Life and Times at Cranberry Lake

DAN'S GIFT OF THE RED HAT

2012-01-10T16:01:00.000-05:00

CHRISTMAS kind of left me cold this year. It was an aggravation from beginning to end. We send out cards... cards that are sent from so many charities, and nice ones that I don't get a chance to buy some nice one's with meaning, but these are too nice to waste. But... sitting down and writing them out somehow seemed like jumping a hurtle too high this year. Finally I buckled down and wrote to those with whom I'd already heard from.GIFTS were not purchased until last minute... , and they weren't really gifts to my grandchildren, but "gift cards" to Target, Michael's, or iTunes-for my grandson's Alex and Austin. Then the Michael's one got lost in the mail and their sister Anna felt forgotten. I'M THINKING that perhaps we could all get together somewhere and sit with our chairs in a circle and pass money or gift cards from left to right. They are about that much fun. I'll admit I appreciated my Aunt Hilda's sending me a dollar in a Christmas card or for my birthday. I always had to send a thank you back. [Thanks, Mom... good manners that I probably didn't instill enough in my own, but I have gotten thank you notes from grandchildren. Now that there's email it's even easier than sitting them at the dining room table and pushing them to write Grandma and get it over with.]THE HOLIDAYS weren't all that Happy this year. No reason except I couldn't seem to catch the Christmas Spirit. I resented the way things are. Everyone spread so far and wide we'd be lucky if we saw any family this season, but we did get up to Jim J's to drop off gifts. And my stepdaughter Trese had us up for New Year's dinner. That saved the holiday season for me.TODAY I'm reading about another's discontent written to "Ask Amy". I didn't share her gripe, but my own would have been these generic gift cards. I might just as well send money. The danger there is it getting lost or stolen along the way. I still don't know if Anna's gift card ever arived. So, I would have said, Dear Amy, I'm tired of sending stupid gift cards. The most personal thing about them is if you ask what place the kids would shop..." THEN I got thinking about gifts I've gotten throughout the years and their meaning. I remember the generic dollar from Aunt Hilda. But I also remember the RED HAT! I got it from my brother Dan when I was about 20 year's old. He gave me a red felt hat with a net veil... maybe even had a feather. Something a pretty older woman would wear to church. It was very nice, but NOT ME. Somehow it charmed me that he thought of me as that mature and think it would look good on me. (I also remember him giving me a teddy bear when I was 12 years old, and he was home on leave from the Air Force. I was too old for teddy bears, but I loved "Twinkle" as I called my bear.) I WANT TO WRAP A GIFT and send it from the Post Office. Sure it's more trouble, but I want them to have it delivered, wonder what's in the package, open it up and find a wrapped gift with a "do not open until [your birthday] or [...Christmas]. I want to send them something they'll remember... even if I miss the mark... like my brother did so many years ago. I knew my brother loved me, and gave from his heart. I've asked before, and appreciate the Wish Lists at Amazon.com. I guess I would rather know them so well that I would see something and say, "Oh... I've got to get that for (...so and so)."I'M GOING TO WRITE EACH OF THEM before their birthday or Christmas. I'll ask them about their hobbies, their favorite things ...music, sports, types of clothes, arts and crafts, favorite colors fads games, puzzles, magazines, favorite type of clothes, jewelry, and every question I can think of to get an idea of their personality and their pleasures. I'll try to get a grasp on how to think while shopping around. Like if they liked Barbie dolls, I'd check that aisle and see what's new. I know that gift cards are more practical, and if they insist, that's how I'll go. But they'd better respond, as I'm thinking about how I never forgot that Red Hat. The fact that I only wore it a few times doesn't detract from the memory, and who gave it, and that he thought his sister was pretty and that hat would look nice on her. I remember the Red Hat, so NOW I HAVE AN IDEA.I'M GOING to ask each child who's expecting a gift for whatever occasion what they would enjoy as a gift. AND, if I don't hear back, they are going to get a red hat. This goes for the adults as well. Oh, it won't be like the one Dan gave me, but it will be red. It will be as suitable as I can gather from what I do know about whomever I'm giving it. It may be a scarf they could put on their head or wear around their shoulder... but it's going to be red, and it's going to be a hat... and if they do not want to receive that in 2012 they better tell me what they like, and give me a long enough list or clues enough to their personality so that I can give them something meaningful from Grandma, or Mary Jo.

I FOUND MY ANGEL

2011-12-21T14:01:00.001-05:00

WELL... When I left you last, I was going out of my mind. When the day was done, and I came downstairs to this computer-room, as I'm passing the wood stove where Tom parks all his farm boots, my peripheral vision caught something incongruous. There were three tall boots in a row, but when I looked straight at this, there my upside down angel was still in it's plastic tubular container, which was exactly as high as Tom's boots. I'd looked under the stove, in back of the stove, on top of the stove it would have been seen... BUT I HADN'T LOOKED DOWN AT THE BOOTS. I'd unpacked the Christmas lights, taking the angel out and placing it right there, only to think it was misplaced later, and just didn't see it. Maybe I'm not losing it, but these things happen all the time. However it reminds me of our son's need to have a key chain that would give off a beep when you pressed on this little finder remote that came with it. It also reminded me of a mother's many times having to find just about everything for everybody in the family during those teen years or even younger... with the toddler's toys.Before I get myself worked up about losing my mind, I've got to remember... this has happened throughout my lifetime. Probably everybody's lifetime. It's the reason I have a long piece of that rubberized twine connected to my car keys on one end and on the handle of my purse on the other. Saves me lots, and lots of time! ;-)

Descent of our Minds:

2011-12-17T19:31:00.003-05:00

We're both losing it... I swear!! How can we lose a WHOLE Christmas angel. It's larger than Barbie size, and housed for the year in a cylindrical clear plastic container. I even have the lid... it does exist.I think I took her out when I was checking our Christmas lights downstairs... I'd pulled the gray plastic storage bin out from the downstairs bathroom closet. Things weren't together from that point on. Yesterday or the day before,I took the gray bin upstairs. I had to go back down to get the lights today. Three fairly old sets, and one that Tom had before he and I got married... over 26 years ago. I brought them up. We have a tree. We priced the artificial, and at Lowe's I couldn't believe the scrawny things they had to offerunder $100 ...just barely, and if they were $10, I'd still call them Charley Brown Christmas trees... if you know what I mean.So... we went up to the field above, and used our squatting rights to cut down a nice pine. I cut it so close to the ground that Tom had trouble looking for where I'd cut it... he just wanted to check how obvious it was. Don't worry, no one will know thedifference.So, in figuring out how we'll string the lights, I thought... we need the angel to see how we'll do it... it will be at the end of one of the strings. IT HAS JUST DISAPPEARED. It just bothers us so because we know it was here. I remember taking it out of the box to get the lights out. Tom remembers as he took the lights out into the garage to test them throwing away a set which only half lit. Tom said that after the box of ornaments was upstairs he saw the angel-upstairs-as its container was upside down, and he could see the plug. I said I didn't remember seeing it upstairs, but I remember vacuuming with the box upstairs, at least I thought it was upstairs then. That must have been Wednesday, a day when I was driving myself nuts trying to get the DVD burner to work... one last stab before putting them out of the way to make room for Christmas decorations.Well... I even took the vacuum out again to see if I thought I'd automatically taken the angel and put it somewhere out of the way, and by acting it out, 'where would I put it? NO. I even wondered if Tom had taken it out to the garage since he'd taken the Xmas lights out to test them, and had first thought the angel was some more lights. We stopped looking and ate supper. [Had some more BBQ chicken thighs from the Family Reunion.] After supper Itake and trim our bones for the dogs. Bear had been sittingunder our feet sort of... a good place if anything falls during supper. I'd been saying how Bear won't even let Polly go near this spot while we're eating. I didn't think, "Hmm, where's Polly. I shoulda'! DAMN. She was nowhere to be seen. I swear,if I take her for a walk, the old arthritic dog will disappear if I get distracted for 60 seconds. Usually I can track or see her ahead, but any more than a minute, and she is GONE.I called out front, and when I called out back... there is the gate... wide open! DAMN!! I'd left it open when I took the garbage over to the composter. We both call, and call. I decide to throw on a coat and check the garage for her and, for surethe angel must be there... like George Carlin said, "Must be somewhere, Can't be nowhere!!" Not in the garage either.I'm going NUTS. It's not just that. It's a lot of little things.I go out and call Polly again, and there she is, sitting under the cherry tree in the back yard chewing on some venison bones she dragged over from somewhere. I swear, I have to make believe I made that mistake [on purpose], and stalk her while she goes to whatever gut pile from where she's getting the bones. I called her in telling her what a bad dog she was, took the plate of leftovers left, as Bear cleaned one plate, AND I GAVE IT TO BEAR again, with her watching. "YOU got your OWN leftovers... you can't have what we saved for you." I doubt if she understands. I now have a piece of safety ribbon at each gate to put around my wrist if I for any reason have to leave the gate open.But... I still just cannot figure out what happened to the angel. Tom swears he saw it upstairs... but he's no better. If I moved it while vacuuming, I must have done it automatically,but where the HELL would I have put it??!! It's driving me nuts! Tomorrow we're getting another extension cord so we can easily plug the lights in and take the plug out at night before we go to bed. I hope the angel turns up. We're probably looking right at it but just don't see it... Yep... I've done that too.I'll let you know where we find it....... If we DO!! (?????????????????)

2011-11-18T12:11:00.000-05:00

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES...

24 little hours later, and I couldn't care less about the rest of the world, as the one around here sparkles of sunshine and cool crisp fall air.

I'm reading A Simple Amish Christmas, and think maybe that's the way things should be... each group of people that make up this United States live in their own little world taking care of their own problems. But to me that's almost like being in denial. However, worrying and complaining is worse. Unless someone's complaints are valid problems that something can and should be done about, why complain. If all my/our worrying is not going to change a thing, then change it into prayer or positive meditation for the non-religious and Hope there is a God or a Force that can instill a sense of justice in the human beings on this great earth.

After all, it's not like the world was going to hell in a hand-basket (whatever that means anyway), it's the people.... The birds on the wing, the bear groveling in the garbage at the side of the road don't care. They live for the moment, but even the bird and the bear prepare for winter. The chipmunk hoards seeds and nuts in a special food locker in their underground system, and is set for the winter. We are more like the gray squirrels in that we can hole up in the bad days, but have to leave our warm nests to get supplies, to go to work... as 'in the long run... to get them.' But, you see where I'm going. We all have our place on this planet, and,

but for the Media, we wouldn't know what's going on in all sectors.

At my age I'm content that I've done my stint with the League of Women Voters; Letters to the Editor; time on the Democratic Committee. I've done my volunteer work; feel a bit guilty about not giving more blood; but I give to charities... now with caution... like "What DOES Komen for the Cure DO with all their money."

Be wise, and be discerning. Don't believe all the forwarded messages; nor give to every charity that is dropped into your mail box; nor to follow every shout from the discontented without checking as to what they intend to accomplish, and their good plan on getting it done.

Most of all, don't let the wonders of the common every day miracles of life elude your notice. Life is magical. And, if you need a boost of medication in order for your post-menopausal brain to look through your own rose colored glasses, please don't forget to take it. It too is a miracle of modern age. The age of innocence, if it ever did exist, had those aunties or grannies holed up in some attic with the blinds pulled shut. There are those scientific and medical wonders that keep the diseases that used to kill at bay. Bless your life always, and thank your Maker for it.

Yours,
Cranberry Jo

2011-11-17T12:36:00.000-05:00

LETS GO CAMPING FOR FREE IN NYC:

You want to know what really bugs me? No? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. I get so freakin' aggravated by half assed groups of people disorganized as hell, and no way to get some goal accomplished. "LET'S JUST GATHER AND PROTEST"
"PROTEST WHAT??"
"PROTEST BIG BUSINESS... IT'S RUINING OUR COUNTRY."
"HOW IS IT RUINING OUR COUNTRY?"
"BY THE BAILOUTS THEY JUST TOOK THE MONEY AND HERE WE ARE UNEMPLOYED WITH NO MONEY."
"WELL, I GUESS I COULD GO TO NEW YORK AND SEE THE SIGHTS. I ALWAYS WANTED TO DO THAT, BUT COULDN'T AFFORD THE HOTEL BILLS. ARE YOU SURE IT'S LEGAL TO CAMP OUT DOWN THERE?"
"SURE... AND SAFE TO. YOU KNOW... SAFETY IN NUMBERS"

SIX WEEKS LATER
"THEY'RE MAKING US MOVE. I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT'S LEGAL. THEY SAID WE HAVE TO MOVE OR THEY'LL ARREST US."
"THAT'S OKAY... WE'LL MOVE TO THE SUBWAYS. WE'LL TAKE OVER THE WHOLE SUBWAY SYSTEM."
"WON'T THAT MAKE THOSE WHO USE THE SUBWAYS TO GET TO WORK A LITTLE ANGRY?"
"THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. THEY HAVE JOBS... WE DON'T. WE WILL BE PROTESTING THOSE WHO ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO WORK."
"BUT, YOU'RE ON WELFARE, WHY SHOULD YOU MIND?"
"NEVER MIND WHY, WE JUST HAVE TO LET THESE STINGY PEOPLE WHO WON'T PAY OUR WAY KNOW THAT WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE."

ONE MONTH LATER
"HOW LONG ARE THEY GOING TO KEEP US IN JAIL?"
"UNTIL OUR CASE COMES UP... DON'T COMPLAIN, YOU'RE GETTING 3 SQUARE MEALS A DAY, AND A WARM DRY PLACE TO SLEEP."
"YES, BUT I MISS HOME. WHY THE HELL WAS IT WE GOT IN THIS SPOT ANYWAY?"
"WE LET WALL STREET KNOW HOW UNHAPPY WE WERE WITH BIG BUSINESS."
"YEAH... I GUESS WE LET THEM KNOW!"

MEANWHILE, IN THE LITTLE QUIET TOWNSHIPS OF THE UNITED STATES, PEOPLE LOOK ON AND THINK, "WHAT THE HELL DID THEY ACCOMPLISH."

ANSWER: NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING! JUST A GOD DAMNED WASTE OF TIME, TAX PAYERS MONEY IN CLEANING UP THEIR MESS, IN POLICE CALLS, AND HOSPITALIZATION, THE COST OF IMPRISONING AND IN THE MEANTIME, AT WALL STREET IT WAS BUSINESS AS USUAL!!

2011-11-16T19:28:00.000-05:00

THE STATE OF THE NEWS... NEVER MIND THE STATE OF PENN STATE:
What kept me awake last night was the stupid unfairness of the media in riling up the powers that be at Penn State that they fired Coach Paterno.

Since when has this country accepted into its Constitution that Freedom of the Press means that the News Media can be judge, jury and sentencer for a person's reputation, job, and life through the innuendo and unsubstantiated information?! SHAME ON THE NEWS MEDIA in America. They've reduced their voice to tabloid levels if not less, as the Inquirer would have been sued for libel years back with what they've said about Joe Paterno based on NO facts, as once Paterno's reputation was ruined, it became clear that 'he had done the right thing' in reporting the incident to the Campus Officials after McQueary had reported the incident to Paterno. [And McQueary also did discuss the alleged sexual assault with the university vice president who oversees campus police (as the Grand Jury had indicated this fact).

So why has it come down harder on Joe Paterno's head than on anyone else's... and up to this point that includes the perpetrator, Jerry Sandusky.

I absolutely detest unfairness, so in this case it was enough to keep me awake just thinking about this injustice to Joe Paterno even happening in these United States. It makes me wish I lived in a different nation... one that actually lives by abiding to the same Constitutional values as in our Constitution. I miss the days where I could count on today being better than yesterday, and tomorrow being better than today. Maybe I'm just getting old. But I think not. I think that this nation is going to hell in a handbasket. I wish I could go back to the good old days when this seemed a more Christian acting nation, when the wooden ruler given to us in the first grade had the quote, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

Just one more thing. The worst thing about all this is that it takes focus off the original victims by making Paterno and the students Penn State look bad to the point where yesterday someone with a Penn State shirt on at a store near the Penn State campus was told that he should be ashamed to wear that shirt. At my bookclub we discussed this situation and one said their grandchild was going to wear his Penn State shirt to school, but his mother was afraid he'd get chastised for doing so. We thought this was a bit overboard, but if it happened to a college student, it very well could have happened if the mother let his son wear that shirt.

[This stings of the same unfairness I saw in the movie Indictment that put innocent women in prison for over a year when they were falsely accused of sexually abusing their day care children until the courts found that they were innocent, and the mother who reported the abuse was not taking medication for her schizophrenia. I feel that Coach Paterno is innocent of any wrongdoing. I would change my mind only if as it should be, it was found out factually in a court of law, that he may have not followed the chain of command for reporting the incident, or had not done anything about it if he believed it to be true.

What the hell is the world coming to. I've never felt so disillusioned in my life. I feel that we have now officially lost our innocence. AGAIN I SAY "SHAME ON THE MEDIA!!!" ...And, of course we are ashamed of ONE PERSON, the perpetrator... remember, Sandusky is his name, not Paterno for God's sake.

2011-10-28T16:30:00.000-04:00

HALLOWEEN BACK IN THE 70s

I used to love Halloween in my old neighborhood on Galaxy Drive in Vestal. Because it was on a hill, although there were about 40 children in that small neighborhood, it was very quiet.
Because of all the children and it was a cul-de-sac, plus a safe place to have other neighborhoods trick-or-treat, there were plenty of children in all kinds of disguises to "trick" as well as to "treat." Back in the early 70's I think it must have been the style to buy a long
coat, and I had one I hated, but was so big I could button it above my head, and still have it hang half down my legs. Also, it was a time when people actually had 'Wig Parties', where I actually purchased a wig on a styrofoam wig form. With a craft knife, rubber bands, some drawing or painting, I made a fairly good head, which I could operate from a finger hidden so the headless Mrs. of the House, could actually move its lips and talk to the trick-or-treaters.

The next year, I designed a Witch on a broom which would slide down a cable (doubled as a dog run)which I had adjusted to run from the corner of the roof of our ranch house to the wrought iron rail at the steps. We also had a stereo system which we placed the speakers so the sound would be outdoors... (thank goodness the Halloweens usually weren't so cold back then ...at least that I remember). We had a line attached to the witch on the broom so that the kids could pull it back up after scaring one party of 'treaters' an scare the bejeebers out of the next group, ...the witch SCREAMING (from the Halloween 'Screech and Holler' record) when released, JUST as the group got close to the door.

The problem was coming up with a new trick each Halloween. I tried with a ghost on a pulley which the children would pull up just as the kids reached the door. By then, they were practically holding up cards to show how well the trick went over. The original ones were the best.

My three kids would be the last to go from door to door, as they wanted to stay home and scare
those who came to our house.

The township of Vestal had a volunteer fire department (that's the best kind... they don't hesitate to go out on a big engine throwing candy to the kids on Halloween. I think the paid ones would charge overtime). One time my oldest son, August, was trick or treating in a different neighborhood, and got home just after the fire department had come to throw the kids a few Tootsie Rolls, or Double Bubble Gum, and though he had a brown grocery bag half full of candy that would last him until Easter, he practically cried because he had missed the Fire Truck. (Kids are funny... could never figure out the best way for them to be happiest ahead of time.)

I got a Halloween greeting from an old friend, thus stimulating my recall to reminisce.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!!!!

2011-09-26T11:08:00.003-04:00

DESCRIBE YOUR BACK PROBLEMS HERE:

Never in my life have I been so confounded by this human machine-my body. I had an ache that started in the middle of the night about 6 weeks ago (seems like forever ago) and it completely confounds me. You see, I think of the body as a machine. When there's a noise my car makes, I tune in... aware. Where is it coming from? Do I have any warning lights? Is it from the engine or from the tires? Does it increase as I speed up or otherwise if I slow down?

One analyses a problem with a machine... but not many machines heal themselves. My computer used to spook me, as when I was sending a friend a questionable email sometimes the message would just be "lost." That mostly was with the PC. The iMac is spook free so far. But unlike a computer; unlike an auto; unlike most machines, the human body is difficult to analyze. It takes the help of trained practitioners. But how does one describe an ache that comes and goes.

I'm perfectly normal one minute, and then the next I can feel exhausting pain pulling at my groin. A tingling sensation over my skin around my hip. The pain may move to my butt. It can get worse with exercise or better. It seems far worse when lying down. At first I could lie on my back comfortably... but I was a side sleeper. It took some getting used to, only to find that now any position doesn't help. So at night I go out to the living room; sit in a slingback chair that holds my back in a spinal tilt that seems to help, and go through all the channels that the Dish Network allows. [Last night I could get HBO... What was THAT all about?] I hope I didn't press something that put the tab for in on my bill. I watched the end of one of this years movie releases. Yesterday I watched several 'legal' movies... one a borrowed NetFlix; another found on STARZ. I either love a movie or can't stand it. There were a lot of rejects last night.

Getting back to the back...(heh back/back). Distraction helps. I decided to watch from the couch which I can quickly set up for most every night, as so few are slept through in my bed at night despite the Miracle Foam surface of the mattress. We bought the couch specifically for my insomnia, as it is not advised to stay in bed and toss and turn. I picked out the couch for comfort, and it seems the only place I can get comfortable eventually when the pain cannot be relieved positionally in my bed.

So... distraction helps. My sling back chair relieves the pain. Walking doesn't hurt. It seems as if my back bothers me more if I've done a lot of bending over, but not at the time I'm doing it, so I've been avoiding that. My whole house needs vacuuming, as the push is okay, but the pull of going back and forth with an upright has always strained my back, so that's out for now. I have taken to once in the last month to just pushing the vac, and then turning and pushing back, like I was mowing a lawn or something that required the direction of a push, rather than vacuuming against the pull of the drive belt, which goes into neutral once pulled back, but still requires seldom used back muscles.

I went to a PT about 9 or 10 years ago when my right knee bloated up like a balloon. It turned out to be blood leaking into the knee joint. There's a protective inner skin... a sack around the joint, so when one bleeds in, it takes a long time for the blood to dissipate. I'd been to three different doctors, went on Viox before it was taken off the market; finally went to my Orthepedic Surgeon and found out about the blood vessel and why it was in such bad shape. I think he wanted a knee replacement to pay for a nice trip to Florida before his retirement, but I nixed the idea. So he sent me to PT.

I am SO not good at discipline. I cannot even talk my self into my own good PT ideas. I don't know why that is, but it is so. I tried, I really did. I think in some ways I really am ADD. I can't keep my attention on doing something long enough to make it a routine. Also, I reject routines. I knew the PT didn't like my attitude, but I took home the rubber tubing that my foot was supposed to stretch against while lying prone. The dog loved to play with that. I did some instructed exercises... then gave up and would take the dogs for their morning walks ...and mid-afternoon walks later. Fixing the trails in the woods was my exercise during the year until covered with snow, and then cross country skiing. THAT skiing exercise is my discipline in that if there's enough snow on the ground, there's not a day like that in which I wouldn't ski unless I was sick to death. Even with a terrible cold... or should I say especially... it would clear my head. I'd feel 100% better by the time I returned.

Oh How I wish I had some snow to ski on right now, though it's not in season. Bad timing for what the chiropractor and the new osteopath physician found was just some arthritis in my lower back. I'm going to the latter for an adjustment this p.m., and then NO DOCTORS until my regular physician and his NP wife come back from a long vacation in Italy. A week from Friday I have an appointment with the latter. She's great. The last time I saw her for just a regular check up when she came into the examination room and asked how I was, I said, "I'm so great it's pathetic!!" She won't treat me like I'm whining about nothing. She's the best. She listens to me and cares.

If I don't have something that will get worse and worse, from now on I'm just going to carry on like there's nothing wrong with me. After my appointment Oct 7, or whenever my NP deems this just arthritic pain in the ass, I'm no longer going to talk about this. I don't need the secondary gain like I had Munchausen's syndrome or something. What the F! I want to feel normal. I don't care to talk about health with anyone or listen to the same [except for your backpain if you care to share]. I just want to take one day at a time and live it to the fullest, and if I have to ignore some pain along the way, by God I'll do it. Life is too short to be driven by one's body which limps along like it's saying you have to go through this because there's a stone in your hub cap. [The noise in my car.] If my pain is as harmless as the stone in the hubcap of my car, I can ignore it until it dies from the lack of attention. I'll go to a hypnotist if need be... or a pain clinic. This stupid coming and going of pain... which, by the way, doesn't feel bad AT ALL right now... probably will as soon as I arise from this seat... this is ridiculous. I won't go through life this way. I'll learn how to ignore it like it never existed in the first place.

In the meantime... I'd like for you to tell me about YOUR pain in the ass... or elsewhere on your back. I'll be compassionate. I'll perhaps learn from yours. I'd appreciate hearing from you about it even if it was 50 years ago... or in the present tense. Maybe you have an answer. That's all I want: an answer to this ridiculous pain.

Your frustrated friend from Cranberry Lake,
Cranberry Jo

2011-09-16T12:35:00.003-04:00

Little Bits of Nature Updates and News:

A little over a week ago ...before the floods of hurricane Lee... I was driving to the Town Square Mall, and went up route 26, then on to route 17 where I could get off at Old Vestal Road. One has to speed up to 65 to get into the traffic, so I stepped on the gas. Then I saw something bobbing like a tiny balloon in the wind, and saw it was my spider. Immediately I thought, "This is too fast," and put on my blinker to show I was slowing down for the exit, and checked the rearview mirror, and then the left side mirror, and he was GONE. Can you believe I felt really badly about it. What is it with me? Am I getting daft, or am I just more appreciative in my old age of the small miracles of life. I felt like this spider, as small as he was, was a companion while I was driving. He may be a little distracting when he climbs out in full breeze at 50 mph, but nearing 65 I thought I'd unfortunately found out the tinsel strength of a spiderweb with spider attached. I think it was Tom that cleaned the old webs away. I missed my critter.

I thought about this for days... then as I was going into Vestal to pick up a gift card for my granddaughter at the high and dry Target, the other stores having been in a state of cleaning up after Lee caused the Susquehanna to back up, and the whole parking lot down in the flood plain of Town Square covered with-by then-dry mud, as I'm nearing Target and checking my side view I see... A WEB. I have my spider back. I haven't actual seen him yet, so I don't know if it's my spider or an offspring. Point is, I have a companion again who sometimes comes out to ride in the breeze when the car is zipping down the road. I somehow hope it's the old spider, and I didn't see him crawl back behind the mirror. Either way I think this is Cool.

Here's something more cute, but just as cool. I noticed a small hole in the middle of one of my paths in the woods. I always wonder what makes these holes. They don't have a bunch of dirt around them like a mole would leave when digging up exiting his hole. Anyway, I picked up a nearby rock that just fit into the hole. It didn't fill it up, but it was a start. I went home on a different path, and hadn't given it another thought until the following day, yesterday. I was with Tom at the time. There was the hole, and in front of it was the same rock I'd put in. I told Tom, "Whatever made that hole, pushed out that rock. I wonder if it will do it again," and I dropped the rock back in. Today we went on our morning walk again, and sure enough, the rock was on the path ahead of the hole where the little beastie pushed it. I pointed this out to Tom, who kind of shrugged a "so what" impression of it. I said, "It's like I have a relationship with this little beast. I put the rock in, and he shoves it out. It probably is an annoying relationship to him, whatever it is, but, nevertheless, a relationship. It feels like I'm interacting, not just observing Nature." [An abbreviated version is on my Facebook page.]

The Rock is IN

The Rock is OUT

[I suppose I should be writing about how great a river our creek was when the rain from Hurricane Lee flooded the lake. But it didn't affect us in the highlands, and was so devastating for many familiar neighborhoods in Vestal as well as just about everywhere along the Susquehanna in NY and PA that it seems ridiculous for me to complain about the fallen trees and the forceful river that my little creek became. All is quiet now, but there is so much destruction and cleanup in the lowlands that I don't know where to begin helping out in some at least monetary way.]

2011-08-27T20:01:00.002-04:00

I RIDE WITH A SPIDER COMPANION:

I was driving up to New York, but hadn't gotten a mile from my house when something caught the corner vision of my left eye.
Something was bouncing in the breeze. I realized it was a spider. I think at one time or another I've had a spider on my rearview mirror in cars I've had in the past. I remember one reeled out on a strand of his own silk like a kite from my antenna. But I never had one LIVING in my side rear view mirror. He tends to his web, and then goes behind the mirror. I wondered if it would hurt him if I used the electrical adjustment of the mirror... it may squash him. I just had to do it. It was just a little tilt. Later I was to find out he was fine.

He's an orb spider... one that builds those intricate webs that look like a lace doily tatted by someone with great skill. I love the look of those webs covered with morning dew. But this poor spider has to keep repairing the web after I go 50 mph or over. Today Tom and I were going to his 60th Class Reunion... he graduated in 1951. He was driving when the spider came out to either repair his web while we were whipping through the air at about 55 mph. He was bouncing on his web like a yo-yo. I introduced Tom to my pet traveling companion. I looked to my right, and saw that there also was a web on the right mirror. I wondered if it was his, or perhaps a mate? Maybe an offspring. I haven't seen that spider yet. "Do you think he has two webs" I asked Tom. I didn't really expect an answer. My not trying to get rid of the spider doesn't surprise Tom. But I was afraid if Tom suddenly saw him, like I did as a rider in the car, it would affect his driving. It didn't. The spider seemed twice as big as I remembered him. Spiders scare me... at the same time they fascinate me.

When the children were young, I stopped Joanna from stepping on ants. I said that they all had a place on this earth, and a reason for being here. I would tell the kids these things, and realize I was telling myself as well. A kid's sense of wonder is a joy to an adult, as they can not only relive that wonder through their eyes, but they can feel a deeper sense of the miracle of perfection found in tiny insects ...and not so tiny spiders. Where we lived in Vestal, N.Y. once in awhile we would see a huge spider... probably a leg span of 4-5 fingers wide... not that I'd put my hand near enough to see. If in the house I'd trap them in a plastic container, and throw them outside. I knew they wouldn't be hurt by my tossing them. But I couldn't stand it if it was on my body or clothing. I'd go into gyrations that would probably throw every joint out of place. I can't stand the things, but I also hate to kill them. Now if there's one on the ceiling, I'll poke near it with anything to make it bail out on its bungee strand of web, and I'd have a plastic or glass container to catch it, AND a scissors to cut the web. Then throw it out the door, holding on to the plastic container. You don't even have to put a lid on it... they can't get a grip on plastic ...like a Cool Whip container. They'd probably figure an escape somehow, but I wouldn't wait to see how.

So, back to my arachnid car companion. I wonder how long he'll last... or she will last. Maybe I'll call it Charlotte. I also wonder if it can see itself in the mirror. Wouldn't that be a kick... here it is out in the breeze, and he sees another in the nether world of the mirror holding on for its life as well.

Life is fascinating. Always a miracle, always a wonder.

2011-08-09T20:04:00.002-04:00

NATURE WILL HAVE THE LAST WORD

In between downpours there was a sunny patch just before sundown, and just after we ate supper, so I took the dogs for a walk.
Everything being so wet, the fragrance was more like a salad before adding the dressing. The trees weren't dripping much, and we remained dry. The lake was placid, and no one was around. Quiet. Then on the way back we walked on the mowed path across the field where soon the golden rod will rule, and let off it's allspice aroma. Before that the brown spotted knapweed was blooming its purple mock thistle tufty blooms... a beautiful color.

The only noise was a sweet crisp "chirp" ...not a song of a bird, but a warning chirp. I tried to chirp back, but in whistling we have to tweet. I matched up my tweets with its chirp evenly... like an echo. Finally the bird was within view, but I couldn't make out the type. It didn't matter. It was a sweet little bird protesting our being in its realm.

Don't worry little bird. People can try to dominate, to populate, to pollute, to tear up the land and make a parking lot. Cities can look like scattered debris in places, like one of National Geographic's pictures of Mexico City. I honestly thought they were showing the largest dump in the world. Under close inspection you could see all the little shacks and domiciles ...no trees... not very pretty, probably it was the poorest area. But, I'll bet if you drove ten miles from that city, you would find a wet path in the evening with a bird giving warning:"This world belongs to us... Nature is going to have the last word. And that world is "beautiful."

2011-08-08T10:20:00.007-04:00

Chloe back when young

THE CAT'S GETTING OLD

Chloe was given to me by my daughter when it wandered into her driveway-an orphan casually looking for a home... or a hand out. Having two other cats that didn't want to share, she gave Chloe to me. Chloe is a Siamese Tiger. So wildly elegant a name for a type of mongrel cat. She looks just like a siamese, but with stripes through her markings showing its mixed breeding. Coming to us as a kitten, she ruled the house and almost posed for pictures. Being wild for awhile, and Tom not wanting a cat to be indoors all the time, she was both an indoor and outdoor cat who ruled the neighborhood... and successfully kept other drop off kittens away, I think, as we've had so few throughout the years... and the few drop offs, Chloe made no mistake telling us we would have to take them to the local animal shelter, as Chloe has always been a loner. But not as of late.

Chloe would hunt for a living back then. At times during the summer, or while someone was visiting... just in case they had a dog, she would disappear for weeks on end, once we posted pictures and when no one responded, we thought she was dead. BUT THE CAT CAME BACK. We always expected she wasn't going to last long since the first time we saw her across the street below us... a road where people seldom go as slow as the speed limit. But since we got her in 1995, she has remained healthy and sleek. She was not at all needy. She'd come in to eat, grant us the right to brush her for awhile, then attack the brush. Soon she'd be at the door, and out for perhaps 24 hours. But not anymore.

Now she's getting old. It seems strange that she's so affectionate... to the point of neediness. So unlike her. I always related the word senility to crossness and unfriendliness. That may have applied to her former actions, as I could only pet her for so long, or brush her only a few strokes. I couldn't have her sleep in the bed for fear she'd scratch me if I moved my feet. She just wasn't too nice a cat back then. Now that she's getting senile it's like we have a different cat. I had to look up the word senile to be sure, and found it only meant that one's brain is beginning to deteriorate. I like it referred to that our brain cells are getting down to a more manageable size. And with Chloe, she's becoming the cuddly cat I always wanted to have. Now she's ...well... as friendly as a kitten. But when I just watch what she does, it's like she's trying always to figure out what she wants. Sometimes she goes to the door right after she's come in, she meows like she wasn't sure what she was meowing about... kind of looking around, and if you don't let her out, soon she's thinking it was that she was going to eat... or thinking she's wanting to be brushed. She just doesn't seem to know what she wants. She now sometimes goes out, only to walk around the balcony to the other door and meow to come in.

In the winter she would stay out in the worst of the cold temperatures, and I'd worry so about her survival I'd think "this is it," only to have her come to the door yowling late at night, hungry as a bear, and eat sometimes two cans of Fancy Feast at one sitting, then be off again to her doing whatever a cat does when there's over a foot of snow on the ground. I could never figure out which tracks were the resident fox's and which were hers. Sometimes she'd be up at the Lake. The first time I saw her so far from home-about 1/4 mile-I wondered if she was my cat or one like her. It seems that all Siamese Tigers look alike. I had a double take seeing one lying on the side of the road up in Montrose, as it looked so much like her. "What was she doing over 8 miles from home," were my grieving thoughts, but knew it couldn't possibly be her. I was relieved it wasn't her, and I don't think she goes much further than where I saw her that first time at the lake. She didn't come up to me, but stared at me in a way that I could almost read her mind. It seemed she said, "Don't you dare give me away to the dogs!" As she knows like I do that when she's seen somewhere outside the realm of the home, the dogs aren't sure it's Chloe or something good to attack and eat. They did that to a poor muskrat once, and it was a horrible act I couldn't believe my dogs were up to doing.

Her being so careful has been the way Chloe has survived... by being so observant and careful. I shocked the vet when Chloe was getting a rare check up and booster shots when I said, "I expect someday she'll probably be killed by a coyote!" He gave me a look that one would get if they had said the 'F' word. I didn't explain, but we took to expecting she wouldn't live long with the fast road nearby, with bears, coyotes, and foxes in the neighborhood, let alone big hawks who may have thought her a good meal, though she's always been quite skinny. If we expected it, it wouldn't hurt so much when the inevitable (or so it seemed) would happen. But she's still here 16 years later. And she's getting old and senile, which is no longer a bad word, as she's now more loving and friendly.

Chloe Now:

2011-07-31T16:33:00.005-04:00

CRANBERRY LAKE NEWS:

The newts, or efts, are alive and well, enjoying the rain as long as it doesn't pour. A few must have been flushed out of their homes during the last deluge that was about 1 1/2 inches... not too much, except it all came within an hour. But Ahh... what relief in the woods with this hot weather. It's easily 10 degrees cooler, and perhaps 20 degrees compared to the thermometer in the sun of the back deck at home. But walking in the cool woods with its canopy of leaves is like looking at all the great art. The leaves in relief against the blue sky look like the green in a Tiffany lamp. The roots of a maple hug the ground making a sculpture of a giant claw, like a big bird left it leg and all.

When the impossible situations of life as seen and heard on TV and radio come crashing into our lives or living rooms at least, it's good to remember that God is in Heaven and all's right with the world. I realize that Nature-all things living on this great earth-the trees, the grass, the birds and newts... we all have protoplasm in common. It's a lightswitch on the wall of life that was turned on at conception and will grow and win in the end just as sure as the sunset... just as sure as gravity. We are all living if we can now breathe, and the sap or blood flows in our limbs. All the stuff going on in Washington just kind of fades away and the Master-the Artist of all artists-the wonder of all the complex living things-overwhelms my serious worries about D.C. and I leave that up to those we voted into office, and on a wing and a prayer they can work out the details.

Think of that wind that blew down the trees so many years ago... but after we'd moved up here. The bark drops off. I pick it up and put it between the bare toes (roots) of the trees on my path to make it more even for those who trod my paths. Even my paths are transitional. The leaves fall, get trod upon, breakdown, leaving the web of their leaf veins. This makes a slipshod carpet eventually that only gets stronger with the traffic of the path... that is if a deluge doesn't wash it away. Everything is temporary and changing. The only thing constant is change, biodegrading in such interesting ways, bringing new life in fine tuned insects that break down nature's leftovers, having them for supper. But it all works out. The wood ants that were working on the hollowed out tree created a huge pile of what looked like sawdust. How did such a big pile get there? Did each ant take each piece of wood in their jaws (mandibles) and drop it off the end above causing this pyramid of dust?

Weeks later, as I was passing this pile of sawdust, the reverse was happening. The pile of sawdust was getting smaller. Ants were on the sawdust, looking around.... then picking up one piece of sawdust.... then walking to one shallow spot or another dumping it there. One piece of sawdust at a time with all the patience of... well, an ant. The insects have nothing better to do. They don't think, "Oh, this stupid piece of sawdust isn't going to make a difference. It's a small change, and along with everything living, it becomes a part of the whole changing universe.

My path was changed almost every time a tree falls, as was the case this spring. I had to reroute it around the base of the old rotted out maple. And like an ant's path if you could see its line from standing above it, my path as seen from a balloon, may see me as small as an insect, and the changes on my path as natural to my nature as the way the ants biodegrades the woods. In my natural way, I'm both forming a path and part of the biosystem of the woods, just by repairing the trail and walking to and from the Lake.

Take heart all of you who worry too much about federal problems that have grown too big for our understanding. We too are a part of nature. Enjoy all that it has given you, and walk in the woods and just wonder... just wonder.

Sincerely,
Cranberry Jo

2011-07-24T13:31:00.003-04:00

Voices, Vibes, and How DO We Hear Them(?):

I became aware of listening to something when coming home from shopping after our Sunday Breakfast. I was listening to NPR, and what "I" heard wasn't what they were talking about. There is a guy who talks about little venues or stories that has a different kind of voice than the norm. I almost want to call the station and tell him to clear his throat, but it's just his way his way of talking. So I concentrated on exactly what voice sound I was hearing. Was it all of his words or just the vowel sounds. It was the vowels, but in his case, the whole word, the whole delivery of his thoughts for the day were like a rapid fire stutter of each word from his voice box. The vowel sounds are the more breathy sounds, so, thinking how our trachea is and especially the larynx is formed, I was thinking that since all voices are vibrations, that the "strings" of his larynx must be loose in the middle, where the more breathy sounds are formed and somehow cause this vocalized sensation.

Now, I am no expert. But I haven't ever heard anything said about actually HOW we form our words in respect to our voice box. Certainly our lips and tongue do most of the conscious work, but how we automatically control-our larynx and trachea makes a real difference. There are voice teachers and elocution lessons that can train people to better use their voice box or larynx. My stepchildren's aunt Jane was losing her voice, which was always raspy, and went to a specialist. She was supposed to talk differently from then on to preserve what little voice she had left, and just couldn't do it after over 60 years of doing it one way... talk about a habit hard to shake. So, I'm thinking about her voice while I'm listening to these people talk, and the person interviewed by this NPR regular moderator also rasped or rattled his A's and U's. Any word with an a pronounced A or U in it would kind of rasp or rattle. It was like if you slowed down their talk without changing the timbre or key, you would have a sound like a kid's riding a bike with cardboard sticking into his spokes to make a sound. If they said "Ahh" it would kind of stutter in the throat (nothing to do with the tongue). It would be like a rapid fire "ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah" ...and I mean really rapid, and probably more ahs than I put down. The problem with slowing down the tape, you also lower the voice, so it would be a difficult thing to have some kind of a computer break down the person's vowel pronunciation without losing the actual timbre of the vibrations.

I got thinking of Chinese Restaurants... more the old style ones than the newer Americanized ones in that all the help used to seem to talk high when talking their native language. Not understanding the language you notice more the key in which the person or group speaks. But the help in those restaurants now, for the most part, when they talk in either English or their native language seem to talk in the same "key" as our Americanized English. Why was it that in the old movies, in the old Chinese neighborhoods... maybe Japanese as well, they would talk in a higher key than the normal American "Key of English." Not being a music major ever, but knowing the song from the Sound of Music, in the United States I think we generally talk in the key of C. The "'Doe'" in "Doe a deer a female deer...."

Then I got thinking about how we hear. I could never unlock the riddle of why some voices bother me to the point where I have to tune them down or off if I hear them on a radio or television set. I don't know why these raspy voices bother me so. And it's not just that, classical music bothers me, as the opera's aria hurts my ears, and violin string music seems to clash with the ringing in my ears. And forget about Hard Rock. And why is it I love the sound of Zamfir's pan flute music. I had a girlfriend who had such a nice low voice I called her my velvet-voiced friend.

Why is it we all LOVE Morgan Freeman's voice. I think low voices that are smooth are not only easy on the ears, but sensually pleasurable... take the bedroom music of the late Barry White.

There also are the voice teachers and elocution lessons that can sometimes actually change someone's voice. The worst voice I ever heard was from a woman who was single at the same time I was single back in the early 80s. She wondered why it was so difficult to attract a man. I couldn't tell her that it was because her voice was a nasal disaster, but it was. Loud without effort, and a nasal twang that twanged me the wrong way. She actually was once married and had a young adult daughter, who was at the time at an Ashram retreat, and I could understand why. If this nasally woman somehow did modulate her voice, I'm sure she would have come across better, but her personality was kind of grating as well. Grating-that's a good adjective for the kind of voice she had. But hers wasn't the voice that is like a cardboard stuck in spokes-grating kind of voice. But it was just as irritating in a different way to me.

Take Sara Palin [better you than me... Just kidding]. Palin had a series on Alaska which I watched with my husband Tom, her number one fan. I actually like that series. I surprised myself more than anyone, as I thought I hated the sound of her voice. Now I realize that when she's speaking, she has to project her voice, and the timbre of her voice seems to change and sound more piercing to my poor eardrums, let alone the interpretation of what she's actually saying, but it could be 'just me.'

We are getting back to ME... what a relief, as it's all about ME, isn't it. Or do you have a problem with the actual sound of some people's voices too? Sometimes the sound of music becomes the sound of mucus. What can you do? If you have subtitles on your TV, you can mute them and read, or on the radio you can just bear with it or turn it down to a whisper. Too bad we can't do that when out in the public.

I just wonder how many people have the same problem listening to irritating voices. I'll betcha (a favorite Palin word) a lot of you do.

Sincerely,
The sound of silence lover [or Morgan Freeman's voice],
Cranberry Jo

PS It's such a hot day today I think I'll again watch The March of the Penguins
and cool off... and enjoy that mellow voice of Morgan Freeman.

2011-07-13T11:21:00.006-04:00

PEAKES ISLAND MAINE

Today I'm feeling better about life-both the life I've had and my future.

This morning when walking up to Cranberry Lake with Tom and the dogs, I was going ahead, with Polly trailing behind me obediently on the reel out leash which I feed through the belt to my belly bag so I can have my hands free to use my trekking poles. The bag is where I keep an extra belt for Bear and snacks for the dogs. There is also the constant camera on hand just in case, for snapshots of things besides memories, but some of them too are nice... most of them are just in my mind's eye.

This morning the picture that came into view was in my mind. The wood smoke from a cottage wafted in my direction and I was immediately transported in my own Wrinkle in Time to the back shore of Peakes Island where as a preteen and teen we used to vacation there in the summer. I was suddenly in my minds eye at the edge of the rocky shore where we would have wiener roasts using the fragrant driftwood. I could practically hear the waves splashing over the rocky shore. I could hear Aunt Eleanor's lilting laughter. My mother's sister in law, married to her brother Herman, about 15 years younger than him, Aunt Eleanor was my favorite aunt. She was everything I wanted to be, pretty even in glasses. I almost wanted glasses as a teen just because of Eleanor looking so good in hers. It seemed part of her personality, as they sparkled like her laughter.

Later in life I saw a picture of someone I didn't recognize from a family gathering I hadn't attended, and my brother Pete said, "That's Aunt Eleanor." She had gotten contact lenses. I was disappointed. It's funny how you get used to seeing a beloved person in a certain way and you don't want their looks to change no matter what "they want". Perhaps because of that, the last time I could have seen Eleanor was at my mother's funeral's reception after. I hadn't known she was there, and no one pointed her out, as they just assumed I'd gone over to reminisce. I rue that, as it was the last time I'd have seen her, as she died of breast cancer some years after. That makes me sad, but this morning, going through a time warp and feeling, smelling the smoke of the wood fire, and my mind's view of the past gave me such a sense of peace and pleasure that I only experienced that back shore picnic all over again.

Tom seldom if ever reminisces. Who knows, maybe that was one of his finer points when marrying him, as my family did that to a fault. I don't think I reminisce with others too much, but when I thrill in memory to almost experiencing a wonderful time all over again, it's better than really getting into a good book where you feel like you are there. Memories of the good times are the mountain top experiences in life... meaning the highs. Valleys can be beautiful, but the sad experiences that one compares to valleys aren't. I hope others, when they look back, can see the mountain top experiences of the best times in their lives. It's a mini vacation any of us can take whether on a walk, or lying in bed trying to sleep. What a great place to go when you want some repose and a good place for meditation.
:-)

2011-06-27T12:16:00.002-04:00

Fracting for Gas (...referring to the film Gasland)

Thought you may be interested in this article:

"There are lots of ... naturally causing effects that occur," says Matthew Brouillette of the Commonwealth Foundation, a think tank in Pennsylvania – where much of the film was shot. "It's really no surprise. We find that 40 percent of the wells in Pennsylvania have some sort of naturally occurring methane gas and other types of things."

"Gas can migrate ... from poor drilling into people's private water wells. ... We have had gas move from poorly done gas drilling through the ground and reach people's water wells. So there is a need for oversight ... gas does have some impacts. It is not perfectly clean. But compared to coal and oil, which are more dirty fossil fuels, natural gas can be produced and consumed in a manner that is cleaner than coal."

Filmmaker Josh Fox concedes the states concluded that the fire wasn't caused by fracking, but he says the government regulators collude with industry, or don't use good science. His movie portrays Hanger as an indifferent bureaucrat. Hanger says the movie is just inaccurate. "Josh Fox has a mission. ... He is trying to shut down the gas–drilling industry."

Frankly, I'm skeptical of all of them: lefty movie makers who smear companies, companies with economic interests at stake and the regulators, who are often cozy with industry and lack essential knowledge. The surest environmental protectors are property rights – and courts that assign liability to polluters.

But hydraulic fracturing is a wonderful thing. It's not new. Companies have done it for 60 years, but now they've found ways to get even more gas out of the ground. That's the reason gas is getting cheaper, and panicky politicians no longer rant about America "running out of fuel."

Natural gas is not risk-free, but no energy source is. Perfect is not one of the choices.

Read more: The truth about 'fracking' http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=299889#ixzz1QUcSFdke

PS I have found that with EVERY new innovation come the detractors who would like life to go on
as is forever, and if a civilization let them rule their way, Electricity would still be a thing too dangerous
to have in people's homes. Edison himself even thought that. Just think about new sources of energy, and I feel if we are going to listen to the downside, we would want to counteract that with the good side and draw your own conclusions with good researched reasons for them. Personally, I will not let others negativity and slanted views influence my mentality. I've been given a brain that can decide for itself...it's like the scale that Lady Justice holds in representing the U.S. Courts. Almost everything has a down side. It is up to us to use our mental aptitudes to weigh the truth... on BOTH sides, and come up
with our OWN decisions on what to support, and what to rule against.

2011-06-08T10:22:00.003-04:00

HOUSE ARREST OR BALL ON CHAIN FOR POLLY

Ah, SPRING, and the spring babies are tight in their dens or safe in their nests... right? Not if Polly is on the loose. Beagles are compulsive obsessive hunters... so are basset hounds, and Polly is a combo of both, so she's more compulsive than either... at least I think.

Yesterday they discovered that the resident rabbit (wild, of course, but has learned to cope) has a nest (I think) under the woodshed. Bear can go from one subject to another, so when HE's intent on something, I know there is a fresh enticing scent. Both went to work in tandem to dig out from under the woodshed even if it meant having the woodshed drop down on top of them... if they would even notice that fly in the ointment. But, the wise bunny had made her get-a-way to the area under the coop... much easier to dig at, and no babies in case they dig their way through.

They got so far in under the coop I was afraid they'd get stuck, so I withdrew one dog at a time and put them back on leashes... the leashes I have handy for walks ... Especially this time of year.

Why is it I feel compelled to let them do the instinctive thing so much, that when I'm defending the wild spring mothers in den, grass and hidden under brush and woodsheds, I want them to have their fun, but safely so that no baby animals are killed or injured. This morning we took our walk up to Cranberry Lake. When we got to the dirt road at the end of the path, I could hear the soft warnings of a robin for her baby to stay still and not make a sound. I turned to the opposite side of the road from where the mother robin was posted, and saw the obedient chick, sitting as still as rock. The dogs weren't aware or interested and though Polly was on a leash, I hadn't had to worry as she was unawares. Years ago I'd reprimanded either dog when we happened across a baby robin-too big for the nest-being led by the mother from the limbs above to hop to a safer place. They are interesting birds, robins. They prefer to stick around homes, at all other times... then go through the dangerous trek to bring their out of nest babies who are yet too young to fly to hop to safer realms.

Anyhow... Today, having safely past the robin chick, Bear was way ahead dashing towards the dam. I'd forgotten, but for the last 4 or 5 days a pair of mallards were at the dam, and not anxious enough to go far when flushed out of the area by Bear. I think they know that it's both a place where they will be bothered like this, but a safer place to nest then in the deep woods behind the lake where in the muddy bogs, thick with fern, though looking like a haven for ducks' nests, the mud shows traces of coyote paw prints... so many prints it creates a path, showing me that they make their rounds regularly. So, though inconvenient at times, the ducks chose the populated areas where the summer residents actually are a shield from their predators. So, Bear had flushed out the pair of mallards. I was kind of glad about that, as Tom was with me, and I wanted him to see them. It's funny how we know what a mallard looks like, yet it's always a thrill to see wild ducks. And Bear doesn't seem all that interested in the ducks... he's more interested in getting a stick a beaver has whittled down for the dam. He brings back that quarry so proudly. It's sticks or digging a hole that is his thing. Forget about tennis balls or even chew toys. I think that's why his teeth are so bad... he never chews anything... or maybe it's that he never chews anything because his teeth are so bad. Whereas he would rather bite me than have his teeth brushed, and the last thing I want to do for a dog is brush their teeth, he's slowly losing his teeth. I think six have been pulled so far by the vet. But, I digress.

This is about Polly... about the only threat to wildlife, as Bear is only a threat to wild sticks or things that live underground. So, the ducks having already been bothered, plus the collection of pine pollen and weeds that were loosened by the wild geese in back of the lake had caused a scum across the shore where I had intended to have Polly wade and cool off, it already 80 degrees in the shade, I decided to take her back down to Cranberry Run, the creek created from the overflow of the lake.

You know those reel out leashes... I have a 16ft. one. I have a fanny pack strapped around my waist which holds a camera and an extra leash for Bear who seldom needs it, as he sticks around. I slide the handle of the reel out leash that's attached to Polly's collar, on to the belt to the fanny pack. It's like the proverbial apron string but better, so I can keep her leashed, give her a little freedom, and still use my trekking poles (they help me to keep my knees from tiring). Well, try that down at the creek where brush and fallen logs abound. I had to hold the leash in my hand there, and carry my poles as best I could when passing the leash from hand to hand around the bushes and logs all down the creek. I could have let her trail it like a ball and chain, but I didn't want it to get wet, and I also remember the time I let her go across the creek on her "ball and chain" and she dashed up the hill ... one of those steep hills where you climb by using your hands like a rock climber, only with shifting debris slipping under my sneakers, and a hot sweaty job even on a cool day. I always fear she'll get away from me and then get caught where I can't see her, and she NEVER barks unless at a stranger or if she gets wind of a wild critter. Barring that, she could be caught for hours ... perhaps days, and never bark for me to find her and let her loose. (Bear... he barks for any and every reason. His other favorite thing to do besides digging; carrying sticks; and jumping at the door.)

Well, we got back safe and sound. Polly still was bent on digging beneath the woodshed, but there are enough rocks around the shed so it's impossible for them to do this... a smart thing for this rabbit survivor to know. So, she had her exercise... and so did her jail-keeper... me.

2011-04-05T11:26:00.004-04:00

COMMON AS SALT

I once had an insurance man who came around in person to collect the very minimal life insurance payment. The monthly bill was so small I couldn't figure how John Hancock could afford to have anyone collect in person. I looked forward to his visits. He was an older gent with a drinking problem, but he'd usually come around mid morning when more or less sober. I forget if I'd offer him some instant coffee, which was my drink at the time. (Now I make it on the coffee maker with regular coffee grounds.)

This guy would just sit and chat like he had all day. It was pleasant respite for me, as I have never been one to drop in on neighbors, nor have them drop in on me, so it was a way of both he and I to just talk to another person without feeling like we had to be someone we're not.

I couldn't tell you what we talked about. It wasn't important. It was the feeling of the comfort of a friend who expected nothing of him, and he expected nothing of me. We didn't try to solve each others problems, nor spread gossip. It was just a comfortable conversation with another human being who was of like mind in that we didn't weigh our words, nor try to impress.

One time he said to me, "You know, you are as common as salt." I took it as a grand compliment, as I knew what he meant. I was someone with whom he could talk to as if he was walking on a path in the woods talking to himself, but it was like having that person across the room. I felt about him in the same way. Common as salt. But so rare. So rare. There was rarely another person with whom I could be so "common" around. I had to always weigh my words and test the ground on which my words were to be weighed.

I wish for everyone that one person with whom you can open up, speak your thoughts, and be your common self without the weight of evaluation.

2011-03-02T11:06:00.003-05:00

FLOATING ON BLADES IN THE WINTER

When I was in grade school in North Woburn, Massachusetts, I found a friend who was a wild sister at heart. Although a year younger than I, Julie Foley knew the area through the woods near a creek that would flood in the winter then freeze. It was in that woodsy area where I learned how to skate... got my balance and the gist of moving forward first by hanging on to one tree and pushing myself off to another. We had walked through those woods and knew where the boys had a hut -- where they could go off together and smoke, swapping stories and having pissing contests. Somehow they never were around when we sought out their hiding place, and kind of called it our own.

Once the ice had hardened enough, we had skated every chance we'd get after school and on weekends when the ice hid the bottoms of the trees and we could skate through the woods... then, in spring, the water would form on top of the ice making it more challenging as if we fell, we would be soaked. Julie's mother would beat her if she came home with her snow pants sopping wet. But, we would take the challenge, whereas we were pretty good at skating by then. You know how that turned out... of course, Julie fell and got soaking wet. "We'll have to go to the hideout and I'll take them off to dry." (That would only have taken a few days, but what did we know.) We finally found the hut, and crawled in. Julie took her pants off and together we tried to wring them out. It was clear then that they wouldn't dry quickly, so we looked for matches, and sure enough, the boys had left a store of them. We took them outside, broke off dead dry branches, and started a campfire so we could hang her pants over it and dry them out. All we succeeded in doing was to warm them up and give them a nice hickory smoke aroma.

I forget what happened next. She probably went home with her warm smokey pants, and got a good spanking, while I went home directly so I wouldn't get any blame along with my poor friend who had to confront her mom.

I thought about that today. It's near the end of cross country skiing season, and it was just great out there today. Even going up small slopes I got some glide, and floated over the field above as if suspended on air... the next best thing to hovering over the land on glider wings. My dog Bear was always within view. Polly was within our ear range barking at the smells of wild things that came out to view their shadow or whatever. The field isn't flat, but kind of domed so that you can easily push up the slope until you find yourself going gently down the other side effortlessly.

I skied down from the field to the lake, hugging the snowy sides of the road, atop the drift made by their plowing the road throughout the winter. Once over where the water cuts under the road, I went to my left below the cabin boarded up for the winter, and went along the ridge of the gorge below where the water was at its gurgling best... melodic and bubbling, not roaring like later when the snow melts. As I moved along the edge, over swells of snow, over snow covered logs of the fallen deadwood, weaving through the bushes and trees, I remembered my skating through the woods near School Street in North Woburn with Julie. I remembered how great it was to have the companionship of a friend... my very first girlfriend in the world. And I felt like that pigtailed girl on ice skates, weaving through the trees, skating through woods that seemed like living a life from a storybook. I was doing it again... on skis.

Julie, I hope you remember those things now. What nice memories. What great times we had together, before we went in separate directions, being forced by nature to grow up and put away our childish things. I hope you take out your "childish things" and still play once in awhile. I hope you have companions to do it with whether a friend or a furry one.

2011-02-11T10:29:00.005-05:00

Family History:

When turning a landmark age, we ask ourselves what we'll be remembered for. I hope I am remembered kindly... of course, by that time, it may be with breath of relief by the time I shrug these mortal coils.

So, this year (meaning my 70th) among other things, I decided to condense the family albums. What a job that is. Not so much from deciding whether to keep the pictures of the dandelions and violets, but condensing events to fit a page or two.

I had started putting the albums into matching sizes, all the scrap-booking type with the white oversize pages that just fit so many photos snugly and sometimes with the help of a trim here and there. This project started years ago... with, at least, the purchase of about 5 albums/scrapbooks from AC Moore. I got my Aunt Daw's life down pat with some of the scrapbooking skills of including her Navy and WACS photos and stripes, as well as my childhood with the help of her pictures, as almost exclusively taken by her, being the only avid photographer in the family. Then I put the project aside... Two years later, here I am trying to catch up to the present, and I'm only to 1993.

Anyhow, I became more ambitious this year, and recapturing the events photographed through the year where I married Tom; and the year Jo married Russ; and my first two grandchildren were born. Who knew how many memories both wonderful and emotionally draining would come up. As I'm doing all this, I'm watching the drivel that passes for evening's prime time viewing. That part helps, believe it or not, as it keeps me from getting too emotionally involved with the things that happened at certain times through the course of My And OUR family's lives. It forces me to focus rationally, as emotions can't multi-task, though there were some pages that wrenched my heart so, that the relief of watching TV, whether a morbid drama or a comedy, helped my get through those paralyzing pages which would take me hours to finish, as if the scenario weighted me down so emotionally.

So, "Why are you telling us this?" you may ask. I guess because I wanted you to all know how important our family has been in our integrated lives, our children growing into adults, marrying, and those in-laws becoming part of our families pictures, not only their spouses, but all the extended family. We are all emotionally connected whether it be by blood, or adoption, or marriage, and sometimes unofficial adoption of close friends of the family or children's families. So, when there is a loss, we all share it equally, though felt emotionally more or less to how close that person is, but it's like we are all in the same boat, so that when things switch positions we all feel the movement emotionally just as much as one feels that need to re-shift our weight to keep the balance.

I just wanted to write this to let you know that what you do affects the rest of your family, whether you want it to or not. In redoing the album I realized how my divorce of my first husband must have affected my children. How my marrying Tom affected his and my children, both immediately and how it played throughout the years as we grew closer. I found out how much guilt I have retained and stashed into my gut to bring up for review every so often, and really aired it out in this process of redoing the albums, especially as I have journals which help point out the exact date things happened... but I also can feel the emotions all over again when reading about how I felt at that time.

When it comes to guilt, I conclude that guilt is selfish. It's like that saying "It's all about ME, isn't it?" when I let the family dynamics of loss get me down when I'm not directly involved. After all, it is other than myself that things are happening to, like an adult child separating or getting a divorce, or how it affects another family member when they are having a personal loss. It is always okay to feel the thrill of a newborn; the happiness of a marriage ceremony; the congratulatory feelings of the other's accomplishment, but it is also okay to grieve the losses as well ...those decisions we feel affect us in a negative way. But we can't make judgments for another. They must do this for themselves or be enslaved by the opinions of others.

But there are times when we feel and still feel that our guilt has been merited. I was wrong one time about not being there for a family member who was having dire problems. And wouldn't it be nice if I could have a redo and do things differently. But at those times, thank goodness I felt a guiding Spirit with whom I could pour out my heart and look for some guidance, and confess to the person I wronged to how I should have reacted or shown more understanding, hoping for his forgiveness.

In other words, I've been going through all the feelings over the years when there is a birth, a marriage, a divorce, a death. But, wow, it's life. It's how it all plays out. Each of us has to make choices that at times seem wrong to the others who have to shift around in that family boat to achieve a better balance again. When one objects of the decision another has made, there is no way they can stand in the shoes of that member of the family who is living the decision.

A family member's feeling of guilt is the knowledge of making waves and changing the status quo. That guilt does no good. Guilt only makes the inevitable a more rocky road in which to endure. One must realize in life that "this is the only life I've got, and I've got to decide for myself or I'll forever resent those who coerce me to do what in their minds is right." We can talk with each other, express our feelings to each other, but in the long run, we have to be masters of our own souls or we aren't really living at all. When we feel we've hurt someone... then we need to apologize, and ask for forgiveness. When someone has hurt us, tell them, and ask them for an apology and then give them forgiveness. It's one of the most valuable gifts we can give one another... forgiveness.

For example, when I married Al Zumbuhl, Sr., I married for life. I had all intentions to fulfill the "...to death do us part." But, as I approached 40 years of age, I began to see my life as if it were already over and would have to be an uphill road from there on... it would not have been a life at all. The ironic thing is, before I made the decision to separate with the intent of getting a divorce, had I still been an agnostic... and I couldn't have done it without feeling that a greater Power would stand by me even if I made the decision to go seek something more for this life. It was like my faith made me strong enough to give me the grit to do something about ...not just my, but our impossible situation, as my first husband was not happy either. No one was happy for awhile. But, in not having divorced Al, I could have lived without guilt. But what I would probably have lived with would be resentment... "I did this (staying married) for YOU" [...Whether the "You" was God, the marital Promise, or my Children], the resentment would be the implication of my whole gist of life. And maybe that is wrong, but when faced with the gut-revelation at around 40 years of age, that one's life is already perhaps half over, one thinks, "Is that all there is to the rest of my life... more of this?" Life is not just a practice game. We get no second chances to relive our lives in a different scenario. We must push on and use our God given free will to do what we feel we have to do to live a life and be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, "I did my best, and tried to be all I could be. If that isn't enough, then what is?"

More and more I'm thinking that no matter how hard we try to make this life as perfect as a heaven on earth, we find that this lifetime seems to be more a test... a practice ground for something More. I used to be more sure what it was all about when I first felt the touch of God, but that was the honeymoon stage of any belief system in which we find guidance. Guidance can lead us only so far. We've been given our free will, and with that comes our humanity, and with that comes the history of civilization. We are not angels. We are not perfect. This life is difficult. Probably as difficult as a good story well told. "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily; Life is just a dream" doesn't make for a page turner.

People are mainly survivors, and as I redo these albums, I put in the engagement pictures, the marriages, the picnics and festivals, the family gatherings thus far (up to 1993), knowing who is and who isn't going to be in them in the album a few years later. It's sad, and I relive it. Would I change it if it was a magic album and could have re-dos like there was some parallel universe? ...Like I could back up, turn around and take a different road, paddle a different river, do something about the obstacles to make them passable? I thought about that. I mean, why leave things in the album that are no longer relevant... a marriage ceremony that has long since broken up; a grandchild living elsewhere with adoptive parents. But, that is not only a lie, it's impossible to do, and it's an important part of the story.

Our lives together as well as apart are what it's all about. Our history is not in the remaking, but in the capturing the story as it's played out, and stored on the bottom shelf of the bookcase on the right of the TV, under Tom's trophy Moosehead that seems to be nodding in approval of how it's all played out.

Like a good novel, it makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it elates and depresses... it's how we grow. It's our own family history. You have to do what you have to do. And I stick in the pictures as it plays out, and we can only look back and wish we had done things better, but it is photographed and witnessed... it cannot be changed. We do our best, and then get on with it. So be it!

2011-01-28T12:38:00.002-05:00

An Old Inspirtion:

[I wrote this back in 1976, and happened across it today. I thought I'd share it with my few readers]

The more I think about it, the more I feel that all living things have a common bond. To never see the living plant or tree, to never pat a small furry animal, to never see a butterfly--to never witness this frustrates the soul of a person.

The crowded Asian countries strive for an inner peace with the aid of a small garden with a pond, and a fish, and a beautiful plant. The completed bond--creature, plant, and person. An atonement (at-one-ment) with the world... a soul appeasing unit.

The small child breathes life into his furry stuffed animals or dolls as he or she halls them under the covers in a soul-satisfying security. The religious leader walks to the top of a green hill, or deep into the forest, feeling the inspiration of God. The boy and his dog stretch out and run, attuned with nature--seemingly of one soul and in complete empathy with each other.

So, the common bond is perhaps in the living protoplasm, but, yet, in More--in the Creator--our Common Denominator. He created All Nature, not just reasoning beings--people. It isn't wrong to feel akin to the tree or the deer that grazes on the fields below. For the Father set the sap flowing in the tree, and breathed life into the animal. And he installed a spirit in the human that first of all recognizes its kinship with nature. I think it's impossible to truly believe and not realize that a spirit flows through all living things.

Often escaping from a life overflowing with pressures and anxieties, I have walked quietly in the forest awaiting God's inspiration. And in stooping to pick up a small newt, or in watching a butterfly sipping nectar, I have somehow come more closer to God than in an ornate cathedral. Looking up at the stars fills me with awe. Hearing the breeze as it sings through the pines fills me with Peace. And touching one of God's living creatures fills me with a complete understanding of the miracle of his perfection. And awaiting in quiet anticipation fills me with His inspiration.

The Native American, who feels that everything living has a spirit, isn't far from the Christian who feels that there is some of God in every living thing.

2011-01-18T11:31:00.002-05:00

CRUSTY SNOW

Everyone who knows me real well knows I love the winter and cross country skiing... However, the reason for this is twofold if not more. The snow puts a blanket over everything, and peace and quiet can be had out on the trail. Also, though it's great exercise, it's also my favorite way to meditate. I almost go into a trance. Sometimes I couldn't tell you after which trail I'd taken through the woods. But... Today there's a thin crust from freezing mist upon the snow. I figured I'd try skiing on it even though it may be rough going. It was fine when it came to the pace I take, and easier than if I was walking with boots or with snowshoes. However, it was so noisy it really put a damper on meditation. It was like someone scraping the walk with a plastic snow-shovel.

I could hear the difference when I passed under a hemlock, as its boughs protected the snow, and suddenly it would be only a whisper... however, there are more bare-boned hardwood, and for the most part, in order for peace and quiet, I had to stop and listen. The dogs didn't like the crusty-ness, but their paws breaking through was soundless compared to my skis which amplified the sound. Polly trailed along behind. No trace of squirrels today, nor mice beneath the snow. Frankly, I think they only came along for the broken pieces of snack-bones I had in my belly-pack. If I'm reading their minds, I'd say they were bored. But it's exercise, and exercise for them as well. We all feel better after a walk in the woods. And when I would pause, and listen to the silence; I would meditate on whatever is bothering me, listen for inspiration in order to resolve questions that have been bothering me.

So often I worry about problems which I have NO way of solving, and have a sadness from the worry. When I got back a few minutes ago, I came into the house, and checked my email in the computer/guest room just in on the left from the front door.
I got some forwarded messages. I'm sorry, people, I get so many that the only way I can keep up is to delete most of them. I can discern which are repeats, and which are a bit "spammy" whereas they want me to forward a honey-sweet message to 6 of my girlfriends. Sorry, "Delete, Delete,Delete." But one had this little one liner that helped inspiration to get through this noisy morning of crackly snow:

An Angel says, 'Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn't happen, you have worried in vain.. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice.

I guess that just about sums it up. Have a good day.

Love,
Cranberry Jo

2010-11-21T13:07:00.003-05:00

LIFE IS A COURSE IN HUMANITY: Margaret Atwood's Moral Disorder:

When I hear an author's name mentioned on Writer's Almanac (NPR) I want to know more, as Garrison Keillor seems to point out only the best when it comes to authors of the many genres of written works. He mentioned Margaret Atwood's birthday and her standing as an author and novelist, so when near a library Thursday, I checked on her works, and chose a small book called MORAL DISORDER and Other Stories. This author seems to have her finger on what the idiosyncrasies are that make us human. The first story mentions how some people just need to unburden themselves of bad news. "He wants to pass the bad news on as soon as possible-get it off his hands, like a hot potato. Bad news burns him."

You see... I never thought of the bearers of bad news in that way. And it is probably true. I know when I've itched to share a shocking piece of bad news with others, and was afraid that as the phrase goes, they'd "shoot the messenger." Or think of me as a depressing person to talk to, having been the bad news bearer. I feel it's great to read for enjoyment, while at the same time coming to a better understanding of myself and what it is like to be human. Sometimes I feel like an alien who is still learning about how to understand this human race, and at the age of 70, I'm still learning.

In the second chapter, the main character has been told that her mother was in an expectant state, and for her to be extra helpful. When she overheard references to this as being a poor situation, and not realizing it was just because her mother was pretty old for having a baby, she interpreted what she heard as there could be something wrong. She learned how to knit, and knitted a layette for the baby while wondering what was going to be wrong. In thinking of all the dire possibilities, she thinks, "At the back of my mind, my feat of knitting was a sort of charm, like the fairy-tale.... If I could only complete the full set of baby garments, the baby that was supposed to fit inside them would be conjured into the world, and thus out of my mother. Once outside, where I could see it--once it had a face--it could be dealt with. As it was, the thing was a menace."
[...All turned out okay... just thought I'd mention. At the same time, I was thinking of how I used to have a rabbit's foot, or think, if I do such and such, like eat all my vegetables for a week, something good would happen. We all do that. It's part of being human. It's also an active prayer, though sometimes bartering with God.

These short stories are interconnected in a way that isn't immediately obvious except inwhat the cover-flap describes as "Atwood['s]... access to her people's emotional histories, complete understanding of their hearts and imaginations." I would say it's written in a way that if someone like myself was reading for a better understanding of the human condition, this book of interlocking short stories will show our reflections for detailed revelations, though sometimes through a glass darkly.

2010-10-09T11:06:00.003-04:00

We Have the Sun Again:

It seems so nice to have the sun beating down on the earth drying up all that moisture left after two weather fronts that came through leaving a total of seven inches of rain. The mornings are chilly, and we have to wear our jackets to walk in the woods. I even would put on my cotton work gloves under the pretense of wanting to move logs or rocks along the trail, but it was because my fingers were cold. It's that between time when it's too chilly to just wear a shirt, but not cold enough to wear a really warm jacket, or your peeling off a layer coming home through the field in the sunshine.

After a quick cool walk yesterday morning, and staying inside until near noon, the dogs were getting antsy, so I went up to the little pond just yards from the back steps to the back deck. As soon as I cast a shadow on the water, something leaped in, and I could see something hiding in leaves under the water where it was dry before we got all the rain. I lay on my belly with just my head casting a very still shadow on the water, hoping that whatever it was would come up for air. It was a frog, of course. And sure enough, when I waited patiently, he surfaced, and stayed there floating with his head and shoulders above the water, but as still as a statue. He was a unique color of jade green and shades of off white under, with those copper eyes that can see what is in front of him as well as what is at his back... one of the few animals that can do that.

The sun was warm and toasty. Bear was busy digging around areas where perhaps moles sought higher ground... or maybe he could sense the frogs in the grass. I didn't really notice. I just lay there thinking how few times I ever do that... just lay out in the sun. Usually in the summer, there are flies or gnats bothering me... not many mosquitoes around here, thankfully. A few tiny insects lit on the surface of the water. I told the frog about that, like he'd say, "Gee, Thanks," and zap them up. Probably the reason we don't have mosquitoes is because the fish and the frogs eat them before they emerge from their larval state.

I don't know where Polly was. She's been busily nosing and digging after small animals that inhabit the grassy hill beside the garage and below the side yard's lawn, coming in with muddy black paws and nose. I like that she doesn't know how old she is. I don't like that I know how old I am. I sometimes wish I was like the dogs, and I think before I hit the landmark age of 70, I really hadn't confronted that weary fact that I'm becoming elderly. I find myself wanting to have a pity party with others to just complain and give and get insights on what it means to age. You see, I don't know HOW to be old. I got a glimpse of it when I went through menopause. I became forgetful. I had aches and pains. I remember telling my children that when I get old and helpless to just throw me into an old folks home... don't worry about me wanting to live with them, or their having to pay any attention to me. I'll probably become forgetful enough so I won't even know who they are anyway.

It's one thing to say how you're going to be when you get old. It's a totally different thing when you confront old age. I've decided that I don't like it at all. I'm going to be like my dogs. I'm not going to pay any God Damned attention to it. I'm just going to carry on within my abilities and enjoy watching frogs, walking in the rain, skiing in the snow, shoveling the balcony to the feeder to feed my fine feathered friends, and "To Hell With Growing Old." We are the ONLY animals on the face of this earth that make a big deal of it. It's just life. If we think of it and think ahead, we are just going to drive ourselves crazy.

So, I'm telling myself, "Enjoy each day as it comes, and suit up accordingly, and get outside and enjoy the sun, the rain, the snow--the warmth, the cool and the cold. Take a deep breath, and be glad you're alive. AND stop complaining," as turning 70 has really been a psychological downer. Depressing!!! Sorry if any of my readers are older. You must think I'm crazy. Sometimes I think so too. But maybe it's good to realize that life is not forever, and if we are getting into that last lap of a four or five score life, we better appraise our life and decide what we want to do for the rest of it. A bucket list of sorts.

I really have no goals, and maybe that's my problem. I've always seen the world in a grain of sand sort of speak, though sand doesn't quite express it. To me I see God in everything good in Nature. I feel a common bond with everything Living, and want to be a part of that Life.

Problem is, I do NOT see GOD in anything negative: Wars, Death, Bad news, Accidents, Problems, Disease and other unsettling things. I do not think those things have anything to do with God. Some have to do with bad luck... being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some are just a part of the end of life or something to overcome. That last thing... something to overcome... is where God comes into the negative. The hero in the wars; the rescuers and healers to the bad news and accidents; the scientists and doctors that cure the illnesses; and, hopefully, the Other Side, when it comes to the end of this life. I'm more afraid of missing this earth than of death itself.

I love the world, but hate listening to the bad news. I love my friends, but don't like discussing politics or those problems that we cannot solve by looking at and discussing with disgust. I'm going to spend my final years pointing out the wonders of earth, not the destruction of mankind. I'm going to watch the magic of the turn of leaf: like in the comics today where the old guy in Pickles says they "turn into flowers." I'm going to catch a snowflake on my sleeve and observe it's perfection before it melts. I'm going to thank my feet, my eyes, my mind, my limbs, my joints my everything that still works... until it no longer does. Mostly, I'm going to FORGET MY AGE.

Age is something else that people invented to make damn sure you remember how old you are. Didn't WE make up Calendars, Time, Dates to Celebrate, and Clock things by the turn of the earth? What IS Age? What IS getting Old. We are just living on the same orb, and breathing the same atmosphere, and walking the same paths in a way that we walked on from the beginning of when we first got up and toddled our first steps. Why do we call one thing youth; and another thing middle age; and another thing being elderly? We are just another animal going through our stages of life, and in one way, it's all been one long day, as the sun is always shining somewhere on this same earth, under the same skies, and while breathing the same wondrous atmosphere. And while we trod this earth, we should try to keep it as pure, healthy and sane as possible for the next hatch.

And while I was thinking about all this... the dog spotted the frog I was watching, and as quick as a blink, the frog ducked under again.

2010-10-01T19:03:00.004-04:00

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES:

A few days ago, this is what the beaver dam (which the beavers built on the Lake's dam) looked like:

Then we got 5 inches of rain. Here it is today from the opposite direction:

It turned out to be a beautiful day today. I found all the water exciting, as long as it didn't do any destruction locally. We had enough with the 100 year flood back in 2006.

Hope you all have a nice weekend.

2010-09-29T11:17:00.003-04:00

A LOG ON MY TRAIL

Last week there really was a "log on my trail." But, if I remember to do so, I thought I'd check in with my few readers by writing a log of my walk in the woods right after I return from a walk and am still inspired by whatever wonder of the day, and maybe transport you on a quiet get-away from the hustle bustle of the world.

Today is a nice sunny comfortably warm dry fall day. A good day to do a little work on my middle trail, so I took fallen log-an ash dead stand-which had cracked into manageable pieces, and shifted a piece that fell against the edge so it lay along the trail, to give the path more support. I had taken my small "ladies" pick-ax, using it to level the trail. The slant hurts Tom's ankles... his only complaint, as he likes the work I've done in the woods to make comfortable trails on which we usually take a morning walk together. We have some old plastic Adirondack chairs at points along the trail for resting and meditating, or simply for listening to the birds or enjoying the view.

I have 3 trails up to the lake, 2 of them merge at the old oak tree that fell into the field back in the late '80s. There's a fourth path-Tom's ATV trail. I gave him for Father's Day some year quite long ago, so he wouldn't use my foot paths. Tom took his bush whacker across the field that's gone wild above, and now keeps it nicely mowed.

The first trail we ever had is the one along the edge of the gorge in which the overflow from the lake, Cranberry Run is located. That was also the first trail that got blocked by falling trees, on which I've dug under as well as built over in order to keep up that trail throughout the years. On that one, I had my saw along, as a log that fell last winter blocks it for a safe trail home when cross country skiing, as in avoiding the log, the downhill run is uncontrollable and dangerous. I've started the cut, but sawing a log in two by hand is sometimes a long job, best split into short work days so I don't use up all my energy for the day.

If anyone observed all the work I've done along the trail they would probably say it wasn't worth the effort, as it is always changing, and work has to be redone, but it's a work of love. I love my paths, and it's on those trails that I feel close to nature and God. When I work on them, the spiritual energy I get in return keeps my spirits renewed, and gives me a sense of peace in a world in which I need to be reminded that it is more peaceful than otherwise. Listening to the news, and talking politics may convince us otherwise, and, at that point, we all need a plain path to walk on and observe nature's changes, and how it is more powerful in the end.

So, whether a log down or not, I will share my thoughts, which, hopefully won't be as boring as this 'log' after one of my daily walks in the woods.

2010-09-10T15:07:00.002-04:00

A PAPER SAVED IS A TREE EARNED:

I don't get the credit card company who wants me to pay electronically to save on paper... like I'm going to let ANYONE touch my bank account. They say paying electronically SAVES PAPER, and then they send me 3-4 pages of PAPER on a bill that should be less than one page 8"x11" ...And those other pages are advertising and CHECKS. I have a CHECKING ACCOUNT that they want to tap into to have me pay electronically, and then they give me their own checks that will ONLY cost me $5 each to use them instead of the plastic, whereas my checking account is free at my bank since my SS was direct deposited.

Then, I was thinking when I got in from the garden to wash my hands: The most clean thing you can wipe your hands on is a paper towel, but the most environmental friendly way is to use a terry cloth towel. And, I remembered there was a commercial that I haven't seen lately---one that convinces me that the paper companies are hurting--which shows a new kind of paper towel, and though costly, it pops up one at a time like certain tissues, and is designed to be placed on the old towel rack minus the terry cloth possibly germy one which is being displaced.

I also remember back when the hospitals started getting computers. They were for instant knowledge of the patient once he was in the computer system, and would cut down on red tape. My daughter's father in law had a small operation, and was telling about all the different times he had to give his LIFE'S HISTORY from one department to another... same questions asked over and over. And, I don't have to tell almost everyone about all the separate bills you get afterwards. Why can't they put it all in one bill, and when paid, the hospital's clerical workers would distribute the payments to X-ray; the doctor; the hospital itself for use of it's bed and operating table... two separate beds you'll be paying for. So, thanks to the computer, life has gotten more complicated, and there is more paper work than ever. Do you agree. Please disagree and prove it otherwise. I would be so pleased.

So, I say, "Men, keep using the cloth handkerchiefs, and women, change the terry cloth towels daily, after teaching the kids to wash their hands singing the Happy Birthday song twice while washing their hands, before drying them. Use less papertowels in the kitchen, and throw that cloth rag you use for cleanup into the wash at the end of each day.

So be it.

2010-09-07T12:10:00.002-04:00

Evening, September 5, 2001

GNATS

Our evening walk to the lake:

Tom said, "Thanks a lot. You left them with me."
meaning the gnats.

I wanted to tell him, as I went on,
up to the end of the road beside the lake:
"That was just a unit.
The rest of the army went with me."

While the dogs and I marched on,
the gnats followed,
doing their air-force maneuvers.
Only by walking fast could I avoid them.

If I slowed down (to write this... as I did)
They did their Blue Angels imitation
seeing how close they could fly by,
and some would fly too close,
getting caught in my eyes,
or landing on their 'runway'
to refuel!"

~~~~~

Morning, September 6, 2001

Morning Delight:

Today all the little waterbugs-so many
-swimming like little jet-skis
-looking like sparkling beads
gathering together-safety in numbers,
reflecting the bright morning sun...
gathering warmth after a cold night.

As if on cue, they ripple the water
splitting to form new shapes
...And like cloud watching,
I find myself interpreting codes:

With my head cocked to one side,
the big group looks like an E
The smaller looks like a dash
beginning to form an equal sign.

"Ah, yes.. genius
bugs figuring out Einstein's Theory
E=m..."

I left before they figured out
the rest of the equation.
;-)

2010-07-24T12:49:00.004-04:00

RACCOONS WHISTLE!

Bet you didn't know that. I didn't. But thank goodness this one did.

I was walking up to the lake one evening this week with the dogs. By the time we get to the lake, Polly is always back in the woods doing her own thing... which is NOT looking forward to the lake, as I like to get her wet to cool her off, as she doesn't swim. I'm sure she could, but she's not a water spaniel, which I'm sure is in Bear's blood, as he came from a spaniel family that demonstrated their love for water when we got him as a pup.

So, as we get close to the lake, I'm looking for a good branch to throw into the water. He defeats my plans on having a bunch of branches available, as he takes them back with him one at a time when he's had enough of "Fetch the stick" after I throw it into the water for him to swim out and fetch back, and I'm always having to find another stick almost each time I go up to the lake.

He was all excited... per usual... He's excited about life. It's like everything is so exciting that you'd think it was the first time he did it, whether walking, eating, just going outdoors, and jumping at the door, like he's so eager he cannot control himself. But everything is just so great! He inspires me to notice how wonderful life is... and how even the routine things can be wonderful every single time. So this was a routine thing, but he was bursting at the seams to swim after the stick, so we bounded towards the shore of Cranberry Lake, I threw the stick, and Bear jumped into the water paddling out to get the stick.

Then I hear a low "chirp, chirp", like a low whistle, like someone quietly getting my attention without being too obvious, I turn to see who's hailing me, and it's a small adult raccoon. "OH MY GOD!!" I'm thinking ...if not saying out loud. I realize that if Bear sees this raccoon it could be a catastrophic event... and I must prevent it!!

"BEAR!! SWIM HERE!! COME OVER HERE!" I call trying to get him to change his course, which was towards where I saw the raccoon, which I won't even look at so as not to give it away... And meanwhile I'm as quickly as possible taking my ever present reel out leash off my waist to wrap around his neck as soon as he gets to shore. He comes in near enough to where the raccoon was that it would be impossible to miss it, but I'm wrapping the leash around him with serious speed, and he only picks up on my mood, not on the reason, as cooperates... "Thank God!"

As I'm pulling him along, I turn back to see where the raccoon was, and it's gone. It must have disappeared immediately, not that there was anywhere to go right near the outlet, and if Bear had seen him first, instead of concentrating as to where I was throwing the stick, who knows what would have happened.

So... Raccoons like to tip people off that they are there... or this one did. It was as if it was saying, "Hey, I don't want your dog to notice me... AND I'm sure you don't want that either!"

Smart Raccoon.

2010-07-18T12:03:00.003-04:00

ON SQUANDERING LIFE:

Don't get me wrong, as I think it's wonderful when people care about one another, BUT, when one worries so much about the fate of the world, the wars, the injustices, the economy, and so on to distraction, I don't think they realize that they are squandering their own life. Let's put it into a really personal close up example that I don't think EVER happens. Children really know how to live... and maybe it's because they don't listen to or watch the news like us adults, or maybe it's that their frontal lobe isn't mature enough to not selfishly love to be given wonderful gifts. They don't know that some of their wants and gifts aren't something that every child receives automatically at birthdays and Christmas. But imagine this scenario... A child's birthday, and you went out of your way to get him just the right present to really make him happy, but when he opens it he says, This is too good for me... what about those children who have nothing. I think we should give this to them, or get your money back and give it to the poor. Or worse, if he went on and on about how everything bad is happening and what a wreck this world is coming to, that he shouldn't even be enjoying something so trivial as a toy. Our blessing of their childhood innocence, is in watching the wonder and magic of their realization of what a wonderful life this is for them... but... being adult... we hear so much of the bad, we have so many more worries, we feel so for the soldiers and those others for whom they are fighting for their freedom that we think the world is all going to hell on a broomstick.

When one worries about things that may happen to the point that their life is unhappy because of it, then one is squandering one's own gift of life. I don't mean that we shouldn't do something about the oppressed and poverty... and the fastest way for someone to come out of their depressive thoughts is to help others. I don't mean that we shouldn't complain about the government, but the fastest way to feel better about your part as a citizen is to write to your representatives. You can only do so much as an individual, and that's exactly why we have representatives who serve as our voice at township, county, state and federal levels. When they aren't representing us properly, don't complain to others, write AND call them. But do get others to do the same.

When you have helped someone who seems not to care and is collecting welfare and feels that it's his (or her) right to get it, just remember that those persons are in the minority. It used to be that even those who wanted to get off the rolls, had no real choice if they had children at home and no husband(or spouse) for support, as they actually couldn't afford to work outside the home with the cost of childcare, transportation, even the clothes needed for a job. Now we have training programs with transportation and childcare provided. So let's not worry so much about those taking advantage of the system unless you have something in particular to report to the authorities.

I once nearly went crazy with worry and thought the world was going to end ...and what would I do about it. I even bought a book on "edible wild plants" thinking if everything went down the tubes I may be able to survive by living off the land. That book was new then, and now I see it was published in the early 80's. 30 years ago, and it hasn't happened. I read somewhere that over ninety percent of the things we worry about never happen.

I worried about global warming; acid rains; air pollution; effects of chemicals in foods or in the air we breathe or the water we drink. All this worrying somehow didn't do anything at all for the state of this earth and the people therein. I finally realized that if the creator was looking down on me, he would think I was squandering this wonderful gift... this wonderful life he gave me with all this worrying. I don't have to save the world, but I had better appreciate my own place in this world. If everyone felt as I once did, what would be the purpose of living... And don't think I didn't wonder that back then. But a phrase I heard came to me. It was "See the world in a grain of sand." I looked up the poem it came from:
"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour." ~~ Wm. Blake

I began to do crazy things like bring back the sand in little clear glass bottles for those who couldn't get to the seashore; I started an album of all the wildflowers that bloomed in the growing season in the northeast. I would take walks to the tops of hills and look down at the landscape, realizing how small my problems were in the sight from a distance. I'd lie out under the stars and get lost in them... However, the more time one looks up from a spot with no other lights to diffuse those little beams, the more you see. Then I'd really wonder, "What IS it all about?" Probably each of those stars is bigger than our sun. I'd not want to watch the stars too long, as it just boggled my mind. All I could see so diminished me to the point where I didn't amount to a speck of dust when it comes to the Universe. Even God seemed like an impossibility. But it did me good to have myself minimized so. It made me realize that I was always a child if I could still wonder. I decided to wonder about the small things, like how something as small as a gnat could fly; how beautiful a simple bubble blown from a jar of kids bubble stuff could be. How is it that they say every snow flake is different... who as collected enough to know? Who cares? It is a wonder, not an answer. When we say something is wonderful, we just mean it makes us happy.

My walks and wonders make me happy. When something doesn't make me happy, I want to do something about it, if I deem that something can be done by me, whether to group others for a cause or write my reps' in Harrisburg or Washington DC, or the President himself. I'll recycle or compost whatever I can to avoid too much trash, economize my money, my driving, and even my own energy by thinking ahead just that much, or leave it up to a higher power. Thinking too far ahead can give you a headache. Find a belief system even if it's to find a wiser self within. Hopefully you will find a spiritual connection to the universe, and know that you are worthwhile. You haven't earned life, you have been given life--appreciate it, it doesn't last forever, and it's no one else's but yours. You can decide. And, if you want, you can squander it worrying yourself to death, but I, for one, would rather see the world in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour.

2010-07-08T13:43:00.005-04:00

ARGUING THE POINT:

My oldest son just left with his children, and I want to make an observation... a comparison to how I was brought up and how they are bringing up their 12 year old twin boys, and 9 year old daughter (once they have their birthdays later this month). She's getting a crash course in arguing, while basically still loving the brothers, and concerned when she wins the fight --especially if physical injury occurs. It happened, and I told my grandson, "You can't win. For one thing, she's a girl. And for another thing, she's younger."

I have brother a year older then me, and we were like fraternal twins, but we picked on my little brother unmercifully, who happened to be also 3 years younger. And, my twin grandsons, pick on their younger sib', sister unmercifully too. Being the one 'picked-on' is different than being the tease. What I saw in Anna, my grand daughter, was preparation in life so that she won't be the shy and retiring type that I once was when I set foot out into the world. Anna has already gone to school, is a leader, not a follower, and despite the age difference, several times got the upper hand in the fights they had while visiting.

I may have said before in this blog about how tough it was for me going ...just to school. It was culture shock for me, and found being in a classroom with over twenty other children a bit overwhelming. I guess that's another advantage in being in a neighborhood with other children nearby from birth on, whereas I really didn't have any friends until I went to school. My family was it. So at recess, I stayed back with the other wallflowers, while other girls my age were playing kickball, hopscotch, or complicated maneuvers with a jumprope. In the classroom I was afraid to put my hand up to answer questions because, if I didn't have the right answer, I would feel a humiliation, instead of just learning, which involves trial and error. My parents would not allow us to tease each other or to argue, and she'd settle those arguments herself with a heavy hand, as spanking was the norm back then.

With my first husband, we never fought or argued. However, there wasn't enough emotional involvement to get all that impassioned over anything. My mother and father never ran out of things to say, and sometimes they had some pretty loud arguments. But I only remember my father acting like a parent and disciplining me once. While my mother did all the parenting, and my father was the breadwinner and a good husband. But, I digress. What I'm saying here is until I married into a family who in a way enjoyed arguing, I would avoid arguing at all costs... AND, what I'm also saying here is this: When you don't learn how to argue properly, IT DOES COST, AND IT COSTS DEARLY.

It's the reason I hate being proselytized in ANY way, especially when it comes to the two no-nos of social get togethers, "Religion and Politics." If I saw a car come up the driveway and three lady strangers stepped out, I'd know that they were Jehovah Witnesses, or if two or three good looking young men walked up my driveway and I saw they were wearing dark slacks, white shirts and neckties, I knew they were Mormons. I would rather make it look like I wasn't home until they left than try to defend my own belief system.

Politics never entered the picture until it mattered to Tom, and I just couldn't deny my true self: A Democrat, whereas Tom is a right wing Republican. So, I have learned somewhat how to argue, but still can't stand doing so, so we have agreed to disagree.

In the column, Ask Amy she helps solves the personal problems in our own little world, I sometimes pick up a genius bit of understanding of why there is such a split in opinions of anything that is near and dear, as in our spirituality and in our politics. Today, July8, 2010, this woman wrote in to chastise a man's thinking in a previous letter in which she found his thinking to be offensive and antiquated. That letter must have been about womanizing and proving male superiority, and she said this PEARL OF WISDOM: "His narrated experience is a phenomenon called confirmation bias, which is selective collecting or interpreting evidence with bias."

I'll admit to my reasons for being a Democrat, and they are surely in opposition with the Republicans in general, and Bush in particular when George W. was in office. I have witnessed this process from from Republicans towards everyone who isn't in agreement in general, and Obama in particular. Now I have a name for it: "Confirmation Bias." Because, that's what they seem to do... First form an opinion that the Democrats are wrong about almost everything, then find every weapon that they can interpret evidence with bias against the Democrats and especially towards Obama.

I now realize that if I had a hockey stick like a goalie in a hockey game, and if their 'evidence' was the puck, and if I was hoping to keep them from making a goal so OUR SIDE could win by my defending my ideas, it would be impossible, as the ONLY way either side is going to know who was right and who was wrong is by HISTORY. There is just NO WAY one can argue their point against a true believer in his or her own selected with bias data. I'm not going to try, and I want them to just agree to disagree.

2010-06-16T16:01:00.005-04:00

Miracle from the Back Woods of Cranberry Lake

BUT FIRST... Today's where I'm at right now... so I'll call this part, "I can see clearly now!"

This artificial lens replacement after cataracts' surgery has its drawbacks... it being usually a cleanup is required... but just once, then it should be 20/20 vision from there on in. Only I have to now have it done with the left eye next month when I have this clean up checked. With a laser, they somehow clean off the tissue that sometimes adheres to the lens... and mine had gradually reduced my vision to the state it was in before I had my cataracts removed. I know, because, finally, once the dilation eye drops wore off, the world is again three dimensional. It's really like that. When I have to look through fuzz, though I can see OK, the world I see loses its depth. I now have the high I had right after the cataract surgery two years ago.

Now about those pictures:
Yesterday was another different kind of high. Lily T. had asked me if I would walk with her around Cranberry Lake. It's the first time anyone asked that of me, though I've always wanted to go that trek with someone else, and I was kind of nervous about it. She had her camera along and we really enjoyed it... plus the weather was perfect (unlike today, with the wind and rain, but just as well as I'm lying low for the rest of the day... though not an operation, it kind of made me feel really strange to have anyone fuss with my eyes, and then be blind in my right eye until its dilation eye drops wear off).

Late yesterday morning when Lily and I were half way around the lake, I saw this pod or something like that on the ground. I picked it up wondering if it was vegetation ...like somekind of a dried bean ... it seemed hollow, or a cocoon of sorts... or maybe even a small potato that dried out or ??? We were going to join the Lunch Group that now meets at Stables and Ann W. is a part of it and a bit of a naturalist. I said I'd put it in my little belly pack in which I hold my camera and dog snacks plus an extra leash (I had left the dogs home, though), and we could ask Ann about it.

Later after many photos of stumps, roots, fern, moss,and fungus; and returned to my home from where we had started. We left separately for lunch. Tom had taken Bear to the Dog Groomer, so I was flying solo. When I got there I first went to Ann and showed her the pod I'd found. I was sorry that it somehow had got wet on one end... didn't know how that happened. She said it looked like a gypsy moth cocoon, only much bigger. (I'd considered that, but it was stiffer than that...they are kind of webby/cottony... It was the consistancy of the skin on a baked potato... though it was only about a 2 1/2" oval. So I tucked it back in the front part of my belly pack which I'd taken as didn't want to put it in my purse. The front part's zipper doesn't zip anymore, but it held it ok. I'd probably have just dumped it later.

I was in the middle of my BLT when something as big as a small mouse crawled up my sleeve causing me to jump, as well as the others at the table to drop whatever they were doing and gasp. We didn't know WHAT it was. Some really large fuzzy or velvety insect. Then I looked at the pod, and it had a hole in it--the reason for the wetness at one end. I said... "Don't touch it...!!" realizing it had come from the pod and took a napkin and carefully took the "thing" loosely in the napkin and just went outside with it. Ann and Lily were with me. I suggested one bunch of brushes near the road, but it was too close to traffic... then we decided some brush up in back of the restaurant. We put it on a bush with large green leaves, and it held fast to the twig, looking deformed. I said that I think it probably hatched too soon or something. The poor thing. What would we do with it. Then Ann said, "I think the wings are getting larger." As we watched, very slowly we were watching the miracle of metamorphisis. We began clicking pictures. It was such an upper!! I was so thrilled. Earlier I had felt badly that we didn't find any wild orchids, like ladyslippers. If there are any, this is the season for them. But WOW!! This was even better.

We went back in. Ann left a little earlier than Lily and I, as we got there a little late... but Ann came back shortly and said, "You better come and take pictures now if you want to see the moth again, as its wings are fully developed. Again we went out... this time I paid for the lunch on the way. I found out later that it was a female Polyphemus moth... more reddish brown than grayish brown like the male. I took one more picture. Now of her beautiful wings from their folded position. I now wish I could have seen the other side, but what I saw was very beautiful. Like with most moths and butterflies, their brightest colors are seen from above with their wings spread out... and although fully developed, she was not spreading her wings and leaving yet. I wished her well... and we all helped each other take pictures lifting any leaves out of the way so we could get one last close up.

I told Tom about it all later. He didn't sound too thrilled, and had a difficult time with having to wait for the groomer as he got there early and she wasn't even there yet. (I try to teach him by example that being Just on time! ...like you could set a watch by my arrival at whatever appointment... is the way to go. ;-)
But, if you ask me, his nose was out of joint because I had such a neat day and experience, and he did not. However, if he was there and saw that critter skitter up my blouse and sleeve, he probably would have either upchucked or swatted the poor thing. Alls well that ends well I say. But if I'm going to have a good time, and have a fantastic experience, he wants to share it by being a part of it... by being there. I understand that.

2010-05-17T12:21:00.003-04:00

THE JOB THAT NEVER ENDS...

This shows the old wood I've used to edge my trail. At first it was just to show me the deer path back when we first bought the land. To the Lake, it's half our land/woods, and half someone from NYC who doesn't mind my keeping a path open for walks.
Trees fall, and I either saw them and move them or build the path over the downed tree. Using the dead wood means I'm always replacing, making repairs, and scolding Bear for carrying off a branch for his "wood-carrying addiction." ;-)

2010-05-15T11:08:00.002-04:00

"All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should
have been more specific." ~Jane Wagner

Sometimes I wonder where my being non specific about what my goals are. Was it when I was about seven years old and started collecting things. They say it's a good age to get children interested in collections... like coins or stamps. But my dad, who collected stamps, missed the age when he finally tried to get me interested in that hobby. No, when I was about seven, my best friend, Julie Foley and I, would traipse through the woods in back of people's houses... down where it was convenient to dump stuff, and found all kinds of treasures. It was then I started collecting keys. The house-key kind was far and few between, so I also started collecting the keys one opened cans of ham and Spam... Really. What the fascination was I do not know. I might just as well have collected dust bunnies from under my bed. I finally quit when while unwrapping a key from that savage tin surrounding it, I cut one finger badly. I realized then that it wasn't worth that to collect that type of thing... but don't remember collecting anything else--or wanting to.

I do keep cards with personal messages or really funny or poignant ones, but haven't really "collected" things, and heard about a child's interest in doing so was when they were about seven. I've been collecting the States Quarters for my grandchildren since their coinage started. This year my granddaughter Amelia, and grandson Willem become seven, so they get the collections saved for them... complete up to DC and Northern Mariana Islands.

How did this come up? I guess while I was kicking twigs off my trails and shoring up the downhill sides of my paths in the woods this morning. They are nice trails, but it seems that it's the one thing I did well in life ... "I was a Trailblazer." It seems like another useless thing to me, but probably as valuable to me now, that collecting the Spam keys was when I was seven.

2010-05-07T09:51:00.002-04:00

Why I Don't Like Magnolias

Spring bursts its buds
and color reigns in
Crocus; tulips; and
Magnolias

After a week
These flowers shrug
their petaled clothes.

... Tulips and Croci
leave them on their beds,
While Magnolias toss them
on the ground
For Mother Nature to
Clean-up...
Knowing very well
That Mom N. is old
And it hurts to
bend her knees.

SO, Mrs. Nature
... just ... lets ... them
... Sit in the Sun,
Hoping a lawnmower
Will swoop them up.

BUT...
Instead, they wither
and brown...
Looking like trash
that escaped the bags
on pick-up day.
----
NOTE:
[I thought I'd share the above--my first entry of 2010--written in my "Gardener's Notebook" given to me by my stepdaughter, Trese, back in Spring of 1998. When inspired by the Nature of the season and growing things I'll write an entry - sometimes several in a year - prose or poem... or skip a year, and then be inspired by just heard news of something growing - a pregnancy of a new grandchild; or the crazy spring of 2002--much like this year's spring; or the wettest July 2003 in PA in 40 years; ... a question to a grandchild, Carly when 3 yrs. old, spring of '05, about what kind of flower (a violet was), "A PURPLE!" she responded. Bits and pieces throughout the years.]

2010-05-03T11:20:00.003-04:00

"We continue to squander life with all our criticisms and complaints instead of appreciating what a great gift life really is..."

Today I was writing in my journal sorting things out, as I'd been a happy person all Saturday, then suddenly, on Sunday I was a Bear! It's like I have a split personality, and when I'm in the negative mode, everything looks different, even my marriage. I wrote from both modes this morning realizing for the first time that if the negative person in me got her way, she would never be happy. It's just not in 'her' disposition. I have been thinking all these years... even back when those moods were brought on by PMS, and, like Roseanne Barr's one liner, I too thought, "That's the only time of the month when I can truly be myself," even now when it's something other than PMS... But either then or now it has always been fmy negative personality vying for leadership, and I've been letting it do just that.

What I can't understand is how I can be so positive one day and so negative the next... everything was sunshine and happy days; then another day my negative self would emerge, and watch out: I hate my life, my everything. The dogs make me impatient. Everything makes me impatient. Impatient was the Neg's first name.

I just finished reading a book called Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout. I think that book was the key to my finding out that what my negative self was seeking is not going to happen. I'm not going to be loved and left alone. I may get my wish, but not the love part... just the left alone part.

The book is like one of short stories, but all about this small community on the coast of Maine, with some of the stories sharing the character of Olive K. and other neighbors they have in common, much like everyone's life being one of those stories. Sometime our friends and neighbors are in our story and sometimes there's just the two of us in front of the TV, watching the same show at times just because the other likes it when you really do not, and always conscious of us being alive to each other. It seems so real to me, and reminds me of real hometown stuff like when I was on Peakes Island in Maine where I vacationed many summers in my youth.

All these stories have an interaction between characters who--when I think about it now--are having the same battle with their negative self. Near the end of the book, Olive sees that a woman who is constantly at odds with her husband, doesn't realize as Olive Kitteridge has, once becoming a widow, that she was having all these negative problems, not with her husband, but with that negative part of herself, and she rues the days she's wasted in negativity rather than enjoying life--hers and the lives around her. She knows this woman who constantly complains will also discover this truth too late. She said something to the affect of, 'We continue to squander life with all our criticisms and complaints instead of appreciating what a great gift life really is for us all.' I think I'll buy the book and look up that part and write it down. I want to realize that gift now, before it's too late.

Now I suddenly realize that self is just plain negative, and getting her way would be a disaster. That person doesn't like anything in her life. If I allowed her to reign, I'd be alone... like that neg' person wants... and would still be so damned angry at everything that not only could I never be happy, but I wouldn't have a friend in the world. No one likes a negative down in the mouth complaining bitch. That's what I'd be. I had this heart to heart talk with the constant spirit within me asking the negative part of me what would make me [the Neg. one] happy. The answer was 'nothing could make me happy, because I wouldn't be the Neg. personality if I was happy.

So today, after having written that and figuring out that the negative personality would never be happy even if it got it's way, I decided to try to squelch that side of my personality. I just need to have a handy pair of invisible rose-colored glasses that I can 'put on' when I feel myself sinking into that well of complete lack of joy.

Sincerely,
Me

2010-04-18T15:11:00.003-04:00

GILL-OVER-THE-GROUND

Years ago I decided to get to know my wild flowers, (a.k.a. bloomin' weeds). My general knowledge extended to daisies and black eyed susan. What my mother called flag lily turned out to be a brook iris called blue flag.

I would take a picture with my 35mm camera, and then cut the flower, pressing it between two pieces of paper towels, noting the date on the towel. After giving it time to dry between the huge dictionaries Tom has had forever, I would take the dry flower, place it in an album with those stick-um pages under the film of plastic... those albums that perhaps have destroyed people's perfect family pictures when they adhered too well and got ripped when one would want to read what had been faithfully written on its back.

The year I did the bulk of the album... a big one with many, many pages, I would keep my camera handy and snap the picture on the first day its petals opened. This was an easy chore until about the middle of May when everything that hadn't already bloomed was rushing to show its inherent beauty like racks of beautiful clothing at an end of season sale. Pictures were beginning to pile up along with the drying flowers. I had to use some of the encyclopedias and other books that usually sat useless on the shelf... I put them to good use, flattening the flowers all over the house. In the meantime, I noticed that there were special tools for doing a proper job of pressing flowers, and my good old paper towels sometimes left an interesting pattern on some of the blooms, but I continued to do it my way.

Some blooms were too big to press... too moist and mushy. I carefully split them in two with my craft knife and pressed their silhouette ...that turned out nicely for the Jack-in-the pulpet. For the Day lily, a garden flower turned wild, it made almost a modern picture which hardly resembled the flower, but I had the picture of that. I liked the form it took as a dried flower, so it went in as is. Something called indian pipe, a plant without any chlorophyll which was as white as snow, turned black as pitch after being pressed and dried.

In the process of this book, I was getting to know the names of everything from coltsfoot to beebalm (bergamot). Coltsfoot is one of my favorites, as it is so resilient and bears up under the throes of the residue plowed to the roadside as it rears up their little yellow heads on the least fertile soil, like tiny sun-yellow-flashlights from the first warm day in Spring. Tom, not being as serious about my hobby, but having the same difficulty remembering names whether people or flowers, dubbed the cheerful spring celebrant, "Horses Ass." The reason it's called Colt's foot, is that long after the yellow heads have turned white and fuzzy, blowing away like a dandelion look-alike--when the rows of collective teeny elders with white hair are long gone--the large leaves form in the shape of the imprint of a colt's foot grow thick where the first blooms of spring once lit up the road's edge.

In the course of all these pictures and presses, I found a tiny, small, but beautiful flower where thousands would burst into bloom in the fields with an almost iridescent blue. The iridescence was mostly caused from its numbers in the deep green leaves of their stems making a scatter rug with its teeny pale blue flowers piercing upwards through the darker green as if lit from underneath.

I would step into its center and look down, almost getting dizzy, as it gave me the impression of movement without my moving. ...The same feeling I get when the waves wash over my bare feet, when the backwash streams down to the ocean's edge, and it looks like I'm swiftly moving backwards. It may just be me that these little flowers, which I found in my book to be bird's eye speedwell, leave me with the impression that I've stepped on a flying carpet.

Years later, later on in the summer, when weeding my rock garden, I thought that it was the bird's-eye speedwell that was growing throughout my rock garden. Later I looked it up and found it was gill-over-the-ground. It has a different type bloom, but still a pretty blue, and just as tiny as the speedwell. It was no problem the first year, but after a few years it seemed to be just a weed battling with my Vinca minor, or ground myrtle, otherwise known as periwinkle. I love periwinkle, as its leaves are evergreen--nice looking even in the heart of winter--and it seems to keep the elbow-shaped rock garden hill that boarders the driveway from eroding. Two years ago I was determined to get rid of the damned gill-over-the-ground. Its vines mimicked the trailing stems of the periwinkle and like the gardener finding out which is a weed and which is the wanted plant, when you pull the easier one, it's the good plant, I'd pull the periwinkle vine, and it would suffer perhaps more for my work at trying to eradicate the gill... weed. Meanwhile Bear, my English spaniel would be "helping Mama," by digging holes looking for chipmunk dens harbored in the same hill, and doing even more damage to the periwinkle than the weed ...Or the weeder (me).

This spring so far the gill-over-the-ground is beginning to show up more dense than ever. I remember thinking while doing this weeding each year (which, by the way, weeding seems to be the greatest form of meditation),"What if the Gill-over-the-ground is good for the periwinkle?" But I started the impossible job of pulling up and out the trailing vine that seems to be competing for a Championship Wrestling Belt of the garden, but then thought, "No... I'm not going to pull it up this year. I'll get rid of the dandelions and the plantain, but I'm going to let 'gill' grow over whatever-the-hell-ground it wants to go over. The hell with it!" And when it's in full bloom, as it will be after the ground myrtle has had its season of periwinkle blue, I'll just appreciate the blooms. The Gill... has a lovely bloom, but small, a color like the blue of the bird's-eye speedwell, without such piercing light. It isn't an evergreen, but it probably fights erosion also. At the end of this season, I'll take a census of what has gained, and what has lost, and see if I'll ever have to contend with the gill-over...stuff again.

2010-04-05T10:10:00.002-04:00

A SPRINGTIME POEM ENTERED FOR THOSE WHO APPRECIATE MY POETRY.... [and thank you for that.]

(Written in Spring, 1995)

The days are growing longer;
The fields are turning green;
The birds came North
to build their nests,
They sit around and preen.

I love the springtime weather-
The air is brisk and cool.
I also love the Winter-
I am a skiing fool.

But when it comes to Summer,
It simply gets too hot!
I must sit back and take it-
a war that can't be fought.

Soon flowers will be sprouting,
their blooms will scent the air;
Mosquitoes, gnats and horseflies
will buzz around my hair...

The air will get real muggy,
and sweat will wet my brow-
I guess I'll live through summer
But sometimes I don't know how!

[...and predictions tell us we'll sample some summer heat before this week is over... hmm, fun!] (?)

Love you,
"Cranberry Jo"

2010-03-11T11:33:00.002-05:00

THE 19TH PERSON

Hello to my few readers;

I just felt like sharing something I found on the web. I'd downloaded all their suggestions for helping me overcome something that has been bothering me all my adult life... and probably as a child as well. Figured it was about time... so, Googled this following website for DEALING WITH IMPATIENCE.

http://lifelearningtoday.com/2007/08/17/impatience-release-your-grip/

*I had sent a poem the other day, and in it I wrote of a Force Field.

Here is where I got it in the part of the article where they dealt with impatience with adults:

"Force Field. This may sound kooky, but I can tell you from firsthand experience dealing with some very difficult people, that this works. Here’s what you do: Imagine that you have a force field around you that shields you from negativity. We don’t have to absorb negativity. We don’t have to lock in and hook into it. Simply watch it, observe it like a balloon floating by. Just remember, don’t grab the string of that balloon!"

Almost as soon as I had printed the whole article and studied it, I found another use for the force field. I ran into one of those people that everyone bumps into, and if they're like me, we just feel bad about it. This person acted like she just really didn't like me. It's a known fact in therapy circles that if you have a group of acquaintances polled and out of 19, everyone who is asked if they like you, 18 reply that "Oh, yes, we love her", the one we will probably remember most and be most affected by is the 19th one... the one that said, "No, I can't stand her."

This day in which I met my 19th, was about a day after I'd read about the force field. I'd even talked about it with a lunch group with whom Tom and I meet with now every week up at the Stables in Montrose... probably about 12-14 people who I feel like me. Also I'd delivered Home Delivered Meals to 9 places where a few had a caretaker as well present... people whom I felt LIKED me.

After lunch I ran an errand and bumped into that "19th" person, and because of her attitude, became almost obsessive about trying to figure out why she reacted differently than just about everyone I had related to that day. I rationalized that "everyone doesn't have to like me." I thought I was okay about it, but the next morning in a slumber-sleep, I found myself dialogging with myself. I heard someone complimenting me and was downplaying it... like, "Am I really a good person?" and then along came the stumbling block... Number 19. I began to argue with whomever in my dream as to why this person would dislike me. And I realized that it was more than "impatience" in my life with which I needed to deal with. I have to accept those with whom I feel a vibe of negativity without feeling I have to somehow change their mind. It came to mind George Constanza's obsession with a woman who didn't like him with whom Jerry was seeing in one of the episodes of that TV show. He ignored everyone else in his life in trying to get this woman to like him. He could not stand the fact that someone didn't find him appealing in any way. So much energy was lost on a passion of trying to get the one person who dislike him to change her mind. It came to his exclaiming to Jerry, "I think I love her, Jerry!" We, the watchers, knew that it could not be so, but the obsession is a bit like a love obsession where one has a crush... only this crush is crushing the soul of the one obsessed. Meanwhile, the one who can't stand George... and in this case, "Me," goes on with her life per usual, not even thinking a second thing about it... unless it's "Boy, what a loser..."

So, today, folks, I am instilling that Force Field not so much with difficult people who annoy me... as few really do. It will be instilled from no on to shield me from the negativity that vibes from someone who just doesn't like me. And I'll be done with expending the little energy I have for such things on someone who not only does not deserve it, but really doesn't want me to expend even a smile from my lips.

The next suggestion in that article is the following:
"Avoidance. If you can, stay away or spend as little time as possible with negative people. When conflict arises with a difficult person, have a goal of moving forward as opposed to a goal of 'winning.'”

If George Constanza was a real person and a friend of mine, I would send this to him as well.

Just thought you guys would be interested. Thanks for all of your positive vibes. Love ya, Mary Jo

The Poem about the force field:

I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE STOCK MARKET
I DON'T UNDERSTAND ETRADE

I DON'T UNDERSTAND OBAMA'S HEALTH PLAN
AND I'M SECRETLY ON A TIRADE

I WENT TO A SITE WITH A SUGGESTION
TO KEEP AWAY NEGATIVE NEWS

PRETEND THERE'S A POSITIVE FORCE FIELD
INVISIBLE, BUT CAN'T BE SWAYED BY BAD VIEWS

SOMEDAY TEN YEARS IN THE FUTURE
HISTORY WILL HAVE HAD ITS WAY

NO MATTER WHAT THE NOW SITUATION
TIME WILL WASH ITS FEET OF CLAY

WHAT STICKS IN THE BOOK IS A HISTORY
PERHAPS OF DESPAIR, AND BAD TIMES

WHAT STICKS IN OUR MEMORY SHOULD BE
WHAT THAT FORCE FIELD KEPT AS SUBLIME.
By Mary Jo J.

2010-03-01T20:44:00.006-05:00

COMPLAINTS OF A MALE LADYBUG

It really pisses me off when they call us all "Ladybugs." I'm a man bug and proud of it.

All winter long I've been in and out of hibernation in a house in Silver Lake, PA. I was flying about in the great outdoors last Fall, and suddenly, BOOM! I flew smack-dab onto an open door. This was Late Fall, which I like to Capitalize, as it's an important Season for us Bugs, as we need some warm place to hibernate. We don't have Holidays, like people... in fact, we are NOTHING like people, so I can Capitalize wherever I damn please. In the Fall we must find a safe place in which to hibernate.

Anyhow... (I say that a lot too) I bumbled about the house, and landed on a h-u-m-u-n-g-o-u-s trophy of a MOOSE head that had been securely anchored to the wall over their TV set. Don't ask how I knew what it was. Instinct, I guess. It wasn't like a live one or even a dead one... It was a mounted one; I found out the hard way when I tried to crawl up a vacant nostril to hibernate, there was no inside where I could go. I flew way up above the moose head, and settled for a corner of the center beam of the cathedral ceiling of the house, snuggled in with a whole bunch of strangers, all with that dratted "Lady" name whether female or not.

A truth not talked about much between L-bugs (can't stand that feminine first name) is that not all of us live through the winter. One to the left eventually dropped dead, then one to the right. I lost my hold on my place in the corner and dropped to the floor behind the TV. It doesn't hurt us to fall like that, but it was a rude awakening.

I crawled along until I saw much light from the very same door I had entered that very warm day in late AUTUMN... (...or Fall, the only season for which humans also have another name .. They puzzle me in so many ways). Us L-bugs just bumble about throughout our lives, and if we just happen to run into somewhere to hibernate, fine! We do it there. When we need something to drink and eat, and run it while bumbling about, that's great too! I ran into a glob of melting snow that a dog tracked in. I had a refreshing drink ( a much needed thing when awakening, even temporarily, from a hibernation). Then I flew about the house and ended up on the countertop. A great place to get food, except when you mistake their sugar substitute for the real thing. "Fool me once, and shame on you. Fool me twice and shame on me," as one of your human sayings go. A common mistake for a sleepy L-bug awakening during the winter, is getting on something round. A friend of mine once circled the rim of a mug for hours, all the time thinking he was getting someplace. The dummy.

On the counter during my mid-winter break, I ran into some coffee. It must have been decaf, with creamer and sugar, as it was quite satisfying. Boy, does the caffeinated kind do a number on us. Another L-bug drank some and flew like crazy, crash landed, and died on the spot. Another friend that was bumbling about had an even worse fate. He crawled up into the coffee maker and found a great resting spot between the filter and the basket of the maker. Then, in the morning, when the Head of the House turned on the pot, the poor bug--I hope he didn't suffer much. The man and wife wondered why the coffee had an "off flavor" that day. After all, they'd set it up the same way each evening. ...We aren't too flavorful. We have a bit of the musky odor about our being that would come out especially when boiling water is being dripped on you. That odor also protects us from other bugs eating us. I know, it sounds cannibalistic, and we don't sound advanced, but after all, you eat animal meat. I guess it's for the same reason that you don't eat skunks.

We don't fear death, but naturally we don't like being hurt or having to suffer. What hurts most is being damaged. The worst thing in my opinion is the vacuum. It has been told that it does us no harm, but think about it: Bring rolled into its brushes while being sucked up at the same time by the upright vac, and bumbled through it's inner hose, and dumped haphazardly into a bag of dust... Excuse me, but a big ACHOO to that!

That's what just happened to me. I'm texting you from a very dark spot. Now, don't be surprised that we can text. Look how advanced we are. We look like tiny Volkswagens, and, yet, we can open our exterior shell, and fly like a very tiny bumble bee. But think about it. Then when we land, we pull in our flexible wings, and then cover them with our "VW" like exterior. You can't even do that with your new hybrid cars. You guys are so behind the times it's ridiculous! Well, I'm done texting. Right now I'm just trying to gain some purchase on the inside of this vacuum bag so I can begin to hunt for the hole and go out into that living room to hibernate a little longer. I'll wait until a warm day in spring to find my way outdoors again.

I need to get outside in time for Mating Season. That's the closest thing to a Holiday with a capital "H" for us.

Meanwhile, like I say it's "ACHOO!" from the inside of a vacuum on a trip I never wanted to take!

2009-12-02T11:20:00.003-05:00

WIDOW-MAKER DOWN

For several years there's been a leaner to the left of my path's entrance to the woods. Surveying it from every angle, we knew it would come across the path. [...Of course, doesn't every tree fall across my path?] It becomes automatic that on a windy day I watch that the dead branches don't fall as I'm passing that area of the trail. If very windy, I'll walk through the upper cow pasture, praying that Bear doesn't have something fall on him, while Polly cuts through the field with me. Bear got stung by the electric fence. Only once tells most animals to beware. Polly's been fortunate, or knows how to enter and exit the fields.

When it's windy, the leaner would squeak out its message of warning. I figured the sway of the trees would wear away at the part of the tree or the branches it leaned upon, and that's how it would fall.

Today it came thundering down, while Tom witnessed it from the back steps. On close observance I could see that it cracked about a third up from where the bottom of the broken tree rested, causing the top part to drop into the ground below, then flop down across the trail, taking small branches with it.

I had been to the Vet's to get Bear's stitches out. He had some plastic surgery done on his lower lip which had cocker spaniel crevices which caught his spit, and fermented into infection, causing a smell that fouled his breath more than any other dog I knew and loved. So, my gut feeling was right... we found the cause. It was excised, and 13 days later, today, the stitches were removed. When we got home, I found Tom's note about the tree fall. He'd gone hunting of course.... He's a Pennsylvanian, after all. Looking at the note, I thought, gads... we could have been taking our morning walk when it happened. But seeing how it fell, I think it would have given me heart-stopping warning. I am glad I no longer have to worry about that tree.

I had heard that dead stands were called "widow-makers." And when Tom and I were campaigning for his bid for Commissioner, we went door to door. We had a list of registered voters, and at one house after introducing ourselves, we asked the woman who answered the door, if her husband was home as well. She simply said, "I'm sorry. I haven't taken him off the voter's registration list yet. He got killed." Usually a widow says, "He died..." or "He's no longer with us." I said, "Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. Was he in an accident?" She said, "A tree fell on him when he was in the woods." It was that way I found out that it could really happen. So, I don't want to take any chances... those dead stands, or even dead branches could also be 'widower' makers.

2009-11-24T15:11:00.002-05:00

Young Mother Picked Up on Charges of Not Having New Plates on the Car

A friend shared with me a completely unfair legal issue, and to show empathy, I told him this old incident:

Just to let you know how unjust the police can get, I'm going to relate a story of way back -still in the 1960s when I had moved to Vestal, NY.

My daughter Jo was about 3, and my son 4. I hadn't bothered yet to change my license from my Connecticut one, but had my fairly new Ford station wagon registered, and for some reason that year they were sending new plates for cars that year when people sent in their annual application for registration renewal. We weren't to put the plates on a day before the date unless we weren't out on the road [don't really think it would have mattered]. I didn't want to forget, so I had the new plates in plain sight on the dash.

The children were driving me nuts (the day new plates should have been affixed to the front and rear bumpers) so my cure for that was to go for a drive. They were both in their child or booster seats, and in my harried state, I didn't even think about the plates until I was headed towards Endicott on route 26--still in Vestal--and saw the Vestal police ahead of me. They had pulled someone over. I immediately remembered the plates, and was wondering what I should do, and pulled over about 100 yards in back to figure it out. Then I realized that if I make a U-turn to go home, I would look suspicious. So I just pulled past the police, knowing that they would and they did immediately signaled me to pull over.

This little Tin Soldier of a police man comes over to me and questions me. I said that I forgot to change the plates, indicating those on the dash, before leaving the house. [The kids were quiet and fascinated... too bad they didn't act up, maybe he would have just let me go.] He looks at the plates and says, "How do I know that they are YOUR plates. Let me SEE YOUR LICENSE! [I could see that he was really angry and aggravated... must have been the previous pull-over, and he was taking it out on this harried young mother] I was close to tears by this time. He looks at my license and says, "This is a Connecticut License... How long have you lived here?" [I lied at that point]. I said, "Oh, about a year... maybe less."

He says something like, well "I don't know what I'm going to do with you!" and I got really mad. I'd had had it with the kids, and now this?! I then said, while I opened the door right into his chest. "WELL, THEN YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO ARREST ME AND THROW ME IN JAIL. IT WOULD BE A GOOD BREAK TO GET AWAY FROM THE KIDS!"

[I didn't mean to hit him, but now I realized that I could be in deep trouble having hit him with the door, and was almost in tears... angry red-eyed kind of tears were welling up.]

He says, "YOU'RE GOING TO COOL DOWN, SISTER!! I'M GOING BACK TO THE SQUAD CAR, AND I'M GOING TO COOL DOWN, AND THEN I'LL BE BACK... YOU STAY 'RIGHT THERE'!!"

By then I was getting kind of giddy with the idea of sitting in jail, and what would they do with my kids? My husband was still at work. Would they throw us all in jail?

He comes back to the car. (His partner was probably thinking he was crazy for even stopping me at this point.) He says, "Here's what we're going to do! You are going to turn around and go home, and we are going to follow you. Once you get home, don't leave until you've put the plates on the car!"

I did what he said, and they followed me to the bottom of my street, Galaxy Drive. [Thank goodness they didn't follow me up the street. I was worried what the neighbors would think.]

Days later, when I could see this objectively, I realized that that police man was probably close to the breaking point when I came along. I guess the previous pull over had given him some grief, otherwise I couldn't understand his having stopped a woman and practically accusing her of being a criminal... AND ...with two babies in the car). Gads, how inconsiderate and cruel! I almost wrote to the Police Station about the incident, but was afraid they'd find out how long I'd lived in Vestal driving with a Connecticut license. Instead, I went to the Drivers Registration and Licensing Bureau and got my NY license. Didn't even have to take the driver's test.

Police can be so unfair in accordance to how their day has been. I also think the uniform does something to them. Anytime I've worn a uniform, even as a child as a school crossing guard, I've felt that surge of power. I still had that feeling when I was working for the airlines and, though optional in the reservations' office, and would wear my uniform to work.

I don't know if my incident long ago helped him in my telling it, but I hoped it did. Then I figured it would make a good blog.

2009-11-19T11:59:00.004-05:00

SEASONAL PREPARATIONS:

No, I'm not going to talk about Thanksgiving or Christmas, but hunting season and future cross country skiing.

It seems almost instinctive that when I walk my trails year long that if improvements can be made, I'll just automatically make them. Then when the leaves start falling, and that nutty smell, like the smell of a cracked open English walnut, doesn't actually fill the air, but when I take a deep breath through my nose, I can smell it and it must click into some throwback instinct to prepare for winter. Then instead of walking with my trekking poles, I'm apt to have one pole in one hand, and either the small pickax or the large clipper in the other. The pickax is just the height of a cane, so I can actually use it for knee therapy lightening the wear and tear on my problem knees. There are rocks to remove from the path, and roots that cross the path above the soil, and are best removed just so it's a smoother walk. The wood doesn't scar the skis. The rocks, however, scar the bottom, and my skis are Bushwhackers from Trak: a wider ski for maneuvering through obstacles or going down hills with sharp bends on the path, and they already aren't very speedy, so I want their bottoms slick as possible. But I think I just like the job of clearing and smoothing the paths. I don't really need the exercise or extra work, but it doesn't feel like work to me. It feels good. It's getting into the NOW. It's good meditation. My cares and woes just dissipate when I work on my trails.

Meanwhile, Tom takes trips to and from where he hunts during deer season in Tunkhannock, for checking and repairing his tree stands. When he isn't doing that, he's getting his hunting equipment ready... his camouflaged outfit, and safety orange hat and vest or coat washed in special odorless detergent, and hung out to dry. He checks to make sure his guns are clean, oiled, and sighted in. His ATV has become an important vehicle for helping him get to his tree stands, and to haul the venison out of the woods. There are knives to be sharpened, and string, twine, and ropes to consider for getting the quarry from the hunting area to his truck. This year he got better ramps for driving the ATV up into his truck.

All of this sounds like work... (?) ... did I say work? Like me and my trails, his preparations are a prelude to the experience of hunting where my man goes out alone and becomes One with Nature. All the problems of the world: the economy, politics, worries and woes are lost in the silence of the woods, up in his tree stand where looking out at the land everything seems smaller, and the wild world seems bigger. Peace and harmony come over him and he becomes a new man... refreshed and rejuvenated.

I love the autumn... not just for the colors, but for what it does to us internally when you go out to even just rake the leaves. We feel it even if we are trying to get our gardens cleaned up: the dead stocks from flowers bloomed and gone to seed; or the cornstalks in the vegetable garden bundled and "...why, they're kind of pretty. Why not decorate with them." Pretty or not, just the action of end of season activities, which are really beginning of the fall season, bring us a peace we'll never get from a couch in front of a TV.

Enjoy life. All is not lost. Climb a hill, look out at the land. Like Emily said in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town", "Oh earth, you are too wonderful for anyone to realize you."

2009-11-18T19:01:00.004-05:00

"THE OFFICE" SHOWS US WHY WE NEED TO DISTRACT OURSELVES:

My husband hates "The Office", so I hadn't been watching it until I started recording it for my friend who cannot get NBC, as she picks up by antenna the channels from Binghamton, New York. She told me about some of the scenarios from the shows, and I said, "Oh, I don't watch it, I just record it for you." We usually like the same things, so I then began reviewing the tapes myself before loaning them to her to watch. Well, at first I thought Michael would drive me crazy with his being so politically incorrect. My God! He says the damnedest things! [It's a show one either loves or hates, I guess.] But that show makes me laugh out loud like no other... and we all need a good laugh at this point in our American lives.

Last night I was reviewing the episode from November 12th, and a feeling of doom or hopelessness came over me. I couldn't imagine why, because it was one of the funniest episodes yet, as they played a game 'like Clue', but not. They call it Belles, Bourbon, and Bullets. Let me quote parts of how Wikipedia summarized that episode:

"The day gets off to a rocky start when rumors from the Wall Street Journal point to financial troubles for Dunder Mifflin. In an attempt to get the worried staff under control, Michael (Steve Carell) and Jim (John Krasinski) call the monthly staff meeting to provide what few assurances and optimistic viewpoints they can on the steadily worsening news. In a moment of quick thinking, Michael pulls out a party game, Belles, Bourbon, and Bullets, and forces the rest of the staff to play along. Jim tries to stop him, citing that today is one of the few days they cannot afford to play around, but is reminded that he owes Michael 'one' after he stopped another idea called 'Tube City.'

"The game is set in Savannah, Georgia, and everyone has to find out who amongst the party goers is the murderer (from clues and questions they are given)....Almost everyone present starts to play along."

Their taking on the characters along with appropriate Southern accents was absolutely great. I didn't understand the game, but was having such fun watching. Steve Carrel as Michael gets so into the game, that Jim and Pam, begin to worry about his mental state, as if Michael really thought he was back in 1955. Steve's Savanna accent was wonderful, and he managed to be adamant enough about others assuming their character, that just about everyone maintained their role, against Jim's good judgement. But when really pressed with what could be really bad news, Jim sees value in what Michael is doing. [again from Wikipedia]:

..."Dunder Mifflin['s] CFO David Wallace (Andy Buckley) finally returns the phone calls to Jim, and reveals that while nothing has been officially decided yet, Dunder Mifflin is expected to be insolvent by year-end. Knowing how damaging this could be to his staff, Jim deliberately hides this news from them and nudges them back into the party. At the end of the day, Jim is 'happy that we have two co-managers today,' realizing it helps having someone to distract people from pressing issues."

Point is... about there I had this feeling of doom come over me for the rest of the evening. After a night's sleep, I picked up the notebook this morning to I write my thoughts, and after pondering my mood of the night before, I realized that the reason Tom and I search for good programming each evening after the nightly news, until we turn in at night, is because we also need distractions. Just as no one can do much when working in an office which it caught in the economic downturn, there is not much we can do from our living rooms about the Nation's downturn. What Jim actually says about the way that Michael had the office distracted was something like this. "If your ship sinks, and you manage to get into the lifeboat with your family, maybe it would be faster if both parents were at the oars, but sometimes a parent has to play games with the children so they won't be so overwhelmed by the disaster."

I even thought back to what I'd heard about Hollywood surviving the Great Depression, as more people than ever were still going to the movies. People have to either be distracted by entertainment, or do as I do and take a walk to a high hill and look out over this great earth, and proclaim that "God is in Heaven and All's right with the World." It's not for me to say not to do anything, but despairing is absolutely not the way to go. I had identified with The Office's despair. At the end of last evening, I picked up the Sue Grafton ABC Mystery novel I'm now reading, and read until I was sleepy.... (Hmmm, A bit like LA's version of Bells, Bourbon and Bullets.)

2009-11-01T16:12:00.002-05:00

THE UNIQUENESS OF YOUR OFFSPRING:

I'm not talking about the next Einstein here, just the wonderful things our childlren sometimes do of their own invention.

When my son August was a preteen he took valuable(?) lessons away with him after attending Sunday School. They only have an hour, and were doing art that day when he discovered the fan and the plastic bag idea. I guess the teacher had rigged up a place where they could put their wet paintings set up inside a big plastic bag with a fan blowing directly in on the wet paint to dry fast so they'd be able to leave with their paintings when their parents picked them up.

I had tried that black plastic, used to keep down the weeds between rows, back when I'd tried gardening about that time, and he asked me if he could "have" the rest of the black plastic. Sure, I said, thinking there was very little left. He was always doing some project with his friend Eric and Johnny. This time it was a humdinger. With the use of duct tape and the black plastic, they had found that they could make a rather large "bag", and when they taped it to the blower side of a standard floor fan, after rolling the bag up, by turning on the fan full blast, the bag would unroll and fill up ...no matter how big the "bag" was.

His father and I were watching television in the living room, and he set up this bag thing so it would fill up in our direction. It was so funny. We had no idea. He set it going, and the big black blob started growing, and growing until it practically swallowed us on the other side of the room. August had a great time with that, even leaving the fan on at night downstairs in the rec room where he would have sleepovers inside his big black blob of a room. To my memory, this is the most unique thing any of my children have done.

We had a dog that would ring the doorbell in order to be let back in the house, and my husband Al, would stick the dog outside when company came to show them that trick. So, of course, Al had to pull the "Hey August, get the fan out and show our guests your big black balloon room." Then he would watch the expressions on the company's faces while the blob kept expanding and expanding like some horror film blob that was going to eat them, and grow bigger and bigger until it claimed the world.

If you have a remembrance of something unique you did as a child, or your child or grandchild did, I wish you'd leave a comment... or go to my Facebook page with it. But comments on blogs are welcome.

2009-10-30T14:48:00.002-04:00

Adult ADD Symptom Test:

My daughter said that I have ADD... That it's from my genes that she developed the same, as well as her children, my grandchildren. Admittedly most of her children have really active minds and are very intelligent, but I never thought of them as needing treatment for something that in my generation was not even considered a problem. So, she recommended I take a test by Googling up ADD/ADHD and see how I did by finding a list of symptoms.

From my opinion, most of the people I know would be checking off many of the things in this list, so anyone who sees this and knows me personally, next time we speak, I'd like to know if you think that if I had more than ten of these symptoms, would it be a sign of Attention Deficit Disorder? In a way it's nice to put a label on something to blame for my lack of attention to details and my forgetfulness I've merely attributed to age, but it seems like many of these things were a reason for my
struggle whether in grade school or in traffic as an adult... today... on the route where they were fixing the road... why did they keep me waiting for so long... Had to turn on the radio so I wouldn't get too antsy.

Here's the test. The website where I got it is below the test. Good luck, and if you score more than ten, "Welcome to the human race!"

If you experience more than 10 points on this adult ADD self symptom test, Attention Deficit Disorder is likely present.
An internal sense of anxiety
Impulsive spending habits
Frequent distractions during sex
Frequently misplace the car keys, your purse or wallet or other day-to-day items
Lack of attention to detail
Family history of ADD, learning problems, mood disorders or substance abuse problems
Trouble following the proper channels or chain of commands
An attitude of "read the directions when all else fails"
Frequent traffic violations
Impulsive job changes
Trouble maintaining an organized work and/or home environment
Chronically late or always in a hurry
Frequently overwhelmed by tasks of daily living
Poor financial management and frequent late bills
Procrastination
Spending excessive time at work due to inefficiencies
Inconsistent work performance
Sense of underachievement
Frequent mood swings
Trouble sustaining friendships or intimate relationships
A need to seek high stimulation activities
Tendency toward exaggerated outbursts
Transposing numbers, letters, words
Tendency toward being argumentative
Addictive personality toward food, alcohol, drugs, work and/or gambling
Tendency to worry needlessly and endlessly
"Thin-skinned" - having quick or exaggerated responses to real or imagined slights

from: http://www.mental-health-matters.com/index.php

Maybe I'll post my results... but then, maybe I won't. Interesting to see how one rates, but what they do with that information is their business.
----------------
Another neat site [couldn't find it again today] shows how to cope with it:

Break large assignments or job tasks into small, simple tasks. Set a deadline for each task and reward yourself as you complete each one.

Each day, make a list of what you need to do. Plan the best order for doing each task. Then make a schedule for doing them. Use a calendar or daily planner to keep yourself on track.

Work in a quiet area. Do one thing at a time. Give yourself short breaks.

Write things you need to remember in a notebook with dividers. Write different kinds of information like assignments, appointments, and phone numbers in different sections. Keep the book with you all of the time.

Post notes to yourself to help remind yourself of things you need to do. Tape notes on the bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator, in your school locker, or dashboard of your car -- wherever you're likely to need the reminder.

Store similar things together. For example, keep all your journals in one place, and tapes and cassettes in another. Keep bills paid receipts in one place, and bills in holder on desk.

Create a routine. Get yourself ready for a.m. walk or work at the same time, in the same way, every day.

Exercise, eat a balanced diet and get enough sleep.
--------
I think this is how to deal with problems... find out how to cope.

2009-10-12T19:21:00.002-04:00

THE CORIOLIS FORCE AND MY POLE BEANS:

My Beanpoles After the deer and before the frost:

When I took Human Biology in college, I found out about the Coriolis Force. Why in Human Biology? With all the twists and turns of our inner workings, even our digestion is subject to the Coriolis force... so I was taught. Our professor's lectures were memorable in so many ways. He had a story for them all. When it came to this Force, it was of his dog loving to pop balloons, but then he'd eat them. If a dog swallows something that remains unchanged when defecated, one can determine which end of the stool came out first if you know that the Coriolis force is counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere. He'd have a balloon "party" with the dog the day before he had one of his classes come up to his back yard for a picnic and a quiz for guessing the direction of the dog's stools. That was the link with human biology and turning of the world... a force of nature. In Googling this force up, it didn't get into the intestinal, but quibbled about the direction water goes down the drain. It as been tested to go either way in sinks, but I believe it was in force when it came to my bean plants...

This morning when I got back from my walk with the dogs I wanted to take down my frostbitten bean plants. Last night when the temperature dipped to 22 degrees, zapping the leaves. I thought I'd take carefully take the poles down, and unwrap the tangled vines. When I took the first pole down, I noticed something I hadn't before. All the bean plants circled the pole from the right side of the pole, twisting up from that direction from bottom to top. When the plants first started growing, it looked haphazard to me... their tendrils just blindly searching for something to grow on. Little did I know that some Force was causing them to catch the bean pole on the right side, and twist on up from there once it blindly found the pole. The leaves quickly covered the main vine, and I hadn't noticed the look of them while taking the pole out of the soil. I thought unwrapping the vines would be a chore if I cared to keep them intact rather than to just tear them off the poles. However, it was an easy task, as they were so evenly wrapped it was as if someone with OCD had carefully wrapped them.

Well... for me the Coriolis force explains why the pole beans wrap themselves so nicely, but how did they find the pole? Now... if it had been Black Eyed-Peas, I could understand it. ;-)

2009-09-14T12:06:00.003-04:00

Our Swearing-Scribe Keeping Track of the F Word:

I SWEAR THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Do you remember the first time you ever heard the F word? I heard it from an older boy while my brother and I were out in the snow, sliding down Tomato Hill. He described what it meant, giving us an impression of a very cartoonish picture of our parents doing a very strange act. It couldn't mean anything really bad, after all, he told us to go home and tell our mother the F word, and what it means.

My mom got very upset. Called up the mother of this boy, and I can imagine he caught hell. Oops, I said 'hell' ...My scribe in heaven will write that down.

Once there was a therapy I participated in, which utilized any word that would get you from your rational mind into your emotions. That emotional word in the United States is the F word.

I began to wonder about swears and their place in our world. Seems like I' use them more and more when I'm emotionally upset. I think they are like that little weight on top of the pressure cooker that goes pssst...psssst...pssst.... letting off a little steam so that the kettle doesn't explode from its pressure build-up. When you think of swearing and cursing as relieving the inner stress of a world charged up with all kinds of worries of wars, economies, strange flu germs that may lead to a pandemic... if these words can help take off a little of the pressure so that we can better deal with the realities, and let go of the worries leading to nothing, then, don't they have value? Problem: If we let these words become acceptable they lose that power. We must keep them as "bad words" to give them the power to relieve the situation when everything is going wrong in life and you absolutely cannot cope. What a great relief to be able to let off a long string of swears when you are so frustrated that you are ready to kill... or have a stroke, killing yourself in the process of living in a universe in which all does not go as planned.

I think a parent should come down really hard on their children for using swear words. They are too valuable to be made into everyday speech. We need those words to have power. If we parse them, saying, "Think about it, Buck, Cluck, Duck, aren't bad words... neither is Guck, Huck, Juck, Kuck, Muck.... and so on, so who decides that America's worst word is the F word? If it gets too common a usage, then it is jerked up to the M-F word. I have a really bad pressure releaser that if heard you heard me yell that out, your whole opinion of me would probably change. However, I'll have you know that someone or some animal just avoided getting killed (or it felt that way to me). It really works, and I think it is the worst string of swears ever... and it's good I think so. It stays a powerful insurance that I am not going to ever get so frustrated that I do something I'd regret.... as, if that is the worst thing I really could say, maybe God wants us to have these pressure releases, and the threat to us from our parents not to swear is the power given to these unblessed/blessed words. My place in saying these pressure releases is when I'm totally alone. If someone did overhear me, I would apologize and try to explain that it was really better than the alternative thought.

If we overdo it in taking the name of God in vain, and if He also doesn't want us to use the F word ever, and we swear too often, then maybe we pay for these venial sins by being made into one of those scribes who keep track of others swear words. It would be the worst punishment I could think of... keeping track of dirty and religious swear words for God... writing it down, checking it off each time you say it every day. Somedays my list is longer than others, and if I were the scribe instead, and he was I, I'd find my job even more boring if the swearer wasn't giving me much of anything to write down. The real hell to me wouldn't be the keeping track, but the realization that having to keep track of people's bad word is such a freaking waste of time.
"Oops, there you go with that word 'Freaking' again!" Jake in Two and a Half Men

2009-08-28T18:34:00.002-04:00

A IS FOR ALIBI, BY Sue Grafton

Review of author's technique:

Sue Grafton writes in a way pleasurable to the reader. Grafton obviously lives vicariously through her Kinsey Millhone character, and describes Kinsey's life in the first person in such detail it has drawn me into the novel more than any motion picture could. This could be best demonstrated straight away in A Is for Alibi--the first in the Millhone series--by her making coffee for a new client:

Page 3: [She had asked Nikki Fife...]
"Would you like some coffee?
"She nodded almost imperceptibly. I pulled out the coffee-pot from the bottom of the file cabinet and filled it from the Sparklets water bottle behind the door. I liked it that she didn't protest the trouble I was going to. I put in a filter paper and ground coffee and plugged in the pot. The gurgling sound was comforting, like a pump in an aquarium."

It is this descriptive writing that captures your mind--at least ...my mind--and I'm lost to this world and live in the story, involved in this life of this young woman investigator: seeing her visitor whose hair "...had grown out to its natural shade, a brown so pale that it appeared nearly colorless."

You see her office; her client; and move with her as she makes the coffee and we listen to that gurgling sound we are so accustomed to hearing in our own kitchens and from now on be thinking of it as sounding like an aquarium pump.

Through reviewing Grafton, and through just having reread an Anne Tyler book, I see why I like these two authors way of writing. Their words capture our imagination and take us out of our lives and into theirs better than most writers.

To me, this is what a novel is all about--to take one away on an adventurous journey into another's life--a vacation where one can shrug off her own life with the ease of taking off a coat, and no tedious packing of bags necessary.

Like with the story of "The Beauty and the Beast, where the only way Belle could return to her world would be a turn of a magic ring; we too can be exported from world to world at any time by merely opening a book, reading from where we last left off, and closing it, marking the spot where this reader's vicarious life left off when our real world infringed upon my reading time.

The Millhone stories do that for me, so before I review the book at book club, I'll want to read this report of that phenomena--our most desirable reason to read anything in the first place: ...to be carried away in our own imagination... to almost get lost in some great author's storytelling. What a blessing authors are, who can export us in this way! A true vacation is when one can leave one's own life behind and walk into another's life like we were peeking over their shoulder, or stepping into their skin.

2009-08-28T16:06:00.003-04:00

On NPR's All Things Considered...

They were talking about a writing contest for a short story [600 words or less] in which the first sentence has to be, "The nurse left work at five o'clock..." Being a nurse, that would have been either a few hours after the first shift ended or a few hours into the second shift. I tried my hand at writing something out of my experience of being a 3 p.m. through 11 p.m. nurse, but it was too negative, so something contrary and fun occurred to me. I'd heard that it is bad writing to write with too many clichés, so I looked up a website that had every saying you could think of, and constructed the following... Which I will NOT submit for their stiff rules against any plagiarism.We will call this piece,

THE NURSE LEFT WORK AT FIVE O'CLOCK:

The nurse left work at five o'clock. Most of the patients would just pull at her heartstrings. But she felt like they were draining the life out of her. She was on an emotional roller coaster. When she got this job she thought she had found her niche in life; now she could see the handwriting on the wall. There was no place for her here. Heaven help her if she stayed, as the powers that be had a heart of stone. Though into each life some rain must fall, her theory was to put up her umbrella once it started. She left work just two hours into her shift. She felt she was abandoning ship, but, too long had she thought she was between a rock and a hard place, and this was her chance to leap before she looked... to toss her cares to the wind. She felt like something was hanging over her head. The shift nurses seemed to do nothing but to air their dirty laundry. They were gunning for a scapegoat, and Beth didn't want to be the goat.

If she stayed at work any longer it would have been like waiting for the other shoe to drop. She figured she'd bite the bullet and quit before being fired. Earlier, when she awoke that morning to smell the coffee, she also realized she never had stopped to smell the roses. Her time was running out. It had taken a toll on her. She had been waiting for her ship to come in, and now she was just waiting for a bus in the rain. The bus arrived, rattling like an empty truck. The driver looked like he never met a doughnut he didn't like. He drove his bus with the theory that slow and steady wins the race. He knew his route like the back of his hand, and knew what stop was hers without her having to signal. Her house was only a stone's throw away from the curb. That was nice, as her feet felt like those of a cat on a hot tin roof. She couldn't wait to get off her feet and start her new occupation of being a couch potato.

Weeks later Beth realized that she had missed the boat, and that today was the first day for the rest of her life, and there is no time like the present to strike while the iron is hot. There was more to life than meets the eye. In never putting off to tomorrow what she could do today, Beth decided to take her savings and travel.

She knew that the rolling stone gathered no moss and booked a ride on a slow boat to China. However, once she was aboard ship, she realized she had nothing to write home about. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so she got off at the first stop to lead a life of adventure. What a wake up call. Soon she was having more fun than a barrel of monkeys. She felt great about sowing her wild oats, and decided it would be a cold day in hell when she would ever return to the hum drum life she used to lead. Now the moral of the story was that life has got to be more than one cliché after another.

----------
Too bad, I'll never know if I would have won or NOT. ;-)

2009-08-24T19:48:00.003-04:00

Newt's on Fox TV Channel?

I'm not a great cartoonist, but just wanted you to know my thoughts when I think there should be newts out on the trail, and for some reason they aren't there. I think they're home watching TV.

2009-08-12T12:22:00.008-04:00

Is The Damselfly's Mate a Knightfly?

I loved the dragonflies and 'sewing needles,' as we called them as kids. It really wasn't until recently when I was in the E.L. Rose Conservancy's photo contest (ww.elrose.org) that I found out that the 'sewing needles' were called damselflies. Someone had taken a picture of one. I'm sure I've taken at least three pictures of the same, and even entered one long ago at the Harford Fair, not knowing its name.

To us children, the dragonflies were harmless, but the sewing needles would sew up your mouth if you swore. See, back in the 1940s we too had our urban (or rural) legends. It would be so tempting to swear just to see if that impossible threat was true. A child likes danger (did I say 'child'?) as the thrill of getting close to the edge of endangering oneself gives one a 'rush.'

This morning I saw an all black 'sewing needle.' Thinking the damselfly comes only with a bright metallic turquoise body, I figured this was a different kind of 'fly.' Then, to my amazement, a damselfly buzzed it--like a car would almost scrape another to challenge to a drag race. I thought, "Hmm, she doesn't like other sewing needles in her airspace." They then began a 'catch me if you can' game of tag. I thought it's either going to end up in a fight, or she'll scare the other off. But no... the tail of the damselfly caught the black one right where the head joins the thorax... the nape of its neck, if they had necks. Then I realized that either the damselfly is the male, and the other is the 'dame' or female... the black one. I looked it up and the female is the less brightly colored.

Watching this I almost said out loud, "Oh, they are fu....., Oops, they are 'mating'... [Didn't want them to sew up my mouth]. ;-)
[Forgive me... I was just being funny!]

In wanting to take their pictures... first this new black damselfly; then both battling in the air, and then when they settled on a bush, mating, I guess I made them nervous. Something strange happened. Those flies can fly while mating, and flew off the bush and settled on my back. I thought they were going to spend the day on my back, and I tried to get them to fly again by going close to an object as tall as my back. I couldn't see them without my camera on them and leaning my head forward to catch the view of them on my back... and snapped a picture with the sign/object that was back level. A sign that prohibited everything else on the property except mating... of course, that would be after trespassing, wouldn't it?. They then took off on different courses... with smiles on their faces, I'm sure.

The reason I thought they may be at it for hours is because I had a friend in Endwell, N.Y., Nancy. We were telephone buddies when we needed adult conversation as our children were young at the time. She called me one day and talked about these mating bugs on her dining room window the day before. She was trying to do her housework, and it bothered her--each time she went through that room they were still at it all afternoon. She said, "When Ralph came home from work I told him about those bugs, and he could see I was angry. He told me I should have gone outside and shooed them away. I told him it wasn't the point. They were there all afternoon!! 'So what,' he says back to me. I said, They were there mating for hours, and you can't last five minutes?!"

2009-08-03T12:46:00.005-04:00

AN ODE TO MY BROTHER JAIRUS

Honoring my Brother Jerry, for His Seventieth Birthday:

Parents keep you safe in a crib
In Jerry climbed--just a year older
--He taught me everything he knew
and freed me from its bars.

Parents teach you to walk
Jerry taught me to run free
Together we climbed trees,
Explored the woods
Discovered walking sticks,
grasshoppers, oak galls.

Parents wash you clean
Jerry had us barefoot in mud,
jumping the icy brook,
vaulting with beanpoles.
Damming the brook,
Flooding the field.
Floating rafts; skipping stones...
Flying kites; digging in sandbank
across from our house.

"I dug a hole to the North Pole, he said.
"Shake hands with Santa Claus."
I reached in one end--
And he the other.
Sure enough, I shook hands with "Santa."
But I caught on to his cleverness...
Learning there are no short cuts to Christmas.

Our curiosity gave birth to wonder--
A wonder we held forever:
Like discovering a hibernating toad
When digging into the hill in spring.

Another Spring, on the way home from school
Jerry discovered some motherless baby squirrels
On a tree near our house.
Mom let us take them in;
Calling the Science Museum for instructions.
"Soak bread in milk," they said.
Mom hated slurping sounds.
Jerry and I looked at each other
trying not to laugh at Mom
Having to put up with the slurping squirrels.

Rain meant "Water Works"
and we'd play in the puddles
sailing balsa boats...
...All kinds of weather were excuses for fun.

Rain. Sunshine. Sleet. Snow.
...Patter on an umbrella.
...A walk in the sun across Tomato Field to Hall's spring.
"Stoop down so Old Lady Hall doesn't see us."

Snow meant sliding down Tomato Hill
To the base of Potato Hill...
Up we'd climb Potato Hill,
and slide back...
..."Careful not to miss the bridge below...
and end up in the brook."

We loved the wind... (and still do).
We would climb high to the top
and ride the sway of the trees.
...Jerry took it a step further:
"Look, Jo--Hold on to the top
And JUMP OUT!"

I watched as he bobbed gently to the ground.
I tried it too... What a ride!
Then he tried a young oak.
Jumped out and "CRACK!" (The top broke)
He went sailing down with a thud
The top of the tree still in his hands.

We rode birch tree horses
And had Cowboy hats,
And we each had twin holsters
With cap guns we could twirl on our fingers,
and shoot as fast as our hero, Roy Rogers

We raised ducks together;
and mice we saved from cats;
and took our companion dogs;
for a walk or a run through the fields,
or hide in the tall grass to see if our
collie, Jeanie, could find us... She always did.

To keep us warm in winter
if we were lucky we could get
the cats to climb under the covers
and sleep warming our feet.

The bedrooms were without radiators
And we'd run down to the kitchen
In our PJs in the morning and
Dress by the old wrought iron stove.

Winter was fun on ice
And we learned to skate
on double runged skates
Carefully on the low field
at the edge of the brook
often crashing through tiddly ice,
To the muddy field below,
and have to go home to
change into something dry.

Later years, on real skates
We skated on ponds in the pines
Or the sand pits.
"Jerry! Watch me do a figure eight"
And I'd try. He'd be more
interested in hitting a puck
with a hockey stick.

Our town was a smelly one:
The South wind smelled of the Tanneries
The North wind,
Of the Chemical Works
Of the piggeries
if from the East.
The West Wind was
the only sweet wind.

There were sand pits in Woburn
Where they'd dig out sand
for cement for construction
as well as sand for sand boxes
Beautiful yellow sand everywhere,
Just 6 inches below the top soil.

We knew how to be careful
When playing there:
Mom warned us about cave ins.
We learned about the sand pits so well...
We could run and jump without looking.
"...Geronimo!"
and fall many feet into soft sand...
...except one day when they dug it out
leaving a cliff of clay just where my
back hit the bank... and knocked
the wind out of me.

I was sure I was dying... unable to
breathe... even Jerry was worried.
Then Finally, a croaky breath inward,
"Ohhhhhhh!"
I learned my lesson in life:
"Look before you leap."

Even littered beer cans were fun,
Squashed on our foot sideways;
What a beautiful racket!
"CLOMP...CLOMP...CLOMP"
Noiser on Merrimac Street.
We sounded like shod horses.
Noise and laughter...
Who could stomp the loudest!

Hide-n-go-seek
Find a good place
They can't find me
"Olley-Olley in Free!
And often I won...
unless Jerry was it, as...
He taught me all the best places.

Billy, Shelia, and Donny McHugh
Ronnie Hatfield, and Richy Butler too...
"Friends of our childhood.
Come out to play
Whether 7 or 70
Our childhood's never far away!"
~~~~

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the brother.
Who taught me to wonder
and how to live a wonderful life.

"Thank You for my Sunshine Years
You made my childhood a sunny life,
...A time I carry with me always
Just a memory away."

I love you,
Mary Jo

[Reading this at his surprise party at the new Assembly of God church in Vestal, I even strapped on some squashed beer cans to emphasize that part of the ode. The modern ones don't stick to the shoes like the old tin beer cans that had to be opened with a 'church key'. It wasn't quite a poem, but a tribute to him for giving his sister such a happy foundation in life. This group was the most down to earth, and fun loving group, most of them being members of that Church. It proved to me that Christianity can be fun. Maybe that group is a happy one because of my brother, who has forever been himself, brought a spontaneity and childlike enthusiasm to every group with which he's become a member, and everyone with whom he's become a friend. As a gift to him, others wrote poems, prose, and even sang a song one wrote dedicated to him called "Jerry", showing he has brought them happiness and has influenced their lives. It made me realize what a great guy he really is, and how God can use a Peter Pan personality to bring people closer to Him, proving that God wants life to be filled with humor as well as love.]

Jerry wearing one of the funny gifts he received.

2009-07-29T11:21:00.002-04:00

Developments

Our green pole beans are developing so fast, we could probably pick one mature one daily and cook it up and divide it between us for the rest of the summer.

Something evil has eaten the first layer of the area above the root of one of the two tomato plants in my backyard garden. The half grown tomatoes don't know the difference yet as the leaves turn limp and yellow.

I transplanted the chives which had gone absolutely bonkers. The little seedlings so frail and hairlike that I'd put in to hopefully survive took hold like gangbusters and their roots were massive. I had to dig a hole big enough to contain them in Tom's garden below. It's at the edge, and whether they survive or not is up to the god of the onions. As long as I have a little tubular leaf of chive to chop up on to the sour cream on my baked potato, I'll be happy.

The beets are doing fine, and we are going to have some more greens some evening with our entree'.

Thus garden life goes on. And mine drones on as well. Gotta go and collect the Japanese beetles to feed the fish in our little muddy pond.

Write later.

Cranberry Jo

2009-07-26T12:43:00.002-04:00

POST MENOPAUSAL FROG

Wikipedia states the metaphor of the frog placed in water and slowly heated up to boiling... supposedly boiling to death without realizing it, is a "story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to important changes that occur gradually." But I'm about to blow the theory behind the metaphor. This morning when I was comfortably riding in the slightly air conditioned car, suddenly I had to turn the fan on high. It was urgent. I've felt this way before if standing in the sunshine on a hot day when suddenly I'll go from feeling comfortable to the feeling "I'M BOILING TO DEATH"... Which was the feeling I got this morning. I then told my husband how I now know that if you tried out that theory with a frog, when the frog got to the temperature in which it would feel just as I do during a "hot flash," it would do everything in its power to jump out of the water.

I'm blogging this because I think everyone who has experienced hot flashes would agree. When a woman has a hot flash, it's not just the feeling one gets when taking cookies out of the oven... We feel like the oven, and we feel a threatening need to cool off fast. So use another metaphor, believe me, that frog would hit the temperature I felt this morning. Now maybe any man who reads this will understand what we go through... And why the post-menopausal woman is more interested than anyone to stop Global Warming.

"Ribbit!!"

2009-07-23T14:13:00.007-04:00

ANTS IN THE HUMMINGBIRD FEEDER

One forgets after the hummingbirds fly south for the winter that there is a problem of ants and wasps stealing the nectar. It therefore seemed logical to get the feeder with a suction cup that would attach to the door. Those half inch ants discovered it within days of its use. The year before, my hanging hummer feeder would have this problem. Too bad it took it happening again for me to remember. So... for last year's hanging one which was difficult to clean I had put petroleum jelly on the wire from which it hung. I think the determined ants managed to go through the gunk in quest for the nectar, and then used Vicks on the wire.

With the new one attached directly to the window, I thought of those rat traps with the sticky glue which is a cruel and horrible thing to do to any living creature, but I used a big triangle double stick tape on the glass around the new feeder with the same idea to dissuade or trap the ants. No dice. It didn't stop them one iota. So I slathered petroleum jelly on the tape... with the same failed results. Then I remembered the Vicks Vapor Rub,but knew swabbing it around feeder would use up the whole ounce of the expensive Rub, so I tried hanging this feeder like I had last years, and put the Vicks on the hanging wire. Those damned insects managed to get by the Vicks. Those who got too ambitious with the nectar were soon floating in the nectar, mucking it up. What to do? In this day and age, the answer is to "Google It Up!" I did, and saw what the experts did, and for a fee, plus tax, plus shipping, and the bother of it all, I could purchase a MOAT. A hummingbird feeder moat that eliminates the problem of the ants. With this new feeder, the wasps may come and take a drink, but aren't squeezing their bodies into the feeder polluting the thing, so they weren't a problem. Those wasp and bee catchers seem almost as bad as the sticky rat traps, only they starve to death or toast in the hot sun in their trap. So, with only my concern of the ants polluting the nectar, I went to the pages online and looked at what a moat looked like, and created one myself.

It seemed the perfect solution. For days we only saw the hummingbirds use the feeder. Then, this morning, I notice... THE DAMN ANTS... ONLY, this time it's those teeny, tiny ones. I swear that they must have swung across the mote on a cobweb to the outer edge, and wended their ways down the side, over the hook and wire to the feeder. I think they are so tiny that they can float on the surface tension of the water. But I checked the moat, and the water was low. Well... you have to keep water in it. So, I took it down, as it needed refilling; got rid of the ants and cobwebs; rinsed it out well, and refilled it with fresh nectar, hung it out, and a few hours later I saw ONE teeny tiny ant had somehow bridged the gap. They must be learning to swim. Well, it's cut down on their numbers, and could have been one that hid under the outside wires. Later I knew ...it must be my conclusion that they are floating across the moat. I'm including pictures. If you look really closely at the picture of the moat, you'll see one of the teeny ants on the wire that drops into the middle of the water. The photo of the whole business also reveals my reflection. I thought that an added touch.

I was listening to NPR one day when driving somewhere last month, and they were talking about the importance of insects for the whole environment. Trees get their leaves chewed by caterpillars; and the birds eat the caterpillars. The point was that we need a good variety of trees and plants that attract a variety of insects so that the insects will attract a larger variety of birds. I guess sometimes it can work in reverse. What you want to feed the birds, wants to be eaten [or drunk] by the insects. Who knows, maybe the hummingbirds like a little protein with their nectar.

2009-07-01T12:52:00.003-04:00

HOW WET WAS IT

Here in NorthEast PA, the weatherman said the other day, "Out of the last 90 days, 61 have been rainy..." And the two days that followed were rainy.

I don't really mind the rain as much as the hot mugginess that follows once the summer sun shines through the magnifying misty cloud cover. On the paths in the woods, even if sprinkling rain, the trees serve as our umbrella. But when the dogs get wet, they can feel the benefits of the human's ability to sweat... they remain cool as long as their in the shade once the grass and mist have moistened their fur. Bear capitalizes on that any day by taking his swim. He must have something to swim after, and I'm running out of wood that has been hauled off the dam. Someone in charge must think that someone else is cleaning up that pile of branches. Bear will swim after the branch, but because of the rain, some are still a bit waterlogged, and he'll circle the area where he thinks I threw it, not being able to see enough of the branch above the water. I end up carefully throwing a rock to splash near the barely floating branch.

When we had approached the lake, nostalgia arouse in me, as it now smells a lot like low tide at the ocean. Like those who miss the rather sweet and fertilizing smell of the manure back on the farm where they were raised, I love all smells that remind me of my teen-age summers at Peakes Island in Casco Bay Maine. It's just the rotting leaves both in and around the lake and woods, and, though not a pleasant aroma, isn't a bad smell either.

Tom has become a Wizard when it comes to mowing the grass. Yesterday afternoon the rain had finally evaporated enough so the where it was most needed got mowed... followed about a half hour later by an impressively visible downpour that is, at 1p.m. the next day still needing to dry a bit before the next area of grass gets mowed. I don't see why he doesn't just make a field of it all, and have a farmer come in and cut the grass and plantain for his cows... that is if he could also find a patch of dry time long enough to cut, ted, and bale the stuff.

Plantain is the dastardly weed of the year. We'd apply Round-up if the weather wouldn't foul up our plans and wash it off right away. Last year it was bad also, but I was the only one who cared about the back lawn. This year Tom found a time in which to treat the front, and it does look great. Last year I would lift all the encircling leaves of each plant, pulling up what I could, each time I'd walk over that portion of lawn towards the path in the woods on one of my two walks a day. Like the fishermen used to cut up into pieces to get rid of starfish-robbers of shellfish, the starfish would grow anew from each piece tossed into the sea. I think it was a bit like that in where I pulled up last year's plantain. It now seems as if a circle of the weed grew where I had pulled it last year... much like the dandelion that will grow four plants wherever you pull one. So if we ever get a patch of good weather, we will be killing them with Round-up.

It's not that I'm complaining about the weather... Never seems to do any good anyway. But the weather on my path in the woods itself, doesn't seem to make much difference. It's lush and green as woods can be, with a canopy of leaves that lets little sun through. However, it's rare I see a newt this year. I love those little lizard like salamanders. They act tame, and one can safely pick them up and see a harmless wild thing up close. They are lovely little critters, but I became concerned when I hadn't seen ONE for more than a week. I've seen just a few within the last few days. According to Melissa Kaplan's Herp Care Collectionwhich I found online, Salamanders and Newts "Some apply the name "salamander" to the fully aquatic and fully terrestrial animals, while applying the name "newt" to those animals that live on land from late summer through winter, entering water to breed in the spring." I figured the poor critter which is born in the water, crawled out to land for a spell, and with all the rain, either lost the ability to breathe in the runoff waters, or got swept back into the brink.

For years I've been trying to get a good picture of a newt. I'll include the picture which is the best I've been able to achieve. I think you'll agree that these are as cute as the Geico Gecko:

Try to enjoy your summer no matter what the weather. Such is life!

2009-06-25T13:16:00.002-04:00

21ST CENTURY TECHNOLOGICAL CONFUSION

You know that cool guy in the jeans; versus that square nerd in the suit, tie, and glasses on the ad for Apple? Well, that "cool" guy to me is the metaphor of a super intellectual who can do the Rubik's Cube in less than a minute.

It took me years to find the ins and out of the first IBM Personal Computer. Then, by the time the public was going online, we then had to get a grasp on the Microsoft programs for PCs at the same time we had to understand all the new lingo which I thought would be understood as soon as I got Netscape For Dummies' books. I wish I could have understood it, but I didn't. What kind of "dummy" doesn't understand Netscape for Dummies??!! OR ANY OF THOSE BOOKS FOR DUMMIES!!

As soon as I really got a grasp on the ins and outs of the PC and the Internet, I was confounded once every two years with having the damn PC crash or get zapped with a virus. So, I finally got an iMac, and I'm back to not knowing how to put things in columns in their Text/Documents file. I simply wanted to write up an ad, as Tom got a new boat, so we're selling the canoe. Once I got the ad the proper size so I could have six copies on one sheet of paper, then I'd print it up, and cut the six ads to put on various bulletin boards. So, my idea was to get two columns, and have the first draft copied six times on that page.

You think I could just get two columns, let alone highlight the ad the way I wanted it and click on Edit, Copy, and paste, and paste and paste? Well, I ended up having to print it out twice along the top of the paper on each side using the tab. Then I could highlight the whole thing, and copy and paste the two ads twice more on the page.

Oh, I went to "help" in the text file and asked how to make columns... I won't go into detail, as it just didn't, if you'll pardon the word, "compute."

But it's not just the computers and the internet. It is also when I first learned how to program the Video Tape Recorder; when I learned how to connect up the first DVD player; and now it's The Dish Network each time it gets screwed up. In the beginning we got a bad receiver, and I had quite a few ruined days. I first had to talk to a phone robot which was supposed to determine from what I said as to what was wrong with the satellite reception. You'd have to go through this robot, before you could talk to someone live. Once switched to that line, there was quite a wait. Ah, how I missed the simplicity of just moving the rabbit ears to a better position.

My son August just gave me a GPS unit for my car called a TomTom. [The fear of another electronic gizmo scared me, but it is almost as simple as the first telephones, you know, the kind you simply took off the receiver and talked into.] My point here is that what we need in this technological world is a TomTom to take us on a simple route through the technological mumbo jumbo of instructions, for assembly and the later problems that arise. The written or phone instructions are composed by a person with a 140+ IQ, or explained over the phone to us underlings is like having been thrown under the wheels of this tractor trailer world of technology. It's like phoning in the instructions for first aide instead of having an rescue squad come to the scene.

When our electronics are having tantrums and we can't seem to get them to work logically, or when they seemingly break down completely, the technological lingo on paper, or from the tech squad on the phone SHOULD be understood by the AVERAGE person who usually has a 99-120 IQ. Oh, we learn, but it takes us a LONG time. We have to go without that mind's GPS the wizards of technology seem to have, which is like a kind of built in global positioning system for the super smart generation of technological intellects.

I think the children who get their cheap Fischer Price type tech stuff that can be walked on, thrown down the stairs, and accidently dropped into the bath water, learn how to use this stuff along with learning how to crawl and to walk. Even before they can talk they are now snapping pictures with that digital camera that their parents struggled to understand by reading the manual that came with the complex gadget. I'll bet those young adult parents learned more from their child's Leap Frog programs than what they learned from operation instructions on their adult type programs of PCs and iMacs.

To have call Tech for information on any electronics, like to get your computer problems solved when in a jam, is like doing something as debasing to our own ego, as those screwed up people who debase their bodies by cutting themselves because of the inner hurt of their emotions. It's like cutting up our emotional well being. We feel so f---ing stupid after conversing with the tech people, I'm left with a little more know how, but crippled up with a shattered ego. I have to admit that the live people with whom I've talked with at The Dish Network, are kind, and make it simple by taking you step by step through whatever your problem. However, I feel like the Gumby in a Monty Python skit where one would go around saying, "My brain hurts!", as when I have to translate what the technician is saying on the phone, and push the right buttons on the remote or receiver, and report what is happening on the screen, when all is said and done and I'm off the phone, I feel like a Gumby and end up yelling, "MY BRAIN HURTS!!"

George Will's column this morning mentioned something called Occam's razor. It was about dissecting today's health care debate... He likened it to "the mind's equivalent of a surgeon's scapel... In solving a puzzle, start with the simplest explanatory theory." Well, nothing could be simpler to my way of thinking how things should be done. The high tech world has to hire the average intellect.... someone with an IQ higher than 120 couldn't qualify. The electronic gadget's instructions would have to be understood by that level of brain power, and written by him or her once they can understand it on their level. That's all. I'm not sure it's what was meant by Occam's razor in this mornings column, which was meant for a higher intellect [What was "I" doing reading that??], but it is to my logical mind the smartest thing to do: "in solving a puzzle [as every freakin' gizmo ends up being] START WITH THE SIMPLEST EXPLANATORY THEORY."

I hope the heck some techie reads this and spreads the word.

2009-06-13T14:12:00.002-04:00

PAGES FROM MY JOURNAL

Sept 16th, 1995

It's a beautiful breezy day. I gave the cows branches of oak leaves gathered from my taking the dogs for a walk. I think the squirrels cut down the branches with their sharp front teeth, and then go to the ground to collect the acorns on them.

I'm reading Embraced by the Light. It's about what heaven is like, but it kind of scares me. I love the earth so much that it is difficult for me to imagine a life other than this one. It's not a good or bad way to be. It's just the way I am. I'm not one to tell the bereaved "She's in a better place." I don't think it helps anyway. We want our loved ones to be in our own world. It's just to vast a chasm between this world and the... wherever our souls go.

I love watching movies and good television... But I'm afraid that it's a waste of time, and inhibits my spirit's growth. Yet, I sometimes gain an understanding of human nature, and even some divine message through it. I only wish they had a situation comedy about someone my age who is still struggling with her purpose in life. [I feel the same about movies...] Much of the it had the texture and tenacity of real life. I guess I answered my own question. I just don't want life to pass me by while watching fiction, or stories of someone else. I want to be in step with real life, not standing back like an observer. Though I do volunteer work, I wonder if I should do more... or do less... Should I write? I have more questions than answers. Perhaps I'll find out eventually.

[6/13/09 So many years later, yet the above sounds like I could have written it yesterday. Oh, Well.]

2009-06-08T11:00:00.003-04:00

NATURE'S THE BOSS

It seems to me that Nature is telling us something when we think we can carve a path into the woods; when we plant a "permanent" garden; or when we just think if we leave things as is it will stay that way forever. Look at old homes and how they deteriorate after a few years of vacancy unless someone checks on them almost constantly. I've written blogs in the past on how the storms would show me they had the last say on my building a permanent path. I've constantly been having to go over, around, or 'under' a fallen tree. Every year I kick rocks that seem to heave up from nowhere, and if let alone would scrape on the bottom of my cross country skis in the winter.

Today, after going up to the Lake, Tom and I took different paths back. He took the high road, and I took the low. The lowest path from our house to the lake runs along the rim of the gully created by eons of years of the creek's water seeking it's own level. On the way back, right away I'm reminded of all this with an ash tree that crashed down over that path years ago, within yards of the road from the lake to the south. I have carved out a path around the upright roots of this first ash. There's another ash about 50 yards further on a gentle slope perpendicular across the path, for which I built up the ground so I could sail over it on skis in the winter. The trail dodges other trees that are tall and straight, but the roots make the snow run a bit of a bumpy challenge. Then the path curves uphill to a slight rise on the first of my detours I created back in probably 1988 when a huge beech tree fell, and forced me to build a path around it's trunk with is still standing full of holes created by the woodpeckers, and probably housing everything from birds to raccoons.

From that spot, it's precarious on skis, as the land slopes down at a good angle for a thrill ride on skis which could abruptly end with head hitting the trunks of the trees over the path I dug under when felled by hurricane Isabel. After walking under the cave of tree trunks the first view is an oak that gave out about 15 feet from the ground about 20 feet left of the path, and bent all the way to the ground, resting it's canopy on the side of the gully, creating a triangular archway which has to be dodged if one passes through it on skis.

I've laid any straight or curved wood shaped to guard the downside of the path, serving as a curb of safety of keeping one on it in the winter, and serving as a leveler, as it keeps the path from eroding down the gully to the right. From there on it's more or less clear a bit, until the huge oak that fell "for absolutely no reason" and I had to build up a lot of path to have it not a barrier for my lower ski route. I remember getting through doing that, only to have another huge oak that had been next to this path fall into the gully and creek, causing quite an obstacle for the debris that gets carried down the creek in the spring rains and melting snow. It literally uprooted my path, and another path that went downhill in a switchback I'd created so my grandchildren and I could walk down to the creek. I'd put in some rock slabs that served as steps at the bottom. So I built a curved detour around the vast hole in the ground at the top, lining the border with both curved and straight logs and dead branches. From there on we're clear of fallen trees, but, watch out... as soon as that's said, probably another will fall.

Point is, Nature has the final say. We cannot create a permanent garden that won't eventually go back to nature and crowding weeds. We can't build a straight permanent path through the woods. Nothing is permanent. It's always a work in progress. Such is life.

2009-05-18T10:08:00.003-04:00

My Journals of a Mad Mind:

Back in 1972 I began journalling my moods, thoughts, prayers, hopes, dreams, and inner life. Looking back to a journal just several years ago it is sometimes funny. Everyone gets blue once in awhile, and mostly my journals were a way of combatting those moods, so there are a lot written of blue days making my life seem like something it was not. For the most part I'm an up person. When I'm down, I do not like bringing another down with me, so I write about it. For some reason my 2003-2004 journal was out laying around in sight, and I cracked open a day in June... and for no reason, I was in a bad mood back then, and in trying to figure out why, I kind of liked this description:
"I don't know what sour and dour thoughts tramp on my deepest unconscious with heavy mud-trodden boots."

The next day back then I had considered sharing with a friend, as in my depression I hadn't kept in touch with her, but I nixed that idea, writing in the journal instead, as she would try so hard to help and said this of getting in touch with her: "...(she) would second guess my silence, but if I told her I am depressed, she'd get all flowery and empathetic or give me fifty million ways to defeat it. It's like a common cold of my brain. I will feel better in a few days."

Actually it's always reassuring when I read back a few years, as it makes me think that things are actually better now. Back then, 2003-2004, my knees still hurt. But it may have been that following autumn when I started walking with my ski poles so my upper body would be less exhausted once there was snow and I'd begin my routine of cross country skiing instead of walking. It was after that regime that I'd noticed that my knees were no longer bothering me, and the upper body exercise caused deeper breathing, my arms were stronger, and from then on I actually felt better in the winter than during the summer. That seemed opposite from the way arthritis usually affects people. When I realized that the poles helped keep my knees from getting tired, I used them year round. So, for almost 5 years I've been using ski poles and now LL Bean Trekking poles for walking and my knees are fine. So... my eroding mind and body seems to be getting better, not worse when I compare them to what I've written years ago. That's encouraging. I just hope that if I die and someone reads all my gazillion journals they don't think of me as a depressive personality. But, believe me, if I talked to you every time I felt down, you'd want me to turn to an inanimate journal to sort out my mad mind.

2009-05-16T15:32:00.004-04:00

THE MYSTERY OF THE FAT CAN

Polly was out back licking the outside of this. When I took whatever from her, I realized it was a fat can. She didn't like that I took her prize from her. I brought it in to Tom it was because I wondered what the heck the holes were from and how one of the holes was peeled up inward. He said it didn't appear to be one we used. When we want to trash ours we put it in the freezer, and put it in the trash on the day of trash collection. Tom said it looked like target practice on a fat can. But, I think it was taken from a neighbor's rubbish by a bear... probably the same one we think got into our trash without much luck as we freeze anything biodegradable... but, nevertheless, there were signs of a bear having gone through the area about one or two weeks ago. Tom didn't think it would put holes of this sort into a can. I think it did. His fangs are longer than the other teeth, and there was a dent about that distant on the other side of the can parallel to the round hole. I think he grabbed the can, squeezing it so he couldn't get his tongue in all the way. Then tried chewing and ripping the can peeling up a roll of tin like a key wound on a canned ham, and not having much luck, dropped it and looked for something better, forgetting about the can, and eventually, Polly found it.

I love these suburban mysteries.

2009-05-13T11:48:00.002-04:00

THE JUNK DRAWER

Everyone should have at least one junk drawer. Within mine are the small tools one seldom uses, like the glue gun; and the small "De-fuzzit" - like a razor - that takes the piling off sweaters and blankets, even the cheap flannel sheets (we should have paid the difference at LL Bean). It's also a battery drawer as well as a craft drawer (...I guess we could call it the latter). There's everything from paper clips to crayons; rubber bands to florist wire...buttons...beads...bottle caps...corks of all kinds.

The last time I looked for something in the drawer was for repairing a homemade skimmer for skimming the pond algae. With some fragments of fine wire, I laced it together again.

Just before that I found two of those modern rubber-like wine corks for Tom to convert to tips for his trekking poles. He had already made tips for mine from those corks, and it's working well. I hate walking and picking up leaves at the same time like someone cleaning up a park with one of those picks that pick up paper. I had previously looked through the furniture department of several stores to see if they had something for the metal chairs... but the tips were too broad and the holes for attaching to the pole were also too big. I think we hit upon something. I'd patent it if I thought it would sell well. The companies who make the poles should take note. Their poles come with hard plastic ends that come off too easily... I lost mine while my expensive LL Bean Mountain Trek poles were still new. When the poles are jammed into the hard rubber of those corks-- a drilled hole smaller than the tip of the pole, it is not going to slip off even if you stick it into the sucking mud of a cow pasture.

There's packaging tape; springs from click type ball point pens (want to save those for making those woodpecker like birds that move down a skinny pole to a base). There's electrical tape; screws; nuts; and other small stuff kept in small hard plastic boxes. And there are more empty boxes to spare for more small stuff to be stored. There are florist vials--those things in bouquets that keep some of the flowers fresh. I put an ounce of water in and take those along on country rides in case I see an unusual wildflower.

There are the extra vacuum belts; empty spools; golf tees and many other things too many to list, but if you need a what-cha-ma-call-it, for a thing-a-ma-jig...look in the junk drawer. There's a good chance you'll can find something that would do the job.

2009-04-27T11:31:00.002-04:00

Ye Gods!! Now that we have the Dish Network, and access to CNN; Fox News; and all the news the world could possibly supply, we have access to all the problems and troubles of the world. Listening to the news is like the opposite to a prayer. It's like a prayer to the listeners, " Watch out for this, did you hear about this and that, and ain't it awful all the terrible things happening to everyone everywhere"...and what the heck are we going to do about it!!?? I sure the hell don't know.

I realize that anyone's depression could be blamed on hearing too much about too much, and it's like an overload of bad news.

Like someone wanting to see what an accident on the highway is all about... they have no further to go but their armchair in their living room. Yes...I know one only has to turn it off... flick to another channel. There is a remote, but when it's not in my hands,I like to retreat to the coolness of the downstairs even in the cold weather when I could get hypothermia sitting here at the computer. I could also watch something more cheerful on the TV downstairs... but I just want my house back. I want my sanity back. I'm going to avoid people who have respiratory problems in case they've been around someone infected from Mexico and so forth... and will be washing my hands more with this Swine Flu pandemic at hand. Now, that's real news that we should know about. I think water-boarding is torture. Torture doesn't have to mean possible death to be torture. But what's done is done, and our government has been slapped on the hands, and hopefully we can move on. I only wish mankind would stop thinking of the most horrible things to do to one another. Sometimes I think we'd be safer in the midst of wild animals from the sounds from the TV set spreading the news of anything that is awful ...what they exist upon.

I just 15 minutes turned to Tom and said: "You know, they have to have something to say all the time. They have to dig, dig, dig up all the news and in a way so that people are going to listen."
He says, "Fox News gives both sides. It's fair."
I say, "But... Who wants to know everything bad in the world. Just sit there and listen to everything that is bad that has happened ever and now and in the future what bad is going to happen and so much horrible stuff that we can't do anything about? What are we supposed to do with all this stuff? It's too much for me to hear. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it. Write to my senator to tell them our government shouldn't water-board any more? To call our representatives in Washington to tell them not to throw away any more of our tax dollars? I think they've heard enough. They are on overload as well. We are all on overload.

I say go to Facebook and play Jeweled Blitz. Go play your computer games.

If the gnats don't drive you nuts, GET OUTSIDE. Walk up a high hill and look across a valley.

The Dish Network

Then say, "God is in heaven, all's right with the world."

"Let me know, Lord, if there is something I can do and I'll do it." I can't go off in 360 different directions trying to answer the prayers of the world all by myself. I can't even try. I end up frustrated and glued to one spot in not knowing which of the 360 directions to go in first. I think it's best to be proactive, but await instructions from someone BIGGER than I am. As for any reader who doesn't believe in God... good luck. If there is no God, then it IS all up to you. I guess all I'm saying is God help us. I think if we do what we can in the now... within our realm of life... whatever we feel in our hearts must be done, that is God's way of guiding us. Or you can say the Force of life guiding us. There does seem to be a rhythm of life and a magnetism of things that bring the right people together to solve one problem at a time... one here one there one somewhere else... With the help of whatever the Universal force IS that makes the world turn in a place where all the forces to make life livable came together... WON'T that Universal force guide us in our own inimitable way? I think so... If I didn't think so, I'd lose the will to live.

2009-04-20T11:13:00.003-04:00

THE "BEAK-BEAK" YEARS
Chapter One

For the last four years one could hear me call "Beak-Beak!" and a little chicken would run across the yard and follow me mostly into the house where I'd feed her her food supplements so she could live a mostly healthy and normal chicken-life.

As some of you already know, my little Aracauna chicken, CrossBeak, passed away last week. She had been getting weaker, and I more or less expected it, but except for her last day, she had seemed to perk up. Her last day was spent mostly cozying up to me on a cool windy but sunny day while I was weeding my cluttered round flower garden. She was mostly interested in insects I uncovered in the black soil when tracking the snake-like roots of the crabgrass that was taking over. ...But to no avail, for CrossBeak could never get worms or bugs with her crooked beak, and was the reason for almost four years... (or was it five... it seems like forever)... of supplemental feedings for this little survivor of a hen.

When I opened the coop that following day... a warm and sunny day... there she was, peacefully gone with no signs of distress. "Passed away," was a good way of putting it.

I felt a strange combination of grief and relief. These last four years have taught me in a small stupid way what an enormous challenge it must be for people who HAVE TO BE THERE for someone... for a person. A mother of a severely mentally and or physically challenged child, or someone caring for her spouse. I had unending freedoms compared... I know that. One could hardly compare, but I did in some cases. I'm very comfortable staying at home and not going on vacations. I feel that my home is a vacation place, and long to go nowhere else. However, it would have been nice for me to have visited my son's home while he was last in a state as close as Virginia, and now lives in Arizona. But for me to have gone to Virginia Beach would have meant being away for over 3 days, counting travel days, and I kind of gave that a point where Cross Beak couldn't be without me. I couldn't hire anyone or even leave Tom to be able to hand feed this little hen. It wasn't the full reason for this homebody to stay comfortably at home rather than to plan, pack clothes, get everything all set for my being away for half a week, battling traffic, and wondering if I'm going to be constipated and sleepless for those days. CrossBeak wasn't the reason for my hesitation on getting away, but she was that last straw... the tipping point where I'd deem it okay not to go, but to wait until my son; my daughter who is also in Virginia to visit here. They had been coming up regularly twice a year; and infrequently in between my son would visit on occasion when he was in a nearby marathon, or when drawn to this area because an old friend died.

But, saying to ANYBODY, I can't visit because 'I have this little hen who would probably die if I didn't give her supplemental feedings within 4 days' just wouldn't hack it in anyone's book. I can't say I wouldn't be offended myself if someone gave me that excuse. My mother did use her animals as an excuse to go back to Rhode Island as soon as possible after having visited me when she was the grandmother, and it was I who had the small children. I understood, but the grandchildren really didn't, and felt a bit estranged from their own grandmother. Whereas I live for my grandchildren... Well, I lived for them when they were small delights. Let's admit it, as they grow older, I'm not so important anymore. I'm hoping that doesn't happen, but it seems to be happening ever since each family's children reach school age. They don't visit as frequently, and as I'm growing older, it is just more difficult--with or without anything but age holding me back. Let's face it, if I go somewhere and can't get enough sleep, you may as well call me driving impaired when I leave to go home. I guess it's airline time when it comes to visiting further than 300 mile distances anymore.

However, along with the grief I felt at losing this little chicken, my mind has been chewing on the idea of the freedom I now have now that her life is no longer demanding my presence. Yes, I miss my little hen, but this morning I was thinking about how much money I spent on unsalted peanuts and sunflower hearts alone. If I had that four years worth of money spent, I'm sure I could get a discount round-trip flight to Virginia Beach. I can afford it regardless, and, though I hate air travel because of the constricts of it: not having my own car at the other end; the wait and the new safety precautions causing them to even inspect my sneakers for bombs; the cramped seating on flights, I'm thinking of taking a trip. So, I'm thinking of going,though I still have this basic fear of flying. After all, it's not like you could pull over to the closest cloud should something happen to the engine; or if a disgruntled passenger caused trouble; or if a baby just couldn't be comforted and cried for the whole time from one end to the other. But, I'll tough it out. Watch out, Virginia Beach... You may be getting a visit from Grandma!

[A note to August. After the Virginia Beach visit... especially if all goes well, I'll probably be tackling a further visit, though it will probably be fall by then. Please know you're welcome here. Maybe you'd like to take a break to a cooler place up here in Northeast Pennsylvania during your long hot 6 month summer.]

2009-04-18T15:34:00.005-04:00

THE BI-ANNUAL TRIM

Shaggy Bear

The day before Bear was to have his spring shampoo and trim he got into something that smelled like a cow barn, therefore I didn't bother to wrestle to clean him. He isn't allowed on the bed, and the furniture is covered. So, I put up with the sweet rural smell, and the yesterday Tom took him to Rub-a-Dub-Dub where Beth, as scheduled, gave him the works.

Problem when he comes back is not the shampoo she uses on Bear, but his sense of well being as well as the itch of the close shorn hair. He seems more vulnerable and acts as different as he looks. He also itches, therefore scratches until neither he nor I can stand it, and for both of us, he gets a Benadryl capsule disguised in a piece of hot dog. By then it's bedtime anyway. Today, the day after, he is more comfortable in his own shorn skin, but still somewhat itchy. I took him up to the lake, and a swim helped, though he'll still get another anti-itch pill at bedtime. Then he'll be fine. He just turned 6 years old, so this is the way it always goes.

This time I just had to take a before and after picture.

Beth shears him like he's going to be shown at a dog show. He's handsome, and I took pictures yesterday as well as today, and bookended this blog. He was getting pretty shaggy this time. Yesterday's "after" pictures gave the impression of his still feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable. So I entered the picture I took after bringing him up to the lake for his swim. Now, once he does something funny, my handsome pup is ready for some more videos.

Svelte Pelt

2009-03-15T15:50:00.003-04:00

PUNS Poking fun at our AMERICAN LANGUAGE

On the radio within a conversation it was said, "You sound like my late mother." My husband commented, "What does he mean, his 'late mother'?"
"For my children it would be my always being late. For this person he meant his mother had passed away."

It got me thinking about why I love puns, as well as plays on words, and just critiques on pronunciations.

Like my favorite pun: "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."
So take flies: Flies can mean: it's going really fast; zippers on jeans; annoying insects; what an airplane does... in fact, we don't say take an airplane, we just say fly. "We'll fly out to see you."

And as my stepson Jim said was his favorite not exactly a pun: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." ~~Groucho Marx. It's the outside of... part of the phrase, meaning aside from. We throw different phrases around meaning the same thing, but if you take it literally, it becomes 'kind of' a pun. I love this language of ours, and when I see a chance to use a pun, I take it.

The online Webster's Dictionary says
pun
noun
a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words that sound alike but have different meanings.
And offered a few good ones: using the verb 'punning' as in punning the composers: "Handel with care" and "Haydn go seek"

Here are all my favorite puns, and I thought it would be fun to see my point by sharing them with you. If you know of a pun I didn't include, please leave it in the 'comments':

Why is it called lipstick if you can still move your lips?

Does the Little Mermaid wear an alge-bra?

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

How is it possible to have a civil war?

If you ate both pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?

If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

Why are hemorrhoids called "hemorrhoids" instead of "assteroids"?

Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?

If you spin an oriental man in a circle three times does he become disoriented?

I got a sweater for Christmas. I really wanted a
screamer or a moaner.

Upon removing his boots at Waterloo, Napolean could smell defeat'

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

Dijon vu --
the same mustard as before.

A backwards poet writes inverse.

One of the most successful inventors of all time was the guy
who invented the hay-bailing machine... Obviously, he made a bundle!

A good pun is its own reword.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

Energizer Bunny arrested - charged with battery.

If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed.

With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat minor.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

A lot of money is tainted. It taint yours and it taint mine.

A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

Once you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.

When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she'd dye.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Acupuncture is a jab well done.

A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.

A pessimist's blood type is always b-negative.

My wife really likes to make pottery, but to me it's just kiln time.

Practice safe eating - always use condiments.

I fired my masseuse today. She just rubbed me the wrong way.

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.

"I had heard that"Commentary" and"Dissent" had merged and
formed "Dysentery." -Alvy Singer

Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.

I used to work in a blanket factory, but it folded.

I used to be a lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the
axe.

If electricity comes from electrons... does that mean that morality
comes from morons?

Inferiority complex: a conviction by a jury of your fears.

If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.

Marriage is the mourning after the knot before.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Corduroy pillows are making headlines.

Is a book on voyeurism a peeping tome?

Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

Banning the bra was a big flop.

Sea captains don't like crew cuts.

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.

A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor.

I think I am a pretty decisive person.

Without geometry, life is pointless.

When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.

A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in
Linoleum Blownapart.

Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.

A plateau is a high form of flattery.

When you dream in color, it's a pigment of your imagination.

Do molecular biologists wear designer genes?

Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.

Reading whilst sunbathing makes you well-red.

When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.

Curiosity killed the cat, but for awhile I was a suspect.
- Steven Wright (b.1955)

A patient tells his psychiatrist, "Doctor, I feel like a pair of
curtains."
The doctor replies, "Come now, pull yourself together."

A Termite walks into the bar and says. "excuse me, is the
bar tender here?"

If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't
people from Holland called Holes?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Why don't skeletons go scuba diving?
They haven't got the guts.

Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?

She's always late. Her ancestors arrived on the Juneflower.

Save the whales. Collect the whole set.

I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

Air Pollution is a mist-demeanor

It is OK to let your mind go blank, but please turn off the sound.

When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.

My reality check just bounced.

No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway

I always wanted to be a procrastinator, never got around to it.

Clones are people, two

Atheists have no invisible means of support.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

Daylight savings time - why are they saving it and where do
they keep it?

A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two-tired.

What do eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long?
Polaroids

What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?
A stick.

What do you call cheese that isn't yours?
Nacho cheese.

What do you call santa's helpers?
Subordinate clauses.

What do you call four bullfighters in quicksand?
Quattro sinko.

What do you get from a pampered cow?
Spoiled milk.

What's the difference between a bad golfer and a bad skydiver?
...A bad golfer goes, whack, dang it!.
...A bad skydiver goes dang it!! whack.

How do you catch a unique rabbit?
...Unique up on it.

How do you catch a tame rabbit?
...Tame way, unique up on it.

What do you call skydiving lawyers?
...Skeet.

What goes clop, clop, clop, bang, bang, clop, clop, clop?
...An amish drive-by shooting

Where did Vincent Van Gogh?

Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was a salted.

I see your IQ test results were negative.

Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't
zigzag?

Sign In Pet Store: "Buy one dog, regular price, get one flea..."

Graffiti -- The writing on the wall...

There really are people who always find enough gas for an ego trip.

The biggest fish are caught by the tale.

If women can have PMS; Men can have ESPN.

A dollar sign has been described as a capital "S" which has been double crossed.

If you can't tell the difference, what difference does it make?

Keep raising the roof and people will think there's something wrong in your attic.

Being slow to pick up the check is an art with some, you really have to hand it to them.

All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.

Q. If all the cars in the country were pink, what would we have?
A. A pink car nation.

Do jellyfish get gas from eating jellybeans?

Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID
that he just whipped out a quarter?

Jesse Jackson, Jim Bakker, and Jimmy Swaggert have written an
impressive new book ... It's called: "Ministers Do More Than Lay People"

Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.

Get a new car for your spouse. It'll be a great trade!

Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.

Always try to be modest, and be proud of it!

She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.

Every calendar's days are numbered.

A plateau is a high form of flattery.

The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small
medium at large.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the
end.

Acupuncture is a jab well done.

The wise never marry.
and when they marry they become otherwise.

You can't teach a new mouse old clicks..

"An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest."
~Spanish proverb

"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it." Mae West

Signs:

At a propane filling station:
"Tank heaven for little grills."

On a Califormia freeway:
Fine for Littering

In the window of an Atlanta clothing store:
Sid's Pants is Open

On the wall of a British Columbia cleaning service:
Able to Do the Worst Possible Job

In a New York jewelry store:
Genuine Fauz Pearls

In a Kansas City oculist's office:
Broken Lenses Duplicated Here

In a Boston fast-food parking lot:
Parking for Drive-Through Customers Only

Billboard on Florida highway:
If You Can't Read, We Can Help

On the Triborough Bridge in New York:
In Event of Air Attack Drive Off Bridge

On a Lockhart, Texas, gas station and minimart:
We're out of Rolaids, but we've got gas.

At the basketball court in a Gastonton, North Carolina, YMCA:
Anyone caught hanging from the rim will be suspended

On the door of an Ellsworth, Maine, restaurant:
The Indian Trading Post will be closed for Yom Kippur

In a Grand Rapids restaurant:
Half baked chicken

In a Dayton barbershop:
During vacation of owner, a competent hair stylist will be here

On a Jacksonwille, Florida, bookstore:
Rare, out-of-print, and nonexistent books

On a library in Marlboro, New Hampshire, honoring Robert Frost:
Frost Free Library

Then there's puns that are within plays on words:

Robbery Lesson
A robber walks into a bank, produces a gun and points to
the teller saying, "Give me all the money or you'll be
geography."
The teller looks up and says, "Don't you mean history?"
The robber replies, "Don't change the subject."

Why do drivers education classes in Redneck schools use the car
only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?
Because on Tuesday and Thursday, the Sex Ed class uses it.

What's the difference between a Southern zoo, and a Northern zoo?
A Southern zoo has a description of the animal on the front the
cage, along with a recipe.

What's the Cuban National Anthem?
Row row row your boat.

What's the difference between a Northern fairytale and a
Southern fairytale?
A Northern fairytale begins "Once upon a time."
A Southern fairytale begins "'Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit."

Then there's the "work/retirement" puns:

An old occupation:

What happens when people of different occupations get old.

- Old chauffeurs never die, they just lose their drive.

- Old chemists never die, they just fail to react.

- Old cleaning people never die, they just kick the bucket.

- Old cooks never die, they just get deranged.

IF..... [see work]
If lawyers are disbarred
and clergymen defrocked,
doesn't it follow that. . .
electricians could be delighted,
musicians denoted,
cowboys deranged,
models deposed,
and dry cleaners depressed?
Wouldn't you expect laundry workers to decrease,
eventually becoming depressed and depleted?
Likewise, bedmakers might be debunked,
baseball players debased,
bulldozer operators degraded,
organ donors delivered,
software engineers detested, and
underwear manufacturers debriefed.
And won't all composers one day decompose?
On a more positive note, perhaps we can hope politicians will
someday be devoted.

I didn't mean to go on and on with these puns, but I'm not the soul of brevity...

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
-- Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)

...And, I was too tempted to resist it.

"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it." Mae West

2009-03-13T19:25:00.006-04:00

THE TALKING LAKES

Today was another day of driving Home Delivered Meals, and one of those days that let me know why I do this... the back roads were lovely... still cold enough to keep them from becoming muddy and full of ruts that cause my car to bottom out... which will force me to use the closest main roads... no shortcuts then. But today the weather was turning into spring. The birds were singing. I could feel it in the warm sunshine which permeated the still cold air with promise of warmer days to come. When I got to my customers' place on Hart Lake, and aide who arrives just before noon was pulling into their driveway next to my car. We walked the long walkway to their house together, and she commented on how they must have their TV on quite loud. I could hear that distant murmuring also, but knew what it was... the lake. The lake above our property was talking several weeks ago when we had a short warm spell. The aide and I stopped to listen. It did sound like some low voice on a distant radio or TV set. But it was definitely the lake.

When I got to the next place--an elderly woman's whose house is also by a lake--a smaller and different one--I asked the son, whose turn it was to be was there for her, if the lake "talks" to them this time of year. "Yes it does," he said. "I know what you mean--when the ice begins to break up."

The first time I heard it was on Cranberry Lake while the dogs and I were walking on it, and it was a little worrisome to hear the ice doing something almost noisy while walking on it. I knew it was safe, as the ice fishermen had been fishing just days before, and have fished on it since. I don't think it's safe now, after the weather got up to the 60s last week, then after tricking us into thinking spring was here, slipped back into winter mode again. But that time I first heard the murmuring we almost felt its vibrations under our feet and paws. It was a bit nerve-wracking, so we padded to shore quite quickly. The dogs were more interested in life in the underbrush on terra firma anyway.

Once on land, I thought about the thrill of the mumbling lake. And then to hear it again today was just as thrilling. Once home again I walked up to Cranberry Lake , but the lake wasn't talking. Maybe it has to be around noon time for the lake to respond to the warmth of the sun, causing uneven expansions and contractions of it's surface and ice strata underneath. I took pictures of all the expansion marks that earlier day, like scars from its "skin of ice" having to put up with climate changes, but it was hard to tell what those pictures were. I'm going to include a picture I took up there today ...including my Polly, and a lovely mossy area that overlooks the lake. You can see a clear expansion crack down the center of the lake which happened when there was below zero weather in the heart of winter and the whole lake agreed that it needed room, and shrugged it's shoulders and took a deep breath... I wish I heard the great KA-BOOM that would have resulted.

I could hear something only once today... like distant thunder... and it must have been the lake, but the murmuring is different. It's like you strain your ears to try to make out the distant words of men talking over a fire at a cold camp-out or while ice fishing... but the lake is empty, and the campfires have been out since the summer people left their cabins and for the winter.

When I begin to understand the words emanating from the murmuring ice... well, my kids will want me committed.

[You'll have to click on the picture... at least I did after I published it and it enlarged on screen... as you cannot see the crack on the ice when you look beyond Polly the trees.]

2009-02-26T10:53:00.009-05:00

MOTHER NATURE'S ICE SHOW

When the dogs and I took a different route--this time along the brook--I wondered that Mother Nature wasn't asked to contribute to those ice carving festivals of where we often see photos being emailed about. I thought these good examples, just taken from Cranberry Run... a small obscure creek. I'm sure this is just a fraction of the marvelous works she may produce each year with her freezing and the melting technique she'd rather use than a chisel. If you know who's in charge, please ask them to have Her contribute next year.

Hippo Melting into His Water World

Nature's Crystal Flutes

Dolphins' Struggle

2009-02-02T14:38:00.004-05:00

WILD PAWPRINTS IN THE SNOW:

ON my second cross country ski-walk yesterday, I was to check out some paw prints on the Lake which truly resembled mountain lion's from what I'd seen in some book on hunting. I had brought my camera, a measuring tape, and not the dogs on the second trip, and followed backwards those paw prints to a wharf where the beast had gone under... almost proving to me it must have been a large crouching cat. I got on my hands and knees and went under to get a closer look only to find claw marks at the tips of each toe... not a cat-like print. As I'm scooting back out from under, I'm thinking, 'it may be that the cat had to get some purchase on the ice, as otherwise the prints appeared clawless.' I studied them on the way back to where I had first seen them when with the dogs, and didn't want them to step all over them before I got a picture and wanted to have measurements, so I had also taken a tape measure, and was placing it in the snow, when I had a feeling something was watching me, or caught a movement from the corner of my eye, and looked up to see a large dog that resembled a pit-bull/husky combination with a vest to keep him warm(?) ... probably belonged to the ice-fishing group across from where I stood. It was approaching me cautiously, and when I went to take a picture of him, he decided I wasn't anything interesting and ambled away. I looked at his tracks in the snow... large even for his size dog, and they seemed to match the prints I was photographing. [Those prints I initially had seen probably had the nails disappear with with blowing snow. He was the culprit. ...I think.... No panther/mountain lion/ puma... just a dog. I puzzled after as to why I was so excited, and wanted so much to prove that, yes, indeed, all the local rural myths were right... there really are mountain lions in the area. IF this was proved, it would cause such a commotion. If I proved it with paw prints that were provably so, I couldn't let the public know it was found on Cranberry lake, nor could I reasonably publish the fact at all without causing such alarm that we'd probably have a posse of hunters 'out to get him.'

2009-01-15T17:17:00.003-05:00

ALPHA MALES DON'T WEAR BOOTIES:

THE ALPHA MALE IN WINTER

When we brought our funny little English Cocker Spaniel into our family, in his own puppy way he let all persons and beasts know he was the Alpha male... and that he has remained. It's like he said to us, "Hello, I'm Alpha Male." And we said, "We're going to call you Bear!" And he said, "Good name for an alpha male. I'll take it!" He's never feared me, but if anything happens to upset me, he's the first to be concerned. One time when I was so upset because I erroneously thought a close friend had died... as she was so expecting to die soon she was going on to hospice, but because of a mixup I thought she hadn't made it. I bawled out loud... something I NEVER had done in front of the dogs. Bear was so concerned and gentle, he made valuable points that day. So, alphas have their good points.

Well, his Alpha rank means he MUST stay ahead of everyone, and he usually does. I was talking with a girlfriend about cross country skiing and she said how her dog used to step on the backs of her skis any time she went skiing. I said I was surprised, as my dogs learned early... they don't like that feeling of the ski moving under their feet. But today, I realized that the only reason Bear doesn't do that is because he's always ahead, or battling to get ahead... To be the LEAD.

I've taken them for three short walks today first up the path/hill to the hedgerow and back; the secondd walk was along the middle trail along the hillside, returning on the upper trail; and this evening, we went up to the hedgerow, then into the field, walking parallel to the hedgerow's end, then back through the hedgerow, then down the ATV path. The walks have been short so the dogs won't get frostbite on their paws with this extreme cold. Bear won't bite at his paws if he's carrying a stick, and he had carried a very difficult one to get at. You see, it has to be a challenge. He held on to this stick as we were going through the hedgerow, and I felt pressure on my skis... then there is a brace against the back of one of my knees, as he is stuck between a bush and myself, and needed to pass.

I realized then the only reason he doesn't think anything about stepping on the skis, but doesn't do it because he's usually always ahead of me. Now I have enough paths so if he stops to de-ice his paws, I can choose a different trail, and that I did going down the hill today... a good thing too, as he couldn't wait until he got home to stop and chew. I snow-plowed down the ATV trail, and went around the coop to see how the one chicken is doing.

Cross Beak is in a well insulated coop... meaning all seams and spaces where air can get through are stuffed with plastic bags--a great way to recycle them... no drafts. But she's lonely. I think she semi hibernates, as she sleeps most of the time, and when offered doesn't seem to care for her meat supplement, which I think is normal, as chickens can't find worms and insects in the winter anyway, so it's off their diet for the season. They are lethargic with the season and expend very little energy. I have the coop wired, so she has her heated water dish [with a flat rock taking up much of it as I've had mice and little birds needlessly drown in the water when it's opened during the day when the temperature is a little warmer]. With this really cold weather, I've put in a red brooder bulb in the light socket. It really seems to warm up the place enough so she is comfortable. I added up the KWHs cost, and for me it's worth the small amount to have her comfortable all alone in the coop.

Anyhow, today I thought she'd been penned up too long, so I took off my skis and went in to see her... I unzipped my jacket, tucked her inside loosely just holding her with the jacket hanging over her and took her across the yard to see the cows. ... Just to get outside and get a little fresh air... wondering if they suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder... Animals probably do... and probably that's why they hibernate. I wouldn't be surprised if the caveman didn't semi-hibernate for most of the winter, just taking turns to keep the fire going, but spending most of the dark and cold winter days under furs... sleeping. Returning CrossBeak to her coop, I then got the dogs back into the house before their feet could freeze... And give the dogs a bone... making sure Bear get the first one... Alpha's have to be first in EVERYTHING.

2009-01-11T19:17:00.002-05:00

THE BEAR'S PAUSE:

Being FINALLY able to cross country ski again, I was in heaven today... not too cold, and the skiing was great... at least up to the lake. Poor Bear has problems with ice clinging between his toes. He's usually good until we get up to Cranberry Lake, and once I see him pulling the ice from his paws, I yell at him, "Don't chew! Get a stick!" If he keeps a stick in his mouth then he can't get his paws wet chewing out the ice, which of course makes matters worse. So today was no different in that way.

To get the dogs to hurry home I promise dog bones. BUT, Bear kept pausing on the path, making it difficult for me to ski without skiing into him. I'd have to part my skis and go over him. So I'd yell, "Watch out!" as soon as he'd pause to clean the ice from between his toes. This happens over and over when we're walking or I'm skiing and I try to him moving.

Then, when the last stretch was all downhill, and he was way ahead, he settled at the bottom of the hill to chew out the ice. I yelled, and yelled, but he continued to chew until before he knew it I had skied over him, my skis astride, only, OOPS, I fell into the fluffy snow, which actually felt great... like falling back into feathers. It was a good thing I hadn't fallen ON Bear, but he seemed concerned more about me. While in the process of getting up to standing position again, I find myself asking him, "Why do you have to stay on the trail--the snow isn't that deep?"

He just licked my face, and then went back to de-icing his paws.

2009-01-10T13:15:00.002-05:00

I realized today that one of the reasons I was so tired after doing the Home Delivered Meals route is that I was so afraid of slipping on the ice under the snow. Next time, if it's still icy, I'm going to bring along my ice walkers, as well as my ski poles, ... I haven't taken a walk around here without both the ice walkers and the poles since the ice storm we had earlier this week. Without them I am so tense and careful, that it takes a lot of energy, and isn't at all fun. I usually enjoy the challenge of the route in the roughest weather. I'm going to get some strap on ice walkers, as the rubber stretch on type tend to fall off and are too difficult to take off or put on. One came off during the course of the walk Thursday and today when wearing them, when taking the dogs for a walk. Even with only one on helps... but without them, I expect to slip and my body prepares for it with each step.

Even the dogs have a problem getting up a hill that has broken in tracks of deer or boot tracks for them to gain a little resistance from slipping backwards. Having four legs to the ground isn't too bad if they slip... at least they aren't going to fall down. Today Bear was again challenging himself. He likes to carry long, long branches through the woods to see if he can get them by the trees yet stay more or less on the path. I tried to make a video of him doing just that for YouTube, but couldn't get it to work, but put my attempt on YouTube (with the first video I took with my camera, and my first try at uploading it to YouTube. One can see it at http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=lUcDidjFxM8&feature=email )

(At least I think that will get you to the video.) Anyhow, I would have loved to get the video of him today. Bear found a branch buried in the ice and snow, and tries to wrestle it out of the snow, at first just breaking off a piece about a foot long. That wasn't good enough. He wrestles with the rest and manages to break the ice and snow hold, and, though not 8' long, it was like a huge sling shot, with him holding the one of the top Y parts, with the other dangling down underfoot. But he managed to walk proudly carrying it while his stubby tail was wagging with pleasure. He was happy. He had met the challenge... all by himself. When I tried to get him to pick up an 8' long branch for my video, he didn't want ME to tell him what to do, and grabbed a smaller branch, but HIS choice.

Bear was doing fine along the lower path with his giant sling-shot type branch, until he wanted to go to the upper path. Of course, he couldn't get any foothold on the ice under the snow, so I placed one of my ski-poles into the snow under him so the pole braced his butt, and he got up a little further, then I placed the pole again, bracing his butt, and he got to where he could deal with the underlying ice as it leveled off, but... of course... there were little saplings in his way, and he got stuck because his stick wouldn't fit through. I kept yelling, "Go a little to your LEFT.... A LITTLE TO YOUR LEFT." And, by golly, he moved his head a little to the left, and got through to the other path to continue proudly carrying his stick as we finished our trek to Cranberry Lake. Now... Where was my camera then!! It would have been a great video. I shouldn't leave home without it.

2009-01-09T15:18:00.003-05:00

FIRST DAY BACK FOR HOME DELIVERED MEALS:

BOY! I forgot how difficult delivering meals is out in the boondocks. I must say I miss my Santa Fe. In my Elantra, if I need to pass someone on these back roads, with the snow over the ice and a sprinkle of grit in the middle of the road, that little car probably would get stuck... and I almost did in a few places. I had 10 customers... a lot for a rural route. There was a dirt road hill that doesn't just slop downward from the main paved and salted road, but it plunges downward. However, it was well sprinkled. I put the car in LOW and pussy-footed down the precarious slope. The driveway on the left, where I was to turn-in, was not sprinkled, but no problem as it was level, and the steep driveway off that main driveway to the house at the top was well sprinkled... I could drive right up to their kitchen door. However, the backing down was another story. I don't put it in reverse on icy roads in the winter, as sometimes it causes the car to slip, so I keep it in neutral, and slowly release the brake. This time, however, all I needed to do was get the wheels just slightly off the double line of grit and slid backwards. I quickly managed to get back on the grit, and turn back so I could go out to the steep road without getting stuck. I had no problem driving up the steep road to the safety of the paved road. BUT, just as I got to the top a car was coming, so I had to stop. And, yes, that's right, after the car leaves, my cars wonderful new snowtires spun like a top going nowhere... However, I let the car go back a few feet which gave the front tires some grabbing power on the gravelly grit, and managed to get back on the safety of a dry paved road.

The NEXT house was where a woman is wheelchair bound, and when I knocked on the door, she said to yell for Elaine. I yelled, "ELAINE!" I rang the bell, and I knocked. The customer said for me to wait a minute, so I did. I stood in the hallway, and heard her hustle and bustling, and, Who answered the Door... But the woman herself, not her aide, Elaine. She was holding on to the knob for dear life. I said, "Do you want to take my arm?..." She said, "Yes," hesitatingly. I made my arm as rigid as an iron rail, she grabbed on, took two steps and fell back into an easy chair with a heavy grunt. Elaine came out from the other room. The handicapped woman begins to yell at Elaine, who is saying she was in the laundry room with the washer and dryer running and couldn't hear a thing. ...Things weren't going all that well.

For my next stop I knew the street, but the place was a new one to me. I was to go to a gray house, which was the ONLY gray house on the block, so things were looking up. The directions said that the apartment was on the side, Apt. 3. I hoped there wouldn't be a glare of ice under the snow as I walked along the side of the house. There was no apartment on that side, but one in the back. I kept going around the house walking like every step may be my last, and saw a door with a small sign on it, and went up the icy lawn by stamping through the ice under the snow to gain some hold on the side of the sloping lawn. The door said, "Knock on the front door." Duh! I went to the front where I'd started out, in the front door without knocking, and there on the left: a door with a big "3." Before I even knocked, a nice lady aide answered, and got talking about the ice and how she fell the other day. At least I know how to get in the next time.

Though on a fast road, and having to back out of her driveway, the next customer was no problem.... on to the next. I recognized this one from before. An elderly Reverend lives there with his wife, and his walkway was BARE of snow or ice. The person I least expected to have it clear was the best walkway yet. He even came back out with me to make sure there was no ice that I'd slip on though I reassured him his walk was the best kept yet.

The next person was supposed to be on a road I'd never been on. I had NO idea where this road was. All I had to go on was some sketchy directions, where one road led to another on which I was supposed to go left, to another road on which I was supposed to turn right, with no mention of how far between each road. Finally I find the road, and turn right. Next directions were: "Trailer with handicapped ramp on hill on left." There was a trailer on the corner to the left, so I was going to go up and ask, as it wasn't on a "hill," but a car came down the road, so I flagged him down and asked where this customer lived. He said there's someone with that name first trailer on the "right" I went on to the first trailer on the right, and no one was home. I went back to the car and checked the notes... there was no handicap ramp. The NEXT trailer had one, so I went there. I thought, "I had arrived", but NO. She wasn't the person, and when I asked where that customer lived, she said, "4th trailer down on the left". I went on for what seemed like a miles further... you know how that is when you are in strange territory. I wasn't seeing any trailers... Some people call mobile homes trailers... some that don't even look like trailers. This must have been the case. Finally I see a trailer with a gray wood front and an long winding handicap ramp but way up a snowy hill to my left. On the down side of the trailer was a sloping an over 200 yard driveway was not sanded, so I had to walk up from the road. I pulled my car off enough so others could get by, and walked up the snowy slope trying not to slip on some ice under the snow. I was so relieved when the person who answered the door was the customer for whom I'd been searching. On the way down, the most precarious slope when it comes to ice, as your momentum is already lending itself to slipping, I spied some footprints in the snow... BIG sunken frozen footprints that made me think of the "Footprints in the Sand" picture with the poem, and wondered why I hadn't seen them when going up the hill--as if they suddenly appeared for me to safely walk back to my car. I said a prayer of thanks.

"I measured, folks, and this trailer on the left, was one whole mile in on road I'd never been on. They could have said it had a gray front as well. In my 16 years of off and on driving for Home Delivered Meals, this was the worst set of directions yet.

Anyhow, now I know where everybody lives on the route, and hopefully the weather won't be so frightening on wheel and foot as it was today. Back at the Senior Center, I went in, sought out the ladies room before I'd burst, then put in my hours and mileage. While I was in town, I was going to do some shopping before going home, but was just too exhausted and went directly home instead. Upon arrival, I think I was happier to see the dogs than they were to see me, and they were jumping around like crazy. My husband is now out doing the shopping... Well, he had to go into town anyway, so... "While you're there, Tom..." (You know the drill.)

I really looked forward to doing Meal delivery... to driving on the narrow but beautiful winding roads of Pennsylvania, and it's a good thing I really want this, as today was a BUMMER!

2009-01-08T11:40:00.003-05:00

Why I am like My Dogs

I used to think "Why can't I be like the dogs when thinking about age, as they don't know they are getting old. They just enjoy the now." But I realized that IS my problem. I don't ever think of myself as my age... ONLY when I look in the mirror, catch my reflection or see a picture taken of me. And that's wonderful, isn't it? It means I don't have that many reminders when it comes to stiffness and limitations of age. So, I guess to get used to my aged looks (NOT my age, as I'm not going to slow down) I even posted it on the side of my main page of my blog and updated my profile. Hopefully even if I turn into a "prune," I will still, at the age of 90, be able to cross country ski. ...That is, when the elements permit. It's still a glare of ice hidden under a "confectioner's sugar frosting"..., so here's trekking it with my ice walkers strapped to my boots. It's a good life!! ...As long as you know that looks aren't everything! [Sorry I've been so shallow when it comes to my vanity.]

2009-01-07T12:17:00.002-05:00

Today is so icy even the dogs don't want to be out in... or should I say on it. The freezing rain is just making them wet, and although they have natural "ice walkers" on their toes, Bear's are so worn down the don't help, but his young exuberance doesn't make this a spoiler. He's finally OUT with MOM! Something he usually has to beg for all morning long... though we got back at noon anyway. Polly's front paws point out in a coy Basset hound fashion... no good for grabbing the ice.

We started late, so Bear probably thinks it's morning, as he didn't scold me for leaving so late--he usually barks at me as if to say, "IT'S ABOUT TIME, and other choice words... probably "dog swears." While Bear is hopping around ignoring the slippery ice even if one or another foot slips in the process, Polly was the one following my trail with my heavy boots and ice walkers where my cracking the icy surface helping her footing. On the way back... down the hill... the last lap being the most precarious for her--she doesn't like to slip, and is very conscious of anything that can injure her and avoids it to a fault. She spots an old telephone pole laying on the edge of the field on our downhill slope (covered with black ice). Tom had brought in for lining some garden that never came to be or something of that sort. Polly has no trouble balancing on logs and sees that as an easy way to save a few icy steps... "No Polly!" It's too late, and she puts on a clownish ice dancing show for less than two long seconds before slipping off, and I laugh. She just goes on in her dignified way. She was glad to get home. With the ice walkers and a heavy jacket, I was fine, but it was a glum and dreary day. It's still good to get out and clear my head... both literally and mentally. One of my New Year's Resolutions will be to take a walk first thing. For me it's the best therapy.

Good Luck to everyone in 2009

Cranberry Jo

2008-12-12T18:47:00.003-05:00

HDTV SAGA CONTINUES:

Rest of the 10th of December:

Having finally got our Television upstairs, we placed it on the cabinet, and attached the external devices, as instructed, which was just the amplified rabbit ear antenna for now, we could finally plug in and turn on "Toshiba REGAZA 42" Integrated High Definition LCD Television with ColorStream HD... Dolby Digital. It was exciting until I realized I didn't know how to operate anything! I only knew how to turn it on. When I did, little "windows" popped up on the screen like on a computer, and with the joggle switch in the middle of the remote, I was able to follow the on TV instructions, but couldn't seem to get much going for me. I was suddenly in fear that the switch to HDTV was going to be a washout, and here we had banked on this huge 42" thing that seemed to only magnify the snow.

Then while watching it, every two minutes, a very clear picture of two lions--the showroom demo of the screen divided, showing the lion with Toshiba's ColorStream on and off to show the difference. It was supposed to only be for the showroom at the store.... their demo. I looked up in the book how to get rid of the lions, and found that just pushing on the center of the joggle, "Enter" would do away with the beasts. So in the evening we watched TV with my thumb on the middle of the joggle switch to get rid of the lions which seemed to appear just as we were to hear an important part of the program which we were watching. I had taken out my notebook and listed the pages, and next to each page line, I summarized what was in the book. It didn't seem to help me in the least, but new electronics are always like Greek to me.

At bedtime while Tom took an Aleve, I had a little vodka mixed in with my tonic water for the after effects of our two days of having brought heavy stuff up stairs, and from the after effects of Tom's fall. I had checked his wrist, the soreness, how his fingers operated, and the fact he could carry stuff without soreness as long as the flexed hand was aligned with his arm when carrying, but when holding something from the side, like the bales of hay, it hurt... so we think it was a strain, and no need for X-rays.

I unplugged the TV for the night, telling Tom that tomorrow I'll start over and somehow get rid of the demo lions appearing every two minutes.

Next day: Dec. 11
Tom was due for an appointment he's had all along for a check up at the doctor's, and left first thing in the morning. I told him to have them check his wrist. He had shown me that he also had a skinned knee, though not a serious injury, and said he hurt his hip, but thought it was just bruised. Later when he returned, he showed me a bruise he discovered on his neck. I guess because of the all point landing, he didn't do much damage to any one area, but his wrist was the worst of it.

So, when I got up, Wednesday I poured my coffee, and immediately plugged in the TV again, but before turning it on, while sipping coffee, I checked out the page showing the remote control functions. It took me awhile to find the right thing to turn the lions' demo off, as the lions began appearing every two minutes again. Finally I searched through every area of what came up when I poked the "Menu" button. Then I highlighted Channel Program, which was like the autoprogram, on the old TV. Suddenly there were beautiful HD channels. Although we get Picasso-like video from Binghamton, most of our stations are out of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre were these stations tuned in probably from the Scranton Wilkes-Barre area. All of the channels are being transmitted in analog now--we know that. But of the Big 3 local to scranton only ABC's channel 16 is now being transmitted in digital as well. When the channel number comes up and is just a number, with no -1 or -2 after it, it is just analog [i.e. ABC has 16, 16-1, and 16-2. A figure after means it's in HD... or digital, AND, by the way, the HD channels are EVERYTHING THEY'RE CHALKED UP TO BE! It makes what I've gone through all worth it, believe it or not.

Today: Dec.12
Our Channel 22 is not only just a very fuzzy CBS transmission, today because of yesterday's ice storm, we get nothing; but we could make out the picture for CSI last night, but it went out during the Eleventh Hour... literally... between 10 and 11... ha, ha. I was surprised that our Channel 28--NBC--is also just transmitted on analog so far. No HD yet, but it's a fairly good picture, but not when compared to HD. We still get the strange "Picasso-like shadowy transmissions" from NY for channels 34 and 40, and 46, but we get our Pennsylvania's PBS: WVIA/ 44 analog as well as 44-1, the HD; We get a good just 56 (analog) from Fox Television Network and then 56-1, 56-2, and 56-3... allthe dash numbers are different HD broadcasts. Then we get ION's channel 64 so clear you'd almost think it was HD except in comparing the next, 64-1(same broadcast), then 64-2 seems to be all cartoons, and 64-3 seems to be mostly infomercials, and 64-4 is The Worship Network. That's a pretty one to just look at, as so far it seems that most of the day, though they are selling the DVDs it, like an informercial, they show many beautiful videos of scenery along with kind of "New Age" music, and if you want to read it, there are really nice quotes from the Bible. Something to nap or meditate by.

This evening we'll be able to watch Fox's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" as closely as if we were a member of the live audience. Nothing much is on tonight, so I'll probably watch my latest NetFlix selection, East of Eden, with Jimmy Dean.

Before we got our new TV, we had been thinking of getting a satellite dish bundled with our telephone and DSL which would be cheaper than paying for everything separately. But, we already watch too much TV. But, again, watching TV is what we do in the evenings, so why not watch it in the nicest way? Now with the HD channels we do get, and hopefully will get after February, I don't think we'll bother with any satellite dish as we would be even more transfixed to our TV, and we should get up and walk around a little bit during the evenings, at least during the commercials. With HDTV, even the commercials are more entertaining. And, we notice backgrounds more. We watched Two and a Half Men's reruns on FOX last night, and I could feel like I was in Charlie's kitchen. Nice set. Never appreciated it more.

I installed our DVD/VCR to the new TV set yesterday, and looked at a DVD just to see what it was like, and it was like having our own home theater. Wonderful. But, having hooked up everything, and got all the wiring plugged into the right places, it freed me up today and for the first time in 3 or 4 days I actually took the dogs for a walk during the day. Had been taking them for flashlight walks, as I didn't seem to have the time during the day.

Today, I should say, they walked, but I cross country skied. Before when it snowed in late October it just didn't seem right that I didn't enjoy the snow. I was afraid I lost my wonder of winter. It was all gained back today when I skied up to the Lake, and stood at the edge of the woods trying to find out where the strange noises were coming from, and looking up at the 100 foot tall pines, coated with ice, and a touch of snow, making strange noises because of their ice resisting while they were swaying in the breeze. My "wonder" is back. No matter what kind of picture you are watching, be it photo, theater, or TV, there is nothing that beats watching Mother Nature in person.

2008-12-12T00:38:00.000-05:00

HDTV ~ DAY TWO:

Dec. 10: Do-it-yourselfers Go Wrong:

Wow! What a F-ing day! (Sorry, but sometimes that implied swear is appropriate.)

First thing in the morning, Tom and I took off that TV stand. He was going to carry the stand separately and put the big hunka-hunka screen into the box it came in. Carefully, I might add, with the packing insulating the flawed TV.

Like I had said the night before... he was going to return it himself... but I helped him carry down the TV, where it fit very well into the back seat of my Elantra. (Good thing, as it was raining, and when I'd brought it home, I had to have it hang out of the back, as the cabinet could only fit in the back seat.) Then off Tom went to play "bad cop" and not take any guff from those in the electronics salesroom at Olums. He had a talk with them. They admitted it "Shudda been checked out before it left the store." They assured him the one he brought back had been carefully checked. All he got was an apology. He cancelled the two year warranty. Toshiba has a one year warranty on its products anyway, and we felt they wouldn't do much better if needed, seeing how they didn't respond to our first problem. So, he saved $62 plus tax.

We decided it would be easier to take it up the inside stairs from the walk in basement and brought it in. Tom says, "We'll unpack it here and put on the stand before we take it up"... saying these recallable words..."It will be easier."

I think he thought it will be lighter, but it wasn't, of course... it was just without the cardboard box and styrofoam which couldn't have weighted more than a couple of pounds if that.

Assembled, we took the short ends of the screen, holding it vertically, and he backed up taking the lead up the stairs... those confoundedly steep stairs Charlie (his nephew) put in. The problem with this is that we had no handles--the cardboard box had slots in which to insert hand and carry it safely ...and with that packing insulation against possible bumps.

Tom was on the up side. The day before he took the heavy down side for both the assemled cabinet, and the original TV. I offered to take the down (heavy side) this time...and it WAS heavy. When taking something heavy and non-giving... Something requiring BOTH hands, it takes perfect co-ordination and balance. We sounded off each step: "Up... Up... Up..." Tom and I stopping suddenly with each end of the step up, but each sudden stop would cause a rebound, and after the third step up from the landing, I lost my balance, catching it again by stepping back, and yelled, Wait!" which didn't help. This caused Tom to lose his balance. I was only on the third step, but he was next to the top, and in less than a second, he had dropped the TV, and to my astonishment had hurdled down. I don't know how he rolled or kept himself from not breaking something, and next thing I knew he was crumpled at my feet like a collapsed parade balloon. The TV set had gone "Bump Bump" down as I was forced to back up against the wall opposite the stairs, and the far corner of the TV was precariously balanced on the last step before the landing--one more step and it would have gone crashing in a tumble roll on to the hard un-cushioned carpet of the cement basement floor.

My first thought was, "Should I call 911." Tom's first words were "Get me out of here." His head was bent against the wall, his back was curved on the landing on his left side, and his legs were still up on the stairs. So he was basically kind of upside down.

Knowing he was conscious, and could move, my second thought was for the TV set... the one we had just cancelled the warranty on. I could see the scuff marks on its screen from Tom's shoes as he had careened past it on his flight down. I also wondered if anything got jarred loose inside, and worried that Toshiba was as sturdy TV. I said, "Tom, can you reach the corner of the TV and pull it towards you? It's close to falling. Curled up on the landing, he managed to pull it so it's corner was safely resting on the bottom step while I was still holding the other end. I finally said, "Are you OK? Do you want me to call 911?" I moved my end of the TV so he could move enough to get himself upright again, and didn't answer until he was again standing, rubbing his wrist, making sure he could still use his hand.

"I guess I'm OK," he said, looking up at the stairs. "Can you believe I fell all that way down?! That's probably the worst fall I've ever taken. My wrist hurts, and my left hip, but I guess I'm OK."

"Can you still carry up the TV?" I asked. "Let's carry it up with the screen vertical between us."

It was much easier carrying it across from each other. I was praying that Toshiba had made a set sturdy enough for the bumps it took.

Tom and I managed to get it up to the kitchen, and paused there to catch our breath and wait for our blood pressure to lower as well as our adrenalin level. Then we took it the rest of the way into the living room, setting it on its stand on its final resting place on top of the cabinet. "Tra-La!" As simple as that!

Folks! Please, have the place where you buy your 40"+ new HDTV deliver and set it up for you! This money saving way almost cost us $999 plus tax down the drain-- and also could have cost my husband's life. It's just not worth my ever-saving money ways. We can't afford cutting corners by taking chances anymore.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about coping with this new technology. And the results. Could we get the reception we had gotten with the analog from those stations broadcasting in digital already? We soon would find out.

2008-12-11T12:58:00.003-05:00

THE NEW HDTV SET... DAY ONE:
Dec. 9 Never So Disappointed in all My Life:

I can't think when I was more disappointed. After basically spending the the day in anticipating my bringing home both the cabinet and the TV; getting it home; and almost busting our backs getting it upstairs to the balcony and into the living room; and then pulling out the 10-ton old RCA console out; and vacuuming the years of accumulated dust and dead ladybugs; after putting together the base; putting the TV face down on the couch (required a soft surface) to put on the base; then carefully placing our prize on the cabinet (which was my end of this costly deal) there appeared to be a dark "nub" at the top of the screen, and some cobwebs extending from that "nub." Having got that far, we had to take a break while Tom did his chores.

While Tom went out to feed his cows, I got my glasses so I could take a closer look. I had thought it really was cobwebs, but couldn't get them removed with the soft cloth that came with the set for keeping the screen free of dust. To my alarm, on close observation, I now realized that this "nub" was a part of the top of the screen that didn't go into the frame properly at the factory, but had pushed out under the frame, and had caused the weblike fracture marks I had been trying to dust away.

Tom was still outside, and I stood there transfixed on the flaw and my dreams of seeing the possibilities of watching HDTV with a VHF amplified antenna were being crushed. My heart sank. You would think my best friend had died. Well, maybe having a friend die so recently my anger and disappointment swam to the top like a big bubble bursting up from under the water. I was crushed to pieces! I found the card the salesman from Olums gave me, and called. Later I realized I should have asked for the manager... This is why. When John got on the phone, and I told him the problem, the very nice salesman turned very pragmatic and unfeeling. He said, almost merrily, "No Problem! Just bring it back and we'll set you up with another."

"Bring it BACK myself?!" I said. Can't someone bring one out here to replace it. We carried it in and assembled it this far, and I think, whereas we paid for the 2 year Olums' warranty, that you should bring it here."

"That would cost you $60, and you'd have to talk with a manager," he said.

(Think about being so angry that your head wants to explode, and then think "I can't let my anger show or I'll get NOTHING out of this deal.)

"I'll have my husband call back. He's outside at the moment. He doesn't even know that the problem is a factory flaw. I'm afraid to even turn on the TV."

"No, I wouldn't do that. Just bring it back, and we'll be glad to replace it."

When Tom got back in, I told him to put on his reading glasses and take a close look at the top of the TV screen. I waited until he did, and told him about calling the salesman, John. I said that he'd better call him back.

"I told him I'd have you call him," I said. "You'd better, as I think THEY should come up here and replace this goddamned TV set. I don't have one ounce of energy left to be taking it back down and bringing it back!"

"Well, if he said he'd be glad to replace it, we'll bring it back tomorrow and do just that."

"I THINK THEY SHOULD COME UP HERE WITH THE REPLACEMENT!" I said with a bad-cop attitude. (You see, Tom is always the "bad cop" when it comes to a deal gone sour. He'll usually rip into anyone who's giving him a hard time, acting poorly towards us or him; and I AM THE ONE who is the "good cop," smoothing things over and being diplomatic. The only reason I didn't call and ask to speak to a manager was that I WAS SO MAD I KNEW I'D CRY and then they'd know they could take advantage of my vulnerability. Now I added my disappointment at Tom's not going to be the "bad cop" to this deal.)

Tom stuck to his guns saying "We'll take it back tomorrow morning."

"I AM NOT GOING WITH YOU. YOU CAN TAKE IT BACK YOURSELF. YOU DON'T WANT ME ALONG. BELIEVE ME, YOU DON'T WANT ME WITH YOU. IT WOULDN'T BE PRETTY!" I really thought I would end up making a scene in the showroom if I went along.

I needed a good stiff drink. It was getting late. Tom said, "Aren't you going to cook up the chicken?"

I was thinking, "How the hell can he expect me to do ANYTHING at this point," but said, "Can't we have the lamb chops? I saw some in the meat drawer." He'd be capable of grilling them on the BBQ on the back deck.

"The chicken has been thawing out and now it's warm, you should cook it."

I was seething inside. I was completely irrational, but put on the rational ACT, and went into the kitchen to get the chicken on. I'm sure I crashed around a little making my extreme ire known, but once the chicken was in the oven, and it had to cook for about an hour, Tom asks (if you can believe this), "Can you connect the old TV up so we can watch it tonight?"

"Why don't YOU do it!" I said, knowing it's because he's always left the electronic stuff to me, and me an electronics get along like matchsticks and dynamite, but whereas he can understand legalistic lingo on paper and I can't, I don't chide him for his not being handy with electronics.

"You know how to connect up the things and where they connect to," he answered.

I wearily positioned myself behind the old RCA, taking up the wires I had disconnected, and looked at them like I would look at an inscription written in Greek. Then I got into my rational mind. I didn't need to set up the VCR/DVD player. What did I basically need: The antenna connected, and the TV plugged back in. I did that and could get NOTHING. I checked my wiring, and used the old hook up with those stupid clips that sit under the screws, put them in place, and tightened them, tried again, and we got channels but they were the worst reception ever. I hadn't moved the amplified antenna, so though the TV was in the middle of the living room, it should be receiving the same reception. I was running out of ideas. I figured if I went to autoprogram that it would only take in the channels that were getting reception, so I did that, and voila! The reception was as perfect as ever.

We watched the old TV the rest of the night. My girlfriend Charis had called me early evening after this whole episode. We were supposed to go to the movies that night. I started telling her about my day, and ended up crying. I hate to cry. It makes me feel all washed out. The once before when I recently cried it was for the good reason of hearing that M. my friend whom I'd rode to dialysis for 2 and a half years was stopping dialysis. At that time it actually made me feel better. Sometimes tears are necessary, but tears of anger make me feel like my energy is totally spent and gone in every way. I was exhausted. I told her that no way could I go to the theater tonight. She understood. She's another person who fits that C. Raymond Beran poem about "What is a Friend."

That was the end of Day One of the New HDTV... (Just wait until you hear the second chapter.)

2008-12-08T10:37:00.003-05:00

TEACHING THROUGH EMBARRASSMENT~ MOST EFFECTIVE,
~BUT LEADS TO HATING THE TEACHER

I'm one of those people who remember every embarrassing moment from the time I could remember anything... but the last time I was truly embarrassed was not so long ago. That day,several months ago, I'd gently reminded someone that morning that their fly was unzipped. Later, I was at the waiting room in the hospital where I had driven my dialysis patient. I saw that an alert and well dressed elderly woman who had been sick was there, and I was glad to see her finally able to drive her husband in again. I waved to her where she sat, and said how glad I was to see her. She said she had been very ill, but didn't elaborate. However, she held out her arms to give me what I thought was a sweet hug for my caring enough to ask about her. So I bent over extending my arms to accept her hug, being really touched that she would want to hug me. I was becoming quite fond of her too, and the affection display not only surprised me, but opened me up to her in a lovingly vulnerable way. When I went to give her a peck on the cheek, she kind of pulled away so she could aim at my ear, and whispered loudly, "Your zipper is down."

That was funny, because I had noticed another's zipper earlier, and mine must have been down at that time. But the immediate feeling of this "reminder" was that I'd lay myself wide open to this woman's affection, only to be told in a private manner that my zipper was down, as if the hug and the implication of friendship was a rue to get me close enough to tell me of my careless zipper. If she had indicated by sign language it would have ended up being more effective and less embarrassing. But what was most embarrassing to me wasn't my zipper at half mast (it's not like anything was going to flop out through a woman's fly), I was embarrassed and hurt that she used a friendly gesture to keep the faux pas private. My reaction was to straighten up and tell her how "Wow, that's human nature for you, I had reminded another of their fly being down earlier, and didn't even notice mine was hanging open!" Of course, by then the others in the room by then knew of the zipper incident. I went over to M. who was still waiting his turn for dialysis, and sat as if he needed my company instead of his being my rock to hold on to, easing me from my inner storm of embarrassment. From then on, every time I saw this woman in the waiting room, I couldn't feel warm and fuzzy about her anymore. Since then I have been more attentive to zipping up... she was a good teacher, but one I no longer liked because of her using the false fondness merely so she could discretely tell me about my zipper.

Listen, folks, just a nod, and a glance at the area should do... or a "mouthed", "XYZ", but not a false expression of fondness. It opens a kind of vulnerability that makes the only real lesson really learned is not to be fond of that person. At least for my type personality... a personality that even remembers embarrassment even at toddler age, when I once looked up under my mother's dress because I wanted to see if she was the shape of her dress...( "what WAS under there?")... instead, I got yelled at. And... why would I remember that? I wasn't being lewd, but was made to feel ashamed of my curiosity. What a difference it would have made if my mom asked me why I looked up there, instead of reacting like I had a dirty mind instead of just being curious. I would have said "I wanted to see if you had legs like us, or was shaped like the dress." At least I think that's what I would have said. And if she said, "Women usually wear dresses, but we all have a people shape..." and "It's best you don't look up women's dresses, as we like to stay private," It also would serve to be a good time to explain to a toddler about privacy. But Mom was human, and had her own automatic reactions to embarrassment herself.

On the mother side myself, I still have hostile feelings towards the curiosity of some little boys in my old neighborhood back about 40 years ago who now probably have teenagers of their own. They had been playing around my house, and I'd gone down to the laundry room to throw in another wash. I was doing a non-bleach wash, the same kind for my underwear, and threw what I was wearing into the machine. In so doing, I heard some giggling, and turned towards the noise to see those two brothers peeking in my window. I was horrified! I think I was too embarrassed to tell their mother. I hoped they told theirs and she gave them a spanking or gave them a three day time out, but knew that she probably had gotten a good laugh if they had told. Who knows... I may have threatened them and embarrassed them to the point where they never forgot my yelling at them ...but I somehow doubt it. When a brother is along, you have support and a little shelter from embarrassing situations. But, if I did embarrass them, I'm glad I was their teacher about the bad idea of peeking in another's windows. I may have saved them from a stalking charge, but most likely I probably am that woman who will go down in their memory as the first naked woman they'd seen.

Gads... Now I'm embarrassing myself.

Cranberry Jo

2008-12-01T15:59:00.001-05:00

WHAT IS A FRIEND,
by C. Raymond Beran

What is a friend? I will tell you.
It is a person with whom you dare
to be yourself. Your soul can be naked
with him. He seems to ask of you
to put on nothing, only to be what you
are. He does not want you to be
better or worse. When you are with
him, you feel as a prisoner feels
who has been declared innocent. You
do not have to be on your guard.
You can say what you think, so long as it
is genuinely you. He understands
those contradictions in your nature that
lead others to misjudge you.
With him you breathe freely. You can
avow you little vanities and envies
and hates and vicious sparks, your meanesses
and absurdities and, in opening
them up to him, they are lost, dissolved on
the white ocean of his loyalty.

He understands. You do not have to be
careful. You can abuse him,
neglect him, tolerate him. Best of all,
you can keep still with him. It
makes no matter. He likes you--he is
like a fire that purges to the bone.
He understands. He understands.
You can weep with him, sin with him,
laugh with him, pray with him.
Through it all--and underneath--he sees,
knows and loves you. A friend?
What is a friend? Just one, I repeat,
with whom you dare to be yourself.

(In Memory of M.H. who died 11/28/08)

2008-12-01T14:46:00.003-05:00

Since my last blog...

I thought my daughter-in-law, Stephanie had lost all her hair due to the chemo, but Thanksgiving was at her house, and she had a short blond haircut, no longer than 1/2" long. She says some of it has already fallen out, and the rest will follow. It usually takes several months of chemo before one goes absolutely bald. I said it was good to see it going by degrees, as it will be far less shocking when it's all gone. She's was so positive that she's going to get through this, and by Thanksgiving, the tumors... there were two lumps... were shrunk to nothing already from the chemo. She seemed in great spirits and everyone there was so happy to be there and realized what Thanksgiving was really all about: the people you love. My daughter who lives in Virginia Beach came up directly to Alb and Stephanie's and stayed there until Saturday morning when also my stepdaughter Trese came with family. Just before they arrived I got a phone call from the son of the man whom I've been driving two and a half years to and from dialysis.

He told me that M. had died on Friday, 11/21/08. The dogs were barking at my families' arrivals, and I said my good byes to M.'s son, and thanked him for telling me. I wasn't able to tell the girls until later. They knew how much I cared for this man. I knew he was terminal, but it's strange, when one can only give up getting treatment to die, that kind of death seems so different. I find I don't know how to take that. I think he did it for his family, and when he decided to, he thought the death was going to be hard and cruel, but his daughters who are nurses and had read up on such, found that it was one of the most peaceful deaths. I did look it up online, as I kind of had to hear it from the "horse's mouth." There was substantial reports from notable authority that this was so. It was therefore easier to visit him knowing that.

I visited him once since he gave up treatment two weeks previous, and if I was him I may have given up long ago... the idea of dialysis really freaks me out. He had cancer of the bladder, which they had to remove, and then his kidneys stopped functioning after several months, though he still wears a catheter bag that collects little. He had been on dialysis 3x a week. It took a lot of his week away from him, and his vision has gone so he can't read during treatment, and no longer liked watching TV during his 4 hours of dialysis. He was a pilot for the Navy during the Korean Conflict. He saw some action and hated war. He was an interesting guy with a great sense of humor, and someone with whom, I could talk about ANYTHING! It was a rare thing. He had a great personality and sense of humor. His wife died a year earlier of the effects to her lungs from having survived lung cancer. She was a peach too. His family tried to take care of him, but it had become so difficult for them that I think that's what's pushed him over the edge of caring about living anymore. I'm not in their shoes, so I won't judge them, I think M. wanted to give up for them. At first I was angry with them, but... Now I no longer hold any anger towards them.

When I went over to see him the Monday after he made his decision, he was still doing well... almost seemed better than ever, but it was only 5 days since his last dialysis. I brought him a book mark with a picture of "The Hand of God" and a small child fitting into that hand with the quote from Isiah 49:15, "I will not forget you... I have held you in the palm of my hand." I wrote on the other side, "[M.], You are still my hero. I too will not forget you. Love, [...]Jo."

I'm sure his wife will be waiting for him on the Other Side, and Heaven has gained for our loss.

I'm going to copy some prose by C. Raymond Beran about what friendship is, and it is the type of friendship I had with M.

Cranberry Jo

2008-11-09T12:19:00.002-05:00

WE NEED FORTUNE TELLERS, AND TO BELIEVE IN THEM:

There are two times when I meditate most, coming up with insights: When I'm out taking a walk, and when I'm riding along in the car... (driving OR a passenger). This morning on the way home from breakfast out, my great idea was, "Why is it we don't have fortune tellers anymore." Of course I know that no one can see the future, but when fortune tellers made it their business, they at least looked at the facts of what was going on at the time; what had happened historically during like periods; and predicted a like outcome. If anyone ever said History doesn't repeat itself he was wrong. The fact we record history should make each of us into our own fortune teller. What is wrong with this human race is that we have a very low attention span. We blindly seem to be going out for instant gratification without even a thought as to the outcome. How did human-kind ever get to this point? I believe it is because we used to rely on fortune tellers instead of looking ourselves for the signs of the future outcomes based on the past and what is happening today.

From my perspective--one who has lived through a past oil shortage, and even earlier was brought up by parents who had managed to survive the Great Depression and learned the hard way about what happens when a society doesn't watch what is happening to the economy until it is too late--I could see this coming for a long, long time. From Ronald Reagan's presidency on. I thought it was going to be the National Debt which would do us in... living in a nation operating on a deficit as a way of life.

People my age and older also went through the economizing on gas with the smaller vehicles during the last big oil shortage, and I just couldn't believe it when less than 30 years later, people living in cities thought it cool to get a Hummer. Only on the unpaved roads of the Ozark mountains or in urban neighborhoods with drive-by shootings could I see the necessity of some car that looked like it could survive a war zone.

So... Now the United States is suffering a HUGE surprise, like, "I never saw it coming!" ... Come on! How Could We Not Have Seen This Coming?? We were a nation in denial. And, I'll bet if we had fortune tellers, people would only be going to them to get insider information so they could get more instant gratification in their wallet, or driven off from a showroom. This whole country has to either straighten up and fly right... or to GROW UP. Enough is enough. The stupidity is like mass thinking: down to the least common denominator. We seem to want the government to do all the thinking for us, not realizing that WE ARE the Government. We have to think ahead. Was IBM's slogan just "THINK"? or "THINK AHEAD"? We have to do both.

I remember taking a walk in the woods way above Rock Road in Vestal, NY--a little road along a creek that through the eons had carved a deep canyon. From above, I heard the roar of an auto and looked down at a noisy sedan full of teenagers one of which had chosen to spread eagle face down on the roof holding on to the gutter above the front doors, while the car was driven way too fast for this little road where there was barely room to pass an oncoming car. They had absolutely NO forethought of what would happen if they met another car. The one on top would be killed for sure. They were lucky. No one was coming, they joy rode without incident. Crazy, wasn't that. But, teens will be teens, and some will die because of their lack of forethought, or their want of the thrill of doing something life threatening and surviving. But, to be adults in this world, a CEO or President of an automotive company without any forethought is like strapping everyone on the roofs of the cars they are building, hoping that there's nothing bad coming from the other direction... just around the bend.

2008-11-08T10:11:00.002-05:00

WHEN OBAMA WON:

I hope my family doesn't mind if I share with you the message I sent to them the morning after the night before which was Wednesday ... following my thrilled reaction to Barak Obama being voted in as the next President of the United States of America. I agree with the slogan people are now picking up on, "It's Cool To Be An American!"

Sent Nov.5:

Hello All,

I am so thrilled! I hope you all are too. This is a remarkable time in my lifetime. I'm talking about our new president, of course, President Barak Obama.

Wow! It had been really touchy for me for over a year now... When the fight began, I was only thinking I didn't want another Republican in the White House. But when I heard Obama speak, I realized that he was of the people, with the people, a uniter of people, and a hope for our nation. I liked that he couldn't be rattled. He couldn't be riled up. A steady as you go kind of person. But I wouldn't pick up this flag and wave it yet. (I'm such a Wuss. I'm realizing that over and over: Not so much a diplomat, but a wuss.) I kept my feelings bottled up, but spoke up when I had to ...especially to your father/stepfather when something which just didn't make any sense was being promoted on the Internet and he'd believe it.

I don't think I truly knew how I felt until I heard McCain concede, and realized that Obama had, in fact, taken the race! Suddenly I was gloriously relieved and happy!

NEVER have I seen a dirtier presidential race (And dirty on the GOP side, not on Obama's). It really scared me. I worried that something untoward would happen to Obama along the course, and especially if he was elected. If anyone follows my blog, you know how I felt, though I took down those blog entries, as I am not usually political. I don't like politics, but I detest unfairness. And I HAD to let Tom know why I thought that Republican slurs, the pushing suspicions of his background, of using anything they could get their little nasty manipulative hands on to tear this person down without saying the "n" word against him, and, c'mon, folks, for the most part the Republicans are WASPs. (Good name for them as they'd circle and come in with new venom with which to sting!) The Good Old Party[Poopers] in Washington wanted things to go on without change, and along comes, of all things, a black senator from unpolished roots, not long in DC thinking he can take on old tried and tested GOP candidates. They were so out to discredit Obama they didn't see the forest for the trees. They let a maverick lead their side, and tried to push and pull McCain until they pushed too far, and McCain realized that the Republican machine was out to blow Obama out of the water. [...At least I felt:] ... The GOP didn't want to just defeat him, they wanted to throw so much suspicion on him that some crackpot would feel he or she was doing their nation a great service by getting through the cracks and taking a pot shot at Obama... and then NoBama. I saw the True McCain come out, and what a good maverick is, when he took that microphone from the woman who called Obama an Arab... someone she previously said (because of all the mudslinging rumors and innuendo's) she "...couldn't trust." McCain saw what was happening, and his true self came through. He may have lost the election that day, but he won something greater, as he no longer was a puppet for the GOP when he called Obama a great American who would make a good president and that they just differ on the issues, that's all. Although Obama won, I couldn't admire anyone more than I admire McCain for who he really is. As for the pouring on the negative ads at the end... Well, at the VERY end he had one hell of a concession speech. I didn't even hear Obama's acceptance speech, but I heard the important one. McCain knitted up a broken campaign with a pledge to support our new president in every way possible and to heal this country with all the help he could give and wanted his supporters to follow suit.

I think Obama is going to be a great president, and I hope and pray he continues to gather support from even people who voted for him despite their saying that his color made a difference when interviewed at the exit polls.

I am just so pleased I could do a silly dance!

AND... as for your father/stepfather... Well, he showed hardly any signs of disappointment. I was really suprised. He did say that he was disappointed in the percentage of Republicans who voted. That, in fact, surprised me, as I didn't know up to that point when he said it that their vote percentage was especially low. I guess it was disillusionment on their part, and their lack of vote was a way in itself of expressing that. So, don't be too hard on Tom, nor worry about talking about Obama around him. I think he'll even come around to supporting him....

Well... another book from Mom/Mary Jo. Sorry. I just had to write. I'm so thrilled!!

2008-10-29T14:09:00.003-04:00

The Calendula's Never Say Die:

On October 28th, as everyone around here knows, we got a very early snowstorm..about 4"-6" of heavy wet snow that shrunk down just from it's weight. Proof that it was not just a flurry, I went cross-country skiing today. It wasn't good for the sport, but good for my body--good exercise, especially picking up branches that fell yesterday--it sure cleaned out all the dead wood.

But, yesterday was a bad day for birds, and I had to fill the feeders. I first shoveled the walkway of the heavy wet snow, and saw a flash of yellow. It was the Calendula... October's flower. It didn't look as happy as it's merry color of yellow, but it got my admiration for it's stamina, blooming even in the freezing weather and now covered with snow until I released it from it's heavy blanket. They grow like weeds all summer long, and their heads turn into brown circular wheels of seed, not at all pretty if you don't keep snapping them off to spread their seed for next year. It's this time of year I enjoy them the most, as they are the only thing still blooming as they take in the cold weather like a vitamin. One year I picked a bouquet of them in November.

I just took the picture above, and when importing it, checking it's clarity, I thought... "Could it be? I think there's a bug on that flower." I went outside and checked it out, and sure enough, one of it's aphid's had gotten off it's stem on where they thrive late summer and ...well, up 'til now, and then some, I guess... and went to the flower which at least looks warmer. The little bug, though dark in the photo was green when I checked. Just sitting on it's flower thinking "What the heck is going on?!"

This storm was early even for a snow-and-cool-weather-lover like me, and I do hope it warms up for the Halloween Trick or Treaters. The heavy snow caused electric lines to fail, and we were without heat for awhile. I was so cold yesterday that when filling out one of those email friendship getting-to-know-you-better questionaires, it said "Where I'd rather be right now", I put: "South"... I should have put "Arizona" as I later learned that this cold snap extends all the way to Florida. Besides, my son just moved to Arizona. Oh if I could only teleport myself there, I'd be there for supper, which would be their lunch-time. If it snows in Arizona this year, it will be my son August's fault, as when he first moved to Virginia, where he lived previously, he had more snow there than we had that winter. Who knows... the weather has been strange all over... maybe it WILL snow in Arizona this winter.

I'm blaming our snowstorm on my husband Tom. He just got my car snow tires... And I thought he was getting them too soon. He has a little of The Wizard in him when it comes to keeping the machinery in good order. I call his brother, John, a Wizard, as he is a farmer, and he'll call the crop work just right every time. He knows when to fertilize right before the rain; when to sow; when to reap; when to cut the hay and ted it without having it spoiled by rain, and usually has second cuttings of hay when others are just planning their first. He has a bumper crop of corn this year at a time when people thought the corn supply would be down with so much of it going to making ethanol.

Well... that's all for now, folks. I'll be blogging right regular, but no more serious stuff, and absolutely no more political. I'll be so glad when November 4th is over!

Chillin' out,
Cranberry Jo

2008-09-24T12:57:00.003-04:00

First Graders Modernize Old Adages:

I got this forwarded to me in my email this morning. I thought some of these profound; some of these probably overheard by adults[especially the last; and some of these affected by the times the modern six year old is experiencing; and all of these quite funny:

A 1st grade school teacher had twenty-six students in her class. She presented each child in her classroom the 1st half of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. It's hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading, keep in mind that these are first-graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!

1. Don't change horses... until they stop running.

2. Strike while the... bug is close.

3. It's always darkest before... Daylight Saving Time.

4. Never underestimate the power of... termites.

5. You can lead a horse to water but... How?

6. Don't bite the hand that... looks dirty.

7. No news is... impossible

8. A miss is as good as a... Mr.

9. You can't teach an old dog new... Math

10. If you lie down with dogs, you'll... stink in the morning.

11. Love all, trust... Me.

12. The pen is mightier than the... pigs.

13. An idle mind is... the best way to relax.

14. Where there's smoke there's... pollution.

15. Happy the bride who... gets all the presents.

16. A penny saved is... not much.

17. Two's company, three's...the Musketeers.

18. Don't put off till tomorrow what... you put on to go to bed.

19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and... You have to blow your nose.

20. There are none so blind as... Stevie Wonder.

21. Children should be seen and not... spanked or grounded.

22. If at first you don't succeed... get new batteries.

23. You get out of something only what you... See in the picture on the box

24. When the blind lead the blind... get out of the way.

25. A bird in the hand... is going to poop on you.

And the WINNER and last one!

26. Better late than... Pregnant

2008-09-14T16:11:00.004-04:00

Class Reunion

I'm sure most people have gone to at least one of their class reunions. I think I've mentioned before how I view life. It's as if one life ends when I go on to another... for me there's no looking back: Kind of like acts of a play, and as soon as I'm through one act, the curtain draws, and I'm on to my next one.

I first noticed that curtain between one life and another when on vacation to Peakes Island, Maine. It always seemed to rain the day of travel, and the rain seemed like a curtain falling on my pimples and problems of my awkward teenaged years in Woburn, and on the ferry ride from Portland to Peakes was like a curtain lifting on a very different life--One where I could be myself--A life where I didn't have to worry about what others thought of me. It was so freeing. I so loved Peakes that now I don't dare go back for fear it would whitewash those memories of the place, as it did when I visited my old home in Woburn. I like to lock up my good memories safely so I can take them out whenever I want and look at them through the eyes of whom I was at that time.

It's the 50th Reunion! I can't believe I'm that old. And I guess if I attended, I'd have a better grasp on the reality of that fact... but I don't know if I want to whitewash all those old memories of my friends--those with whom I don't know what would have happened if they weren't there for me through some of the most difficult years of my life. It may be worse than my seeing the old house and it's lost stomping grounds which seemed to change to something unrecognizable. Here's some parts of the emails between the 50th High School reunion committee.

To the initial contact, this was my gut reaction when told wrote:

"... I doubt if I'll ever go to a reunion... don't even keep up with the Lucky Six Plus Club members of back then in the dark ages. I hated all 12 years of school. In earlier blogs it may have been discussed... they are probably since then deleted." [I was referring to the boys teasing me as a teenager, and it took me many many years to forgive them.]
[I summed up my life briefly]:
"I got a job with Braniff Airways; worked in the teletype room; and married my first husband in 1962, and bought a house in Norwalk, Conn., where we resided about a year and a half. Had my first baby in 1963, a boy... had my 2nd, a girl, in Conn. in 1964; and then moved to Vestal, NY where had my last child, a boy, in 1968. I resided and lived there until my separation in 1980, and divorced in '85, and married the love of my life, Tom, in the same year, and we'll have our 23rd anniversary this November. I have 2 stepchildren whom I love dearly. All five children are married with children of their own... giving us a total of 14 grandchildren."
[This classmate found me via my blog]:
"As you can see from my blog, life is good, and I'm still that pony-tailed girl inside, pony-tailed woman on the outside, with the same interests in life... anything but school... mostly just the good ol' outdoors." ["... and," I should have added, "... writing."]

[I heard back from him. He was about the only boy in some of my classes who never teased me...
His email back ended like this:
"I remember you from school but also from council of churches events and there was that play or skit at your Congregational Church where you portrayed a country type girl. i guess that was an apt role."

I didn't even remember that role. But here's part of my email back to him:
"...Keep me up to date with this reunion. It occurred to me AFTER I wrote that it will be our 50th. I kept going over the figures in my head. It didn't seem possible that it was 50 years ago. I doubt if my husband would want to make the trip. I have a brother in Burlington, and I could stay there if we attended. Let whomever is sending out the info in on where I live: Thanks.
I also was thinking, 'I hate to have others see how I've aged' but so has everyone else, and if I look older than them, it will only make them feel better about how age has treated them.
Thanks for getting in touch."
-----
As you can see... I was reneging. I realized for the first time--maybe ever--that I still loved and cared about my old friends. It's always nice to be remembered. But, I wondered if that would be enough. Who did I really WANT to see. Or did I really want to even see those old friends that I truly loved. It would be difficult then to remember them from that "act" of my life where on that stage they were teenagers and would stay that way in my thoughts, if I didn't ruin my memories with an update after all these years.

So, at my book club last week, where most of the others are around my age give or take 5-10 years, I asked them about reunions. I don't think but one liked their reunions, and the husbands hated them, of course, as they knew no one, and couldn't stand when she and her old girlfriends would get together and reminisce about things the husband had no part of. I know only too well the difficulty of feeling left out, and don't want my husband to go through that. I also know he would hate me to go alone. Although it's ridiculous for him to think it, I'm sure he thinks that old boyfriends are lined up to get a glimpse of me entering the ballroom door at the Woburn Country Club. His vision of this is different from my vision of that if anyone cared. I could picture the one or two who may or may not have had a crush on me watching for my appearance and wanting this old lady to get out of the way so they could catch the glimpse of the pony-tailed gal in a poodle skirt and white buck shoes they remembered from High School.

No... not only do I want to remember my friends as they were... and check the old yellowed yearbook if I forget, but I want them to remember me the same way. They would then not have to accept the fact that the old lady in the way at the ballroom WAS that "Chantilly Lace with funny face... with the pony tail hanging down..." And when they think of me, they can think of themselves at that young handsome age also.

Dream on.

2008-09-06T19:37:00.002-04:00

Evening Walk

I just came back from the Lake. The evening is soggy wet. I saw a tiny little toad hop out of my way... probably an inch long at the most. I made him sit on my palm with the back of my hand against the ground, holding very still so he'd stay, and he did for a few seconds... he probably sopped up my warmth, then hopped on. I thought about it... he has a long long way to go before becoming a sizable toad... Probably many die before getting anywhere near becoming an adult toad from too many ways to count. I imagine from its mother's eggs, hundreds of siblings were born, enough so there would be some survival to adulthood. It made me appreciate a larger toad I was to see later coming back from my walk. He must have been lucky, as they don't have much protection. There used to be a big toad that would sit under the light under the balcony on buggy summer nights. The dogs would get excited seeing it, but I'd be strict with them, as, not only didn't I want anything to happen to the toad (anything that kills annoying insects is my friend!), but the dogs could get sick just picking up a toad... carrying it around in it's mouth, as they have glands that secrete something that makes them sick.

On an earlier walk with Tom, I heard a tree toad chirping... probably a "three toed tree toad." Try saying that fast. Better yet, get a young child to say it. They love tongue twisters. Tom thought it was a bird, but there is a difference in their call... a kind of rasp or tiny high pitched croak... very much like a cricket. Once I saw one... only once. You either have to be lucky or diligent to find one. The adult tree toad's body is only about an inch long... I know this from observations. The one I saw was beige, and delicately marked with darker beige as if to accent the frog-like shape of its body. We couldn't locate today's toad, as it was somewhere above us in the wet tree branches. They are now peeping at night like the Spring peepers. I hadn't realized it until Tom brought my attention to it, as I have tinnitus, and for me it's like crickets in the background all year long. I don't know if the tree toads get together before doing whatever they do to survive the winter... maybe they even have another generation before summer's over. I know they aren't crickets, as you cannot single out a chirp to gauge how warm or cool it is. My father could do that with crickets. Maybe I wiped out all the crickets around here years ago when I had my first batch of Aracauna chickens. I would loosen the rocks around the round rock garden lifting one carefully but quickly, and Chipper, a female broody hen would snap up all crickets before they could scrabble or hop away. I was pulling weeds when I first tried this, and if out near the garden, she would come running and I knew why. She would look at me like and cluck as if saying, "Well, come on! Let's look for crickets!"

It was just Bear and Polly with me on this evening's walk, and Bear is either busy digging a hole here and there, and anywhere; or he's walking along the path carrying a very long branch. I couldn't play with him easily as a pup. He was born hyper-active, I swear, and to play ball or just about anything would excite him too much. As it is, he reminds me of the song about Tigger the Tiger from Winnie the Poo. He was just a bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy fun, fun, fun, fun... pup, and as the end of the tune goes, "But the most wonderful thing about Tigger is He's the ONLY ONE." And I thank God he's the ONLY ONE of my long string of dogs that has been as hyper. He overwhelms me with his energy and zest. It's a good thing to be so eager to do things, I guess, but he should be called Yo-Yo, as he still jumps up and down like one at the door each and every time I approach an exit to the house. He wants to be outside ALL THE TIME, but NEVER wants to be alone... And he's fixated on ME, not Tom, whose dog he really is, so even if Tom is going for a walk, he won't go unless I'm asleep or not at home... And then, just maybe.

I think because I couldn't "play with" Bear, he has invented games for himself. His digging isn't without purpose, as I believe he hears mice, moles, or voles traveling their underground routes through the roots and under the matted floor of the woods. But his digging is compulsive, and that bothers me, so I find myself yelling at him even if there's no reason. I don't like him to dig on my path, so I shouldn't yell at him unless he's doing that. I think I'm sensitive about compulsiveness, as, recently I've found many areas whereas I am compulsive. I'm using the feeling of "having to do something right now" as a cue, to be aware I'm being compulsive, and don't really have to be... for instance, it doesn't matter if I find the answer to a Free Cell solitaire game now or later; or complete a crossword puzzle at one sitting. [I'll bet Tom wouldn't mind me being as compulsive about housekeeping, ha, ha.] What I don't mind Bear's doing--which reminds me of some computer game--is to pick up an eight foot long branch and walk the path. He is getting very adept at dodging the close set trees and bushes, and he knows how to jockey it around the trees or to walk off the path where there's room to get through. He was a marvel tonight. I should take a video of him and put it on YouTube. Maybe I'll be able to do that someday... someday when I get compulsive about it.