Bea Arthur Was 5' 10"

The other night, in the middle of the night, in the cozy warmth of my bed I awoke and had to google Bea Arthur's height for some reason. I needed to know. And, as I was googling I realized I didn't know WHY I needed to know, only that I was compelled to find out.

She's 5' 10".

She was 5' 10".

I remembered doing it the next day and wondered what other skipping stone points of contact I've looked up recently--not delving deeply into any one thing, but abundantly curious about all sorts of things. And, why wouldn't I be? Bea Arthur portrayed Auntie Mame's friend Vera Charles; I'm sure she heard Mame say, "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!"

Not me, sister. Not me.

Let's see what I've been feasting on as of late, shall we?

I looked up how to spell McMurphy, as in the poor guy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Yggdrasil. Norse mythical tree. Huge thing.
Knutepunkt. Northern European LARPing. Look it up if you need to. Join me!
Men's rain poncho. Someone might need one.
A related search: best umbrella. And let me say here, that I don't really care how good it is, might even be the best, but an asking price of over $300 is really too much.
Here was a meta one: I had had a dream that I was involved with people selling dozens of t-shirts. When they put a hole in the tag to convey something (don't know what), the term for that was a teasing. I looked up t-shirt teasing and got smart ass sayings on shirts.
Bechdel test. Thought it was spelled with a t. Needed to know spelling.
Saw an ad for a Prada backpack. Wondered what such a thing would cost. It can stay with the excellent umbrella, unused, unbought.
When to eat persimmons. I've never had them, wanted to know what to look for. One site said eat when firm. One site said let soften.
How long to cook leg of lamb per pound. It was a little more than 20 minutes per pound. It was also a roast, not a leg, but that didn't matter. I made a paste of olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and rosemary and rubbed it onto the roast before cooking. Sprinkled a little additional salt on just before putting in the oven. Oh. My. God. It was amazing with brown rice, and lemon, Parmesan roasted broccoli.
Oregon Blue. How can there be a "new" color? Yeah, there can't.
Speaking of: What do mood ring colors mean?
Who was on the balcony with the queen on her wedding day? It's who you'd expect. Doesn't hurt to check.
Good Day Sunshine lyrics. My daughter would probably point out that I've heard that song for all of my conscious life--not counting toddler-hood. Why wouldn't I know the lyrics? Well, critical daughter, because as a rule I only remember choruses and will break out into loud singing when the songs roll around to that point, and make up the rest of the lyrics singing those parts more quietly to not out myself. Yes, but why? I don't know. Why do you think you will not be like me some day? It's coming...
Estoppel. No taksie backsies. You said it and we know you said it.
Trover Conversion. Finders keepers, but only sometimes. Maybe the other tenth of the law, as in not always. GIVE IT BACK!
Why more black squirrels? I never saw anything but grey squirrels growing up and well into adulthood. Now I see them all the time. They're striking. It's a genetic mutation. Just coming out now with more frequency. Who knows if there's an advantage to that?
Stream impeachment hearing Didn't listen/watch the whole time. It's all so awful. I'm sorry, World.
Amendment granting Native Americans the right to vote Should have been the fifteenth, but it wasn't until the Snyder Act in 1924 that they received full suffrage. So much jive.
Be gay do crime I can get behind civil disobedience for good causes.
Submittable Just so I could check if my submission "in progress" for about 6 months had been decided on. My first rejection! Do you know how many marvelous people have been rejected, over and over again throughout all of time?! I'm in very good company.
Children of Heaven so I could share a link to the synopsis and a video clip of this amazing movie from Iran. A homeschooling mom was concerned about how demanding her child had become and wanted to show them how others live with very little.
Effete Spelling is tricky.
Buy squid ink powder I think you can see why I would google that. Can you walk into your grocery store and find it? Where would I go for such a thing?

This is all some of the things I looked up in about a week's time. There's so much more. What did I do before the internet? I'm sure my mind didn't jump around as much as it does now. For all the resources at my fingertips, for all the information cataloged in clear, accessible ways, I could be diving very deeply into interests. But, I don't. I flit. I skim. I jump from here to there.

On the other hand, any curiosity I have can be immediately satisfied. It's good to know things. I like finding answers. I almost never sit in wonder and instead want to know.

Still. I wonder if something is lost in that. Maybe sitting in wonder allows the mind to wander, to connect disparate dots, to further ask more questions. Maybe there's something rich in not knowing but wondering.

Honestly, I'm tempted to google that: what is lost by immediately satisfying curiosity?

I'm not going to. I'm going to let that one go.

Bea Arthur was 5' 10". Maybe I'll just think about that for a while.

The Afterbirth, 21 Years Later

I think I’m probably Chaotic Good. I am less afraid of the dark side, realizing, as I now do, that it is an intrinsic part of life and must be dealt with. But, that’s not the team I play for. I want good things for all people. I want the earth to be OK. I don’t want children in cages. Easy stuff to get behind—I’m not going out on any limbs here. And, I frankly don’t care if laws are broken to do what’s right. Chaotic, not Lawful Good. If we all waited around for laws to change, there would be very little justice. Laws have allowed people to be enslaved, denied basic rights, and be killed.

However…

I won’t say if I’ve ever broken laws. You can probably surmise based on what I’ve written here, that maybe I have. But, I’m no fool, and will not admit to such.

With that as a loose background on my moral compass, I give you a story that might, or might not, be true. You know, in the interest of not (necessarily) incriminating myself.

I gave birth to my son 21 years ago. I gave birth to my daughter 18 years ago. I had amazing, but very different, home births for both.

With my son, I labored for 22 hours. My family came bearing gifts of food and support, and waited while I had early contractions in front of them, laughing (“This is so easy!”), and then gathered in the living room, or sat together on the stairs, as my then husband and I made our way upstairs to our bedroom as my labor increased in intensity. My husband held my hands and looked deeply into my eyes as we walked a circuit from the foot of the bed, through to the adjoining bathroom, pause, and then back again. Loops over and over, pausing when I needed to. Riding the wave of each contraction.

The home birth doctor was there, sitting on the floor leaning his back on the wall. Two labor nurses were there sharing words of encouragement that my husband would then repeat word for word. Over and over again.

After 2 ½ hours of painful pushing my son was born. Crying (him and me both)! Laughter from us all! Amazing.

He was 6 days late. (Earlier that week, I had scared a young cashier who innocently asked when I was due and I told him, “5 days ago!”)

I went into labor with my daughter 5 days early. I felt a tightening. Must be Braxton Hicks. My son was late; I’m not in labor. Feed the toddler. Do the dishes. Again, a tightening. Nah… It’s not.

And, yet, it was.

Let’s just carry on. I can’t really be in labor. Little son asleep in toddler bed next to our king size bed on the floor. Try to get some sleep. Awaken.

Oh, yeah. I’m really in labor.

Frantic call to doctor. Husband talks to the midwife in the practice. He puts a waterproof mattress pad on the bed, cradling the phone with his shoulder. “I don’t want to talk!” Talk to her.

I don’t want to talk! And I threw the phone down. Doctor is on the way. In the hall, I feel an overwhelming urge to push. I feel between my legs and can feel the amniotic sac protruding. Make way to bed. I push again. On phone again, husband reports to midwife that he can see the sac. She tells him to rip it. He does. I then push for a third and final time and my baby girl is born! Tears (her and me both)! Laughter (quietly so as to not awaken son)! Too late. My daughter’s first sounds awakened him. He sees a little wet on the bed, sits up and says, “Mess!” Sees my daughter now cradled in my arms and says with profound awe, “Baby!”

He and I scoot to the head of the bed, I’m sitting upright, leaning my back against the wall, holding my new baby, hugging my little son to me by my side, as umbilical cord is still attached, and my husband is frantically running around talking to the midwife. Making sure I’m OK. Running downstairs to unlock front door. He gets the “I’m the Big Brother” medal I had purchased for our son days before, brings it up, puts it around his neck, and we wait for the doctor to arrive.

In many cultures it is considered auspicious to be born in the caul. The baby is born still within the amniotic sac. My daughter slipped into the world with as much ease as my son struggled.

Both births were remarkable. Both were roller coasters of time bending transcendence. The passage from within to without driving me deeper into myself and a primal state of being. Losing rational thought. Still trying to mindfully relax into each contraction. Opening up to flow my babies out.

For both births, the doctors weighed my babies suspended in a receiving blanket attached to a fish scale. Son: a whopping 9 lbs. 4 oz. Almost two and a half years later, Daughter: a respectable 7 lbs. 11 oz. With each birth the placenta was scooped into plastic tubs that we froze. We will plant them with a tree to commemorate their births! It will be deeply meaningful and will return to the earth nourishment and will feed the tree!

Except we didn’t.

There, with the quarter side of grass-fed beef that I got from the Mennonite farmers in the upright freezer in the garage, pushed all the way to the back, out of the way, were the frozen placentas. And there they stayed for many, many years. Ignored. Life taking precedence over a ritual about life.

Until recently.

My husband and I let each other down in our marriage. We became co-parents more than a married couple and for that I’m truly regretful.

In dealing with all of our stuff, and dividing things up, it came to me to dispose of the placentas. My ex-husband didn’t really want to deal with it. OK. Fair enough. I invited my college age son, but he declined saying, “Nah, I’m good.” Would my daughter want to go with me? Yes! Fitting.

My daughter and I walked into a local woods (or did we?). Off the beaten path, through the meadow, deep into the trees and found a suitable place. Armed with a couple of kitchen garbage bags, one of which wrapped a small hatchet, I used my covered hand to take the lids off. I tipped them over and a 2 inch layer of ice plopped out. I then tapped on the overturned bottom of the tubs with the hatchet poll, taking them in turn, until the frozen placentas dumped out onto the forest floor. My hands still covered by the plastic garbage bags, I placed the tubs and lids inside and closed them up.

My daughter and I surveyed my work. There they are. No one will know.

Would a coyote eat them up? Or a weasel? Or a bunch of shrews? Foxes? Crows?

Would they remain untouched by larger animals and instead slowly be decomposed by insects and bacteria, melting into the earth?

Alice’s Restaurant was playing in my head the entire time.

I didn’t want to get busted for litterin’. I’m still not clear on the legality of it. I mean, is there a statute in place about medical waste? Is a placenta medical waste? A placenta could easily be food for some, which is why I did (or didn’t…) do it.

Chaotic Good, as I said at the top.

All I know is that the doctors were mightily impressed at both of my children’s births at the prodigious placentas my body had grown for their sustenance. I grew amazing babies with that part of me. Surely, there was still nourishment to be had.

Why shouldn’t they go to feed the forest in some way, and perhaps, in many ways?

I (maybe) threw the placentas in the woods.

The Letter...

God, I love this song. It's all about going home again, isn't it? And some say you can't...

House Sitting

All the summer plans. All the places people will go. The preparations.

And once you're out the door, the nagging questions seep in. "Did we turn off the coffee pot?" "Did you lock the door, or did I?" "Did we cancel the mail for the two weeks we'll be gone?" "Oh, my God! The cats! I didn't get a sitter!"

A good house sitter will: take in the mail; water the plants (inside, of the tropical houseplant variety, and outside, of the tomato plant variety); feed and take care of the cats... Thank God...

As such, that is, as I know what is required to do a god job house sitting, and have, in fact done it, once and again, I offer up my services mostly through August. Well, there are times in August I could do it, let's say that any way.

gallagher44@att.net

Drop me a line, if you are in need...

Oh, and in the Chicago area...

And, August... 

The Letter

Words. It's always the words...

Beware of Darkness

The George Harrison estate objected to the GOP using Here Comes the Sun and said instead that if they had used Beware of Darkness that might have been OK...

Hot Damn!

Despite all of the bad stuff in the world, and there is admittedly a lot we see these days, there is still the need to relish the good. Not feel guilty about the joy you find in your own life or in those around you.

Perhaps to counter the bad, it is even more important to feel deeply the good when you encounter it.

So, I am reminding you all (we all know this...) to find something, or somethings, or someone, or someones that make you say "Hot damn!" Seek it/them out. Find it.

It may be that it's right under your nose. It could be you, if you remember yourself, after having forgotten yourself for so long. It could be your family, your friends, the book you just read, the realization that you just experienced a perfect day, which is rare. Perfect? That doesn't come along all that often.

The point being that it is a part of all of us, a part of the human condition, to feel joy. Unmitigated, unconditional joy. And, it makes no difference how it is manifested. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else. Maybe that makes it even more intense, or special, or exquisite--that it is your own intimate connection to something either outside of yourself, or within, that moves you. To be moved! To be awakened! No longer sleepwalking from one moment to the next, rather feeling a moment or moments in a day so strongly, so deep within your heart, that it's as if you are connected to the infinite, however you may define that.

You either have to seek this out, or be open to it coming to you. I won't wager on which is more likely. I think if you're not open it will never happen. If you don't seek it out you will never find it. Maybe it's a tie. It is active. It is going about with your eyes open. It is being ready in your heart.

You have to make room for good to flood into you. Nature abhors a vacuum and wants to fill it. Isn't that remarkable? If you make the space, it will be filled. It just will.

You have to get quiet too. You can't hear the angels singing if you are too loud. You can't be touched by a rare, elusive creature if you scare it away with chatter, with whining, with rancor, and discord.

The world is too loud. You can't counter that with more noise.

And you deserve to say hot damn! Everyone does. This includes you.

At one point in my life I was depressed, terribly depressed. Point is probably the wrong word. I was depressed for years. I had a huge sense of the injustice of the world and thinking about it propelled me forward, but was no impetus for me actually doing anything about anything, because I was depressed. It also allowed me to ignore myself and not face my problems and get myself together. Depression is so tiring. The work to get up out of it is immense, and sometimes feels like a sisyphean task. But, you just gotta roll that stone up the hill any way. That is the nature of life.

Because of my sense of the cruelty of the world and seeing the inequity, I somehow forgot that I had a right to be happy, and that my sadness did nothing to increase joy in the world. I forgot that I was a part of the world, a member of the tribe, that I belonged too. I forgot that my happiness would be a net gain for the whole, because I was a part of it.

I'm not preaching the prosperity gospel here. I don't think it's all just about you, you selfish bastard... I just mean that sometimes we forget that being joyful, and finding things that make us joyful, and seeking it out with earnestness, allows the world to dull a little. I think your joy, my joy, his joy, her joy all contributes to more joy for everyone. It becomes exponential because it is infectious. It brushes off on others as you float through the world smiling. It warms others as you glow near them.

Try to find something that makes you say hot damn! Or whatever exclamation would make sense for you. Try to find something that makes you feel deeply and reconnects you to your heart. You need this.

The world needs this.

Hot damn...

Long Time Gone

It appears to be a long time before the dawn. Hold on everybody. It's darkest right before.

In Clover

In Clover

Verdant green grass dotted with swathes of clover

Blossoms of white

Some purple tinges at the edges

Bees a-buzzing dipping in the nectar found within the flower petal folds

An intoxicating aroma

Air perfumed by the scent wafting up from dozens upon dozens of blossoms

No French perfumer could compete with this

No mere man

No mere woman

Nature's evocative allurement

Drawing us in as the scent reaches our nostrils

A simple walk through the grass

What is that scent?

Nature's perfume

Bees' addiction

Can't keep away as a lover needs to feel their beloved

Hold them close

Kiss them

Touch their bodies in all ways

So the bees can't fight it

So seductive this clover

Dotted through the grass in waves of white

Intoxicating, beguiling seduction

Clover

We're all in Clover

Do you smell it?

Do you know it?

Do you feel it?

In Clover

Lay in the grass and let the perfume encompass you

Lover touches you

Kisses shared, taken

In Clover

Scent reaching into brain stem

Primal sense

Reckoning all of our shared past

The smells of our forebears

The knowledge deep in the hind brain

Smell It!

And the bees taste it, knowing to sip is to live

Sip it up

Drink in

All senses touched as a lover

To taste

To smell

To feel

To hear

To see

See the white dotted grass

Know it

In Clover

Words...

Are you ever so moved by someone's words that you feel swept away by a tide? But, it's not scary at all. It's powerful and energizing. It can be peaceful and calm as you float on it, in it. And their words reverberate. They echo through your days and you recall them, or they come unbidden into your head and seem to push out all other thought, all other words, crowding out noise and chatter and filling you with something substantive and clear. And it makes you feel alive and attuned to everything else in the universe. And it feels warm and loving and real. And they are just words... Only words... Simply words... Do you ever feel this? Do the ideas you come across ever reach into you and caress your soul? Do they massage the wrinkles and folds of your mind and then reach into the chambers of your heart and gently touch and brush the edges of you and hold you firmly, and own you? No? Then you should do what you can to find those moments in this life, because that is magic, and it is necessary. Try to find it...

Roller Coaster

You know what? I hate roller coasters. HATE them. My kids love them. At a certain point, during a very small window of my childhood, I liked them too. Just like I liked the smell of gasoline, and can no longer stand it. I also liked spinning, twirling round and round, faster and faster, and can no longer stand that. Even a short time on a swing makes me feel a little uneven, a little unbalanced now.

That all said, you know what I do like? That life is a roller coaster. I am white knuckling it sometimes and it is scary, but so exhilarating. In the midst of it, it seems terrifying, and then I swoop down the long hill, screaming, grabbing on, clinging on for dear life, and I level out at the bottom, and I'm OK. It's OK. We got through that. And we're stronger now.

I don't seek out drama in my life. I'm not an adrenaline junky. I don't thrive on chaos. I just see that that's all a part of life and I might as well try and enjoy the ride. Even if it's at times scary. Even if it feels threatening. Even if it seems insurmountable.

The roller coaster approaches. I climb in. I just try to find comfort in the seat, buckle in, and hold on.

On the Dark Arts of Political Pandering

You know, I don't have a problem when people change their minds about things. When they realize that they were wrong and maybe there's a better way. In fact, I think that's a sign of a nimble mind, one which is open and can let in new bits of information, can ponder, can contemplate, can see things from a totally new perspective. It's because of that kind of thinking that they can come to better places. I think that's good. I don't think that makes someone inconsistent, necessarily. I don't think that means they are unsubstantial. It's a testament to the ability to evolve. And who doesn't love that? Do we want to remain in the dark ages?

What I do find troublesome is when it seems that their change in thinking is disingenuous. When they switched their line of thinking to only be in line with what seems more expedient to their own ends. When it panders. When it is full of pretty words to sway another's opinion. When it is to gain an increase in their esteem, but it's acquired through a veil of lies. Lies, because that new thinking does not represent their true convictions. When it is just so much bullshit.

We're seeing a lot of that in this campaign, aren't we? On many sides.

I think this is how Hillary operates.

I am not a complete naif. I know politics is a rough and tumble sport. Things get said in ways to convince, and that may sometimes mean candidates push the edges. That might mean they heavily shade the truth, but hopefully it's still there, to gain traction in an argument. They carefully (or don't: TRUMP!!) choose their words to the greatest effect. There's a theatricality about it all, and must be to catch the eyes of an increasingly distracted electorate.

However, in this time of great metaphorical starvation, when people's lives are difficult and we're all facing such dire problems, there needs to be a lot of bread with those circuses. It can't just be so much gussied up pretty looks with nothing true under the surface. How can there be any trust there, if that's the case? How can we measure the possible behavior of the future, if there's no there there right now? It's transient. It's wispy. It's a circus side show with carnival barkers calling out full of bluster. It's not real.

Which brings us back to Hillary. She is pandering hard. Bernie is gaining momentum and people are hearing his words, which are pretty, I will give him that, but they're backed up by years of consistency. He is not saying anything new now, nothing that he hasn't said all along, but now people are listening, and listening in ever greater numbers. He is speaking to real needs in people's lives in real ways. He is substantial. Hillary is jumping on.

Her beginning to parrot Bernie's language and highlighting his lifelong issues, is nothing short of cynical political posturing. She's posing, all gussied up to catch our eyes.

I don't think it's working well, and I think people are seeing through it. Thank God for the internet and the long memory of the digital repository. It's all there for the taking. It's all there for us to see.

Ar

Is Trump the New Hitler?

So, is he?

Does Donald Trump really represent the same kind of threat for certain groups of people that Hitler did in his rise during the 1920s?

No. No, he doesn't.

Hitler actually spoke of wiping out the Jews in Mein Kampf. He blamed them for Germany's defeat in WWI, and felt that they must be removed from German society. He actually wrote that the "sacrifice of millions at the front" would have been prevented if "twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas."  He wrote those words. He outlined his intention. He telegraphed to the world the horrors that could come.

Donald Trump is no Hitler, but it may be a matter of degree, rather than actually saying what you intend. That is the concern.

Would Trump be willing to corral Muslims, badge them, register them? Yes, and he has said as much. The most supremely unAmerican thinking demonstrated there in Trump's language. Is it similar to Hitler's? Yes, absolutely, in the "othering" of a group of people that are already woven into the fabric of our culture and daily life. They are not the other, they are us. As American as you or I.

It's easy, especially in this particular election cycle, to become alarmist as the hairs stand on the back of all of our necks hearing these outrageous words, these horrific ideas. However, I feel it's important to be discerning and thoughtful and realize where there are differences and where there are similarities.

Hitler was voted in. Trump could also be voted in. Hitler's policies were encoded by the the Reichstag, rubber stamping all that he decided. The bigotry was made law and then chipped away, bit by bit, at the civil rights of German citizens who happened to be Jewish. Or, gay. Or, Romani. Or, handicapped. Or married to any of the previously mentioned. For Trump to become in any way equivalent, the whole of our Congress would have to follow suit and proceed to erode our rights here, through law.

Yes, I know. Agreed, it's not like they're not trying. Mississippi just passed some of the most limiting anti gay legislation and it is making its way to the governor's desk to be signed into law. It would allow discrimination based on religiously held beliefs. So, try getting an apartment if you're a gay couple, or renting a car, or even eating in a restaurant. If it offends the religious owner of the establishment that you and your honey are of the same sex, you might not get served.

So, clearly there are all sorts of evil shenanigans afoot in our states at the local levels. But is Congress trying to do any of that nonsense? I would say not quite yet.

So, as I shudder daily at the things spewing out of Trump's mouth, I recognize that his is mostly of the bullshitting variety. Which is its own evil. There's no truth there, is there? There's no actual conviction, I don't think. He's pandering, getting the hate vote that I had no idea was as large as it is here. Really, I am constantly amazed when there is such bald hatred and ignorance and disdain for the tolerance that living in a pluralist society demands. We have always been a melting pot, or at least a salad bowl, and we have always had "others" amongst us, working, living, dreaming as we all do.

Trump is not Hitler. But, he is most definitely a threat. People should push back in all the ways that they can think of. When you see such disregard for the truly American notion of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, for whole groups of people, you need to speak up. We all do. Everyone is supposed to get a shot at those things. That's what this country is about. Period. It doesn't matter that you don't like someone's lifestyle. It is their own and they have a protected right to it.

Trump is no Hitler. Yet.

Let's keep our eyes and ears open, and hope it never comes to that. Further, let's make sure it doesn't.

On the Rediscovery of Music

For various reasons for the past few years I've not listened to a lot of music. Instead it's been an almost steady tuning in to NPR and all that they have had to say. I've read books after hearing interesting interviews of authors with Terry Gross. She's a great interviewer. Such a good listener and not stuck with needing to ask the next thing on her list. She lets the conversation grow organically. She responds with follow up questions after interest is piqued.

Lately, I have had a huge reawakening to music and lyrics. They speak to me so much now.

So many things are speaking to me these days. It's as if I've been walking through fog, going through the routines of life, such as they are, and now I see things more clearly. Everything is sharper. Everything is more beautiful. Everything is more powerfully moving.

I feel free...

Hello, After Several Years Absence!

Well, hello!

How goes it?

I've been gone a long time, haven't I?

We have long ago finished our life experiment of ONLY buying, borrowing, used things. We often get new things without even thinking twice about it these days.

It's not that The Compact wasn't a good idea. It was. But, we can afford to get what we want when we want it, and we are still thoughtful about our purchases.

The lessons learned from going more than a year with only getting used things, or borrowing what we needed, still remain. My husband, kids and I don't NEED much. We don't WANT much. But, when we do, we get. I notice that when the kids get things they really want, they are profoundly grateful. We are comfortable in our life, but don't take a lot for granted.

So, a success, I think.

In other news, what the hell about this Trump guy?! Right?! How in the world has this happened--that he is the Republican frontrunner?

We Don't Buy It was always about more than the rejection of buying new things. It has always been about the ideas, social mores, stuck patterns of behavior that we weren't buying. And, so it is now.

I think I'll start writing here again regularly. I've missed it.

Do you write? Do you work out ideas? Do you share what you know? It's nice, isn't it? It's a release and a philosophical exercise. It's an exploration. It's a conversation--even if none of you ever respond. I know someone somewhere is reading. I know some may agree with what I say. I know some may vehemently disagree. And, it doesn't really matter if you chime in or not. It might be fun if you do, this can be so one sided, but it's not required for this to be a worthwhile pursuit.

So, hello again!

What the...

Hello. Long time, no talk.  Been busy with life and putting funny little comments on Facebook. Having a really difficult time getting it together for here.  Or, more accurately, ignoring this blog completely at this point.

I just moseyed over here to check it out, as if someone else might have contributed, and I see ads. Do you see ads? I see them on the left hand side towards the bottom, at the bottom, and at the top.

I didn't put them there. I didn't ask for them to be there. I get no money from them being there--they're just there. How long have they been there? When did Blogger decide it would put things on people's blogs without their consent or notification?

Can there be no ad-free space anywhere? Is that simply not allowed? On a blog that espouses simple living and trying to reduce, reuse and recycle and NOT buying a bunch of crap, can't that be a single space that doesn't try to convince people to go out and buy stuff?

Outrage! Outrage, I tell you!

I will get to the bottom of this and report back. Or, I'll get sidetracked by life and not report back. Either way, know that I am appalled at this abomination on my blog.

Wayne LaPierre Called Me

Wayne LaPierre just phoned me and I listened to his automated message.  Wayne is the CEO of the NRA which is WTF.

They really, really,  really called the wrong person.

As I read it, (and I always notice that no one else seems to read it this way, even though this is how it is written) the second amendment that Mr. LaPierre is so all fired up about protecting (get it?  I put a gun joke in there...) states, *ahem, throat clearing*:



A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Did you catch that?  Do you see the first part of that?  The conditional part?  The part that is almost universally ignored?  A WELL REGULATED MILITIA, BEING NECESSARY TO THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE...  Do you see that part?  That's the condition upon which we are allowed to have guns in this country.  In order to ensure our security, through a well regulated militia (do you hear that Michigan militias--hey!  Do you guys still exist?), the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

So, if I want to bear arms in something other than a well regulated militia, that right may be infringed, because that's not the right that the second amendment protects.  I might have to have regulations that our society deems reasonable for me to pack heat.

Does anyone else read it this way, because I believe that's how it's written?  And how do I know that's how it's written?!  Because I read the words that they so carefully chose, and I understand English, it being my mother tongue.

The first part is a condition, people!

How Economic Inequality Harms Societies

Here's a Ted Talk with Richard Wilkinson explaining how larger income gaps within societies increase social maladies--poorer health outcomes, greater crime, imprisonment, shorter life spans, etc.

The richer countries, those with a higher median income, don't do better.  The USA is the worst!

The Occupy people know all of this already.  This is what they're railing about.

We Know the Things That Really Matter... Right?

~Adbusters

Bad to the Bone, Again...

We love our little Scion.  It has loads of leg room for the kids.  It has a seat that feels like a seat and not a semi-lounge chair, and has loads of head room for me with my tall torso.  It works for our little family.

We now have a replacement car, as our car is being repaired after what we thought was a minor fender bender.  Turns out, though, that we'll have the loaner car for a few days.

We're driving around in this now.

The kids are digging it and asked us if we could buy it.  They asked in all sincerity and without any irony or humor.  I feel so ridiculous in this thing.  It's fun.

I might have to find a creek with the bridge out so I can take the kids sailing over it screaming, "Yee haw!!" at the top of our lungs.

Yes, I do remember the Dukes of Hazzard fondly.  Why do you ask?