let me know it.  I found myself in the position of hearing things that were untrue and unkind and I had to be gracious.  As I had just advised her, I had to take my advice.  I did it but truth be told I am still in pain and questioning a very long establised friendship.

Funny how things turn and twist isn't it?

Just thinkin'

Just read a story, or at least I skimmed a story, about the brawls and bad behavior of the Secret Service while on Nantucket during one or more of the One's vacations.  Why now are the stories being reported?  Perhaps if the press had been doing it's job then, the embarrassment of recent Secret Service behavior could have been avoided.  After all, isn't that what the press is supposed to do?  Report, not take dictation. 

I think we can view the current political mess as one which could have been avoided if the press had done it's job in the run up to the past election.  Investigate.  Report.  No Propaganda.  If they had and the One won and he may have, all this grindingly obvious nonsense about his past and agenda would be out there.  He won despite his connections with socialists, communists, terrorists and crazed evangelical black power people.  We all knew and elected him anyway.  How much better it would be today.

Do your job press puppets.  Don't do any one's bidding.  Stop lifting the lid on high school stories about the One's adversary and ignoring everything about himself.  Put everything out there and let the people decide.

Never happen.  They're too deep in the tank.

Where's your pass?

I just read this somewhere in my wanderings on the net, it's about the things people say when you have a serious, possibly terminal illness:

"But here’s the point I want to make about the stuff people say. Unless someone looks you in the eye and hisses, “You fucking asshole, I can’t wait until you die of this,” people are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let’s all give each other a pass, shall we?"

That last sentence gave me pause.  "Let's all give each other a pass, shall we?"  I was about to comment on that blog and blah blah blah about grace and be gracious.  Before I could reach the keyboard I was struck with my own limitations in that regard.  I didn't have a terminal illness or even an illness to speak of.  I was less than 25 and dating a very wild guy.  He was older and experienced and not at all like the guys I had ever even met not to mention dated.  Two of my married friends, who had married the type of guy I had normally encountered or dated, were with me one afternoon and, for whatever reason, they felt the need to counsel me.  Their counsel was so self-righteous and condemning that I have carried it with me to this day.  Maybe now's the time to give them a pass.  They were merely wrapping themselves in their blanket of smug and pointing out to me the wrongness of my choices.  The stinging part is that they reached so far back in my life to show me who they thought I was and they were so wrong about what they thought I was up to back then.  I thought my "friends" knew me.  I was wrong.  I was hurt.  I went through what I once read was the most painful surgery known to man.  I had my eyes opened.  I should thank them for that.

That was over 40 years ago.  I have seen these women multiple times since.  I put on a friendly demeanor.  I never refer to that day long ago.  I never forget it though.  I think it's time to do that.  Be gracious.  Give them a pass.  Shake it off and finally let it go.

I love the Blog world.  It's the best therapy ever.

Paraprosdokians

Here's a good one:

What are Paraprosdokians?

They are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.

1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left..

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. They begin the evening news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

10. Buses stop in bus stations. Trains stop in train stations. On my desk is a work station.

11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

12. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

17. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

18. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

19. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.

20. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

21. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

22. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target

23. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

24. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

25. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

26. Where there's a will, there are relatives.

AND 27.

I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder to find one.

Health Tip

My morning email:

As I was lying in bed pondering the problems of the world, I rapidly realized that I don't really give a rat's hiney. It's the tortoise life for me!




1. If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal.

2. A whale swims all day, only eats fish, drinks water, and is fat.

3. A rabbit runs and hops and only lives 8 months.

4. A tortoise doesn't run and does nothing, yet it lives for 450 years.


And you tell me to exercise?? I don't think so. I'm retired. Go around me.