America, the beautiful, We still celebrate July 4th

Happy Birthday America , tomorrow we celebrate 233 years, and unless Korea hits us we'll still be standing.
We started out as a large group of immigrants coming to this nation to earn our freedoms, people coming from Europe, Africa, and many other lands, freedom and all of the opportunities this land offered.
We started out as a large colony, and then another colony would form, and another, and our old countries would tax us for our imports, our exports, mother countries reaching out to this new land to support the old.
We had the tea party, we started a movement brave for it's time to get out from under this taxation of the motherland's. we fought battles to earn this freedom from taxation, and freedom from Europe's tenacious hold across the ocean, and we did win this war with time, and loss of men.
We wrote a declaration of Independence which we still celebrate tomorrow, and a Constitution outlining laws to live by in these United States which the colonies became. We wanted Taxation to be thought out, and for this mass of people's to be strongly represented and thought out before taxation's were invoked.
We fought more internal battles as one 1/2 of the country battled the other half to free people brought to our country as slaves, this particular war cost bought side many lives, but eventually the slaves were freed, but for many freed to what was a big question, it would take years for them to be favorably protected by laws needing to re-written to catch up with the theory. For some it was a slow growth as a people and for others it was definitely the land of opportunity, and again the land of freedom.
Other wars came to pass as we grew, we grew into a protector of liberty and freedom, and when other countries would try to bully and acquire other lands afar, we would intervene, we would stand against atrocities being committed against others.
Meanwhile, within our own lands, the new rich and affluent, mixed with the old rich and affluent to form a land that grew too quickly for it's youth, a land that rich men wanted to exploit as quickly as their monies would allow, so they could reap all the riches this land could possibly render them, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. They built their industrial revolutions, they built their sweat houses that freed men labored in along with the children and women, they were insatiable in appetite for more, they quickly expanded to the Midwest via railroads to build more companies, more industry which brought more laborers, and with laborers came an ethnic encompassing neighborhood's, some with slums, some with rooming houses which would eventually lead to apartment buildings, houses and land owners.
And still not satisfied they continued to reach out west, new railroads being built, towns being built in record time and the East Coast Affluent searched for more.
Throughout this time some good Representatives were found for government, this very young government, but the very greedy and very old seated affluent kept a tight grip always to protect their interests, with less and less thought being given to protecting the rights of the very peoples they had started out to protect: This young band of Americans, from the newly merged country.
And so it has continued to this point, Greed and corrupt beings buying powerful positions, other kinder and wiser men trying to hold strong to promises made to the masses, and the conflicts of give and take that go on daily for this great country, this lovely land of opportunity.
So much greed and corruption and the various conflicts finally brought this country to a screeching halt about 1 to 2 years back, and it's instability could felt in all walks of life by last fall, financial collapses, housing market collapses, stock market collapses, auto industries collapsing, jobs collapsing, and the spiral into a mass people who were loosing everything while the corrupted corporate giants continued to load their pockets with departing jumbo bonuses, 200 more people out on the streets living and sleeping on the streets, hidden in the dark under viaducts, viaducts the officials have the nerve to fence off so these poor diminished people don't even get that shelter.
And 200 more, and 2000, more, and 10,000. more lose their homes. Devastation of lifestyle, upswing in suicides, huge upswing in family suicides....
And so we elect a man who has promised to possibly slowly fix our country and huge decisions are made on corporate and banking bailouts to help the people and help the housing market, and still the lenders don't loan to the needy as now they tell us our houses are worth a $100,000 less than they were two years ago, and we try to adjust, we try to stand through it all, much of it requiring some luck or fortune as to if your job is still there tomorrow for the tomorrows count a long way towards paying your bills and not getting behind on monies due to the corporate giants who remain in power.
And the government pushes through some laws in record time, but drags ass on passing other laws holding the credit companies in check so they don't destroy more people., and the lives of other people dependent on them for support. But for some odd reason this newly passed law won't go into effect for many months, when it should have passed and implemented right here and now for the protection of the masses.
And so this week's greed report mentions our bank as one of the credit card companies fleecing the very people they are in business to truly help, and we look on in disgust knowing how many households will be hurt by this lack of action.
And in closing: we still celebrate this most beautiful land, we still celebrate whatever freedoms we still have here in this land, and still celebrate that we have free elections so that we can keep trying to elect someone who will show care and wisdom in their consecutive decisions made to protect a people from the greed and corruption that exists, and we as Americans celebrate that at least we have a chance in this land as the battle between good and evil continues onward.
We are free to move about the country. We are free to celebrate family and friends. We are free to be more vocal and let the REPRESENTATIVE'S know we want law to protect us expedited.
Happy Birthday America, may the promise you hold for tomorrow guide us through this time.
We love you, you are beautiful still, and together we can save you if we work hard to remember the people of the land.

Our daily environment- an impact on the soul: family

When a marriage brings lives together, they each bring different beliefs, cultures, traditions to the table.
It is simple at times, and complex at others, they mesh their ways until a new born arises out of their individualities: Family.

I cannot even begin to describe how much happiness and light I've found with my family. We have our humorous approaches, even when in chaos. We love music and art. We love stories and appreciate the beauty of nature.

We love our home. It's our refuge, it's our place where we can finally come back to relax, to be ourselves, to touch base with eachother.

It is rare we ever take any of it for granted, for we have travelled many of the same roads.

So we cherish it instead. We enjoy eachother instead.
If each of us had this beauty, this is how the world's existed this long. Beauty of family reflected in beauty of living in this large world of ours.

Time waits for no man, and slowly we're alone...

I Shall pass this way but once, and sometimes this one statement accounts for it all. I used to believe in re-incarnation, although I was very young at that point, I believed in Karma and re-living it until you got it exactly right, until I figured out little children pass away too, and then I couldn't wrap my head around that piece of the re-incarnation theory.
In fact I may have been off a whole level with this thinking, the reflecting on it until you have it right is more likely to take place from the portal onward to reach a final destination.

So with that big picture in mind tell me why every once in awhile you notice that more and more are getting ready to go onward to the portal, you sometimes get tapped alittle by a lonliness that comes with more of your sphere of influence leaving for this next adventure.

I have cousins on hand who have health issues, and find out one is in a nursing home due to a blood disease very rare that has robbed her of any kind of good health and she can't be more than 62 yrs of age, hell I think she's even 59, but she's been sick for the last ten years for sure.
Maybe my ma was onto it even light years ago, she always remarked on how pale the girl was, maybe the white cells were battling the red way back then, all I know is she's been a remarkable mom to her brood, and a good wife to her man., and she has always tried to stay in touch with her siblings despite many chaotic disputes that side of the family incurred.

My other cousin is hoping for a good body scan this coming week, she's been battling lymphoma for some time with losses and wins here and there, it is time to face her lady or tiger, and see what Merlin has cast for her spell.
Her son also my cousin is now in the final stage of M.S. and the young man with the violet eyes can no longer do all of the things we once took for granted.

Maybe I'm thinking and reflecting more due to email relationships formed. Maybe it's cause it's time next week for an annual picnic, and I still cannot decide whether I will venture out on the 11th, a crazy ride to places I barely can navigate, to find a forest preserve in the middle of lands you don't know, so you can find out if a favored Auntie has made it another round. I used to meet Dicky there, but Dick's been gone since right before my other good friend. Dicky brought mischief everywhere, I'd wait to see what his Irish American spiel would unfold, and I'd laugh or smile till my cheekbones ached, my dear birthday night caller, yes I miss him, too.

So this crazy wench in her present state of mind reached out to her cousins on both sides to find out more about secrets of her grand parents, grandfather's in particular, and I got the Irish side back first, and all agreed Grandpa left Ireland cause he was in the the 1906 version of the IRA, and he could never go back home like the others to see his Mom who still lived at the cottage/farmhouse.

But what I never expected to hear was that my Polish Grandpa left home (Warsaw) to come here to the Americas because he was the son of a polish general, and the new regime was out to capture the family, so for political reasons he arrived at Ellis Island as well.

And so with pride I laughed as I finally understood why these two men became such good buds, the were two peas in a pod. Franchek and Sean, Francis and John Americanized.

And I also found out that my Polish Grandma Maria was a farm gal (Mary Americanized), who described farm life to her oldest Grandchildren, and that explained her practical nature, her love of lincoln park and humboldt park picnics on sundays so she could feel more like she was out in the country again.

And so I wander..............

The only one you can depend on in life is: yourself

So, months and weeks spent debating the current dilemma brings me back full circle to:
The only one in this life you can count on is yourself.....so I say Self: Can you make this better?
Self has agreed to try her best shot. Her very real best shot.

Now you could read this and think I am talking about you, but I am not, I am talking about Self,
The inner child's iner child....the core, the one sitting next to the very soul of me.

I need to dig up within myself and do some heavy evaluating of where I can possibly outsmart those bastards of mass corruptions, and I intend to frkn win. So I will try to use every little trick they ever taught me while I was spiral within their webs.

And in the end if for some reason I go down, I will go down with my best style, Smiling, teeth showing, mocking them with my eyes, my Georgia Clay eyes.

Riding the loops

Life is a roller coaster ride, ups and downs, and loop de loops, when you think of all of the good times you have throughout a life time, you smile right? Memory or recall makes you smile, as various moments replay in your head?

And when you think of the bad times you've experienced your face will reflect the emotion you feel as you look back. Sadness, disappointments, grief, they affect us all.

3 very different deaths came to light this week at work. It played out enough so that reflections been an ongoing thing. We had the man that shot himself, another who used to share our office suite with us passed from bladder cancer, and another passed from a several year brain cancer, two of them were close to me in age. Spouse's calling to inform us, so very little that's adequate that you can say, other than the truth: I am very sorry to hear this news of your loss, can we do anything to help the family?

You come home tired, and know your own family's vulnerablities, and you blank/erase your head of any fleeting concerns as you know you're not strong enough to have any of this happen to your family.
Family is a lovely thing, like a flower from inner tier to outter rim, it has so many people/petals as the flower unfolds, no two petals are alike, and yet it take all of those petals to make such a beautiful flower. It is a beautiful flower. Maybe it has a thorn or two but it is still so pretty you can't help but feel the awe of it. You love each and every petal for it's uniqueness, for it's contribution.
Now if you're married then you have two flowers, two unique entities, they can be amazingly different and similar at the same time.
Now throw on all of those extended flowers arrived at from extended family members and you've got yourself quite a bouquet. And the bouquet is awesome.
These flowers bring meaning and happiness to your life, maybe some thorns, but you learn how to navigate around them, don't you?

Communications and Accountability, modern times

I Shall pass this way but once.....and sometimes I get "Irked" as my father called it.

Communications with other human beings does not have to be difficult, people in our modern culture of phones, cell phones, computers and email, walkie talkie's, whatever.....they choose to make communications difficult in spite of all of these means available to convey an answer to a question, an update on a question, a status to a situation.

I have come to embrace so many of these dear hearted people that I am ready to explode at times with the lack of communications., only because the people on the other end don't seem to think you need to have some sort of answer.

At work we pre-pay down payments on insurance policies for many of the clientel, this money is due upon receipt of invoice, it is to be a short term convenience for them, I have invoices open from last August, that my friends is ten months, ten months that my boss has fronted this interest free money for people who won't answer our status inquiries. It is I who get to chase these people...and try to chip away at their wallets. It is I who have had my fill.

With Avon, I have people who order shoes (my personal opinion is if you want shoes....go to a shoe store*) in a custom size of 10, and after I pay shipping and handling on this....they won't respond to my calls or my emails that I need to make delivery to them. So I end up paying shipping and handling twice on something some flake ordered and couldn't pay for. I am not allowed to collect up front.

With Avon I have order deadlines, I check with my people to see if they need anything ordered this thursday as in yesterday, and as of this morning I still do not have answer, many times they will send their orders at 10:45 on friday, I am at work....and I see this and somehow have to sneek it through to Avon to meet my very real friday noon deadline for shipment. All of the inquiries were sent the last two days prior to friday. Plenty of texts and calls and emails the other 28 days of the month.

Well this all leads into the personal angles of life as well, check on something, get nothing. Try to talk about something, get diverted, and still you will get nothing. Phones and texts ring all day, can you gt a call that they're falling off of the earth for 24 hours, no but they'll call you to see if you remembered to do such and such for them, or to ask for directions on the days they're lost.

It's incredible.... and so I make my point here that I have decided to give up on Communications. I will use it at the grocery store, where they still usually know how to respond..

Revolving doors

I Shall pass this way but once, really, so why do I feel like I'm trapped in a revolving door and I can get out..........
I am of the belief finally that we all get caught up in some syndrome in our life, we try to guide, push and finally shove pieces of the puzzles presented into place, a place we know or feel they should be, and they rebuff us and seek their own destination. But as the child who played with the peg table trying to fit square into round, round into squares, rectangles into square...we keep trying to make our alotted pieces fit.
It can become futile.
Futile land is about where you get stuck in the revolving door, it's hot, you're damp, you're tired, so the mind is slipping a few notches, and still you cannot get it fixed. Phone calls that should have come haven't, solutions you sought haven't, so at night you slip into bed, and are almost giddy to pass out for the night, just to rest your brain.
Daylight brings some hopes of ............

Multi Dimensional People, Working Class

You can take the hustle and bustle of a train station, a restaurant, a warehouse, an office all for granted and just see the big picture of people traveling, people eating, people shipping and receiving, people processing paperwork needed for the day or week.
Now take all of those pictures and scenerios, and see the multi good deeds that play out in a day, all of the patiences involved, all of the kindnesses, all of the strangers one gets to know throughout their work days. All of the people living on an edge these days, whereby they encounter one kindness that gets them through a glitched week.
America is tired and damaged currently, many systems are broken down badly, many theories have gone into a holding bay....they should work still, but they do not, we can't quit throw them out, but it's our idealism that makes us hold onto them for when things are better.
Loan programs whereby the people have enough income to support a loan, and they still have a home, but the home won't appraise out, and yet there is not enough loan to value ratio in it to support the ultra conservative banks desires.
Builders who have been forced out of building homes, owning land, home building once in progress, cannot obtain the loans to keep building until all properties are sold.
Office building lining the freeway 30% occupied, office rents once 1200. monthly reduced to $800. and empty, people cannot get the business loans to support starting a new business.
Prices still high or risen on the very gas needed to convey us to work, hours slashed, pay checks reduced, mass layoffs, businesses closing their doors. And:
Homes shattered by all of these aspects, are now manifesting violence more frequently as bizarre scenes play out within their walls. Lives affected by the fallout that is left to the survivors when survivors are left.
So please never take the kindnesses of the people you encounter throughout your day for granted. We can carry eachother with these encounters, strangers almost, but common in our surroundings. The only way we can survive is to continue one simple kindness a day....and carry eachother through this dark time.

Little Boy Blue, and the shed

I Shall pass this way but once., any good that I can do.....let me do it now:

I have lost my parents, and I have had to go through every single one of their possessions, item by item, treasure by treasure. I have had to go through my Dads tools, one by one, and make decisions. I have a small tool box downstairs, it contains just a few of my Dad's well worn tools, handle grips that were in his hands for hours, and years of those hours.

I have some of my mother's treasures as well, so many of sentiment, my brothers locks of hair from first haircuts preserved, all of our evil report cards preserved, cards to my father expressing her love as the years passed them, and his back to her. Christening outfits I never witnessed a baby in except for pictures of my brothers and I kept neatly fold in a cedar chest that was her mothers. I have hers and my fathers wallets pretty much as they were.

So the day of the shed I seriously did understand the mens mindsets, and the huge amount of mourning they were feeling as they made decisions of what to keep and what not to, it was a seriously long day, there was no way it did not pumel them into the ground over the fact that you were now gone, oh so gone from their site, they inquiries, memories of working side by side with you throughout oh so many years.
If they weren't so raw and throbbing, the day probably had higher chances of ending differently, but instead it ended badly for many, and we've all had to ponder it to some degree to shed some light on it.
In grief, none of us hit bottom at the same time. Kit and I call it having a moment, we cry, we shake our heads and move on, but at the time of the shed they were locked into a task so horrendous, trying to muddle through the day with eachother as a good company for the task.
Pre-tears disguised with a smile, a laugh, a comment celebrating that you certainly did like to be prepared for any situation.
So I close with a beautiful poem written in the mid 1800's that expresses so much about grief and loss, that expresses why Lauren's grave segment for little children (Called Holy Innocents) is decorated/littered at time with children's toys, army men, little clowns, baby dolls, and wreaths made of little children's toys, and you will see it is not much different for an adult we lose:

Little Boy Blue:
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
and his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
and the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and placed them there.

"Now don't you go till I come", he said,
"and don't you make any noise",
So toddling off to his trundle-bed
he dreamt of the pretty toys.
And as he was dreaming, and angel song
Awakened our little boy blue,
Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face.
And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.

-Eugene Field 1850-1895

Today is the Tomorrow we worried about Yesterday

I Shall pass this way but once.......but while I am walking....I am going to render my take on some of the aspects of life.

People try to rejockey their own assets on occassion before the run into that final trouble, and you appraisors practicing out there who have been so criticize for all you've allowed to slide by in the past, well now you are running totally gun shine.

For myself there were only two comparison from our subdivision that could be used, the custom is to take some comparisons from the nearest and most like subdivisions, so I had this information pulled with the survey copy you required of us, and you were either still too lazy to utilize the information or way too gun shy to do your job properly. You were a professional weasel!!!!

So what dung pile did you land us in? Do you even care, Mr., or do you just care about the guaranteed fee you pulled for a shit report? Loan to value tests of time failures, due to a lazy, scaredycat who plays it conservative safe, and you had the good comps in your hand you pompous asshole!!!!!!!!!

So, now we start over, we've lost valuable time to this 7/1 doom and gloom date stamp, we were to have started again last night, me uptight and tense, blood pressures through the roof, as I waited for the return phone call that never came my way, my man trying to keep me amused cause he reads my body language like a clock, he is one of the few who can decode this morse code human, and I seriously wonder about him....I wonder why does he love me? Why the worse things get does he love me more?
And I seriously don't get it, unless it's from some long time habit.

Oh well, today the salmon will keep attempting to swim upstream.

Today gas prices will continue to climb, credit card companies will continue to be legal loan sharks, and more people will lose their asses/assets as 30% of the people continue to care and adjust to this economy and the other 70% continue to prostitute it.

And with any luck about 3 weeks out, today will become the tomorrow we worried about yesterday, it's just so hard to believe in collapsed system, isn't it?

Father's Day

I Shall pass this way but once., and I am certainly happy that I had you to walk beside me.

You touched me several times yesterday. You were up by 4:30am, as on any other day. I still slept on. And our son had surprisingly opted to stay in so he could get up and go tot he diner with us for the 8am breakfast we hoped your Dad and Katie would make it to.

My twin called you at 7:30 to move it to 8:30am, but we still left the house at 7:30 so we could be at the diner by 8am, so typical of you. This gave you time to smoose with niece and nephew, and start checking over the place for some water damage done by the recent storms.

My twin arrived closer to 9:15 by herself, and as she pulled in we all said she's by herself. We all hit our collective lows figuring it was a done deal. Our craziest sister was still at the house, we didn't even think she'd make it, so we mulled our new found emotions while we listened to stories of missing kitty searches, and found cat, safe and snug in the family home., and the happy reunions of finding this animal for it's main care taker who does so love her kittens and dogs.

Then someone spotted the traveling Sister and our Brother in a car - awe's someone with them glass shadowed, and then the second awe as our diner owner started to cry so touch was he by the second car pulling in, for it carried his Grandmother who had never been able to see his tribute to his Dad. This diner is something his Dad wanted to do at retirement, it is very similar to the diner freom years back where he met his bride and courted his bride, and retirement had been missed by only a couple of years. And so some of our dreams live on through children.

The mood of the day and weekend shifted and the diner came to life as all entered and found their best spots, the cook and owner giving a grand tour to the Grandma, you doing your greetings to all especially your mom. Sisters hugging sisters, words said with love and affection, and gathering as one diner full of family, customers sought the outlying booths as they came in during this time frame. It was good, it was a time that erased, and moved us onward. It was one of our golden moments like the rainbows after the rainstorms, we breathed as one.

Then my evil twin told me that we were running out of clean dishes, and we had to shift our attentions to the back kitchen to try and get them caught up.

Our special visitors were leaving, goodbyes and hugs exchanged, all happier for the gathering, and all three of us back to the kitchen for an hour of group dish scrubbing, washing drying and rolling silverware to prep for the next round, our sister helping in the front.

The diner owner so happy, this is usually such a hard day for him, the visitors eased his heart and ours.

And then we finally drove home Justin remarked he'd have to drive back to Niles to pick up his friend later for their Randolph street outting/concert, and I asked if he wanted me to pick the person up, reflex really, Father's Day I would be driving back this way later in my own vehicle, I wanted the boys to get home to do their own things. And we all went off in our own preparations, you in the garage, looking over some lures in one stage, me gathering flowers for my outting to St. Adalberts, our son checking his email and I went to leave, and you stepped up right behind me, you were intent on coming too, I was so touched I could have melted. And heavier traffic, no bad humor, all in stride, you and I are funny ducks.

We love our families, very much. And we love our parents very much. One set is here and one is not, but we love them all. And the ones that are gone have taught us that time waits for no man.
There is no replay button, so we try hard to get it right, to work from the heart on this lifetime.

Now I have to tell you, I could never have been happier with another person, you joke the other day about dying, and then I'd have money, could go do all kinds of things, I reassure you that I don't think like that, you are my party, I come home for you, I push myself for you. I have slipped this year, I feel it ever since the burst sensation, I don't know where it's going, but I will enjoy my intervals with you.

And as father's go, you have found successes, he's so much like you in approaches, and so much like us both in heart, the three of us landed together years ago, and our times and discussions are enjoyed well. And as we carry it outward into the world maybe we have made little differences, maybe we have made the world a slightly better place for someone, at sometime.

And so today is a little warmer place of the heart. I close this with love.

Cutie for Deathcab: "I will follow you into the dark." Summer of 2006:
" Love of mine, someday you will die.........................when no one stands besides you as your soul embarks, then I will follow you into the dark".

Drivers and Truck Drivers

I Shall pass this way but once, and some days someone would take you down pre-maturely with their lack of driving ethics.
I couldn't get to my own vehicle this morning it was boxed in on our driveway versus the garage theory, so I took the Avalanche which for me is massive for my city driving, made it there but when I went to return to the super boonies, I was nextto a big semi, and the driver fell asleep,
I honked him awake, happened a second time, and honked him awake again, I finally speeded up just to stay away from him.

When tired pull over and rest at a rest stop, eh?

Sadnesses in the work field

So if you work someplace for 5 years, you are bound to get caught up in the routine, talking to your regulars, moms and dads and children yelling in their phone back ground, while they try to call in for paperwork to be cut for the business they run by day. All of the audits we help with, certificates of insurance, the endless payment reminders calls, emails, letters, faxes, all day I am in perpetual motion trying to rescue or assist someone from some insurance situation. Contractors have been hit so hard by this economy, and yet we had many families of them we've cared for. Yesterday, brought us news of one who was always nice, polite, family man, life went badly this last year, the economy, the business of building in a recession, then the marriage, falling apart, children to be taken care of, , a wife who had always tried to help in the business even though she had a full time job herself, but bad business, separation, what it does to the mind and to the esteem, if everyone would project out a year into the future they might make different life impacting decision or none at all would be better......

and so he shot himself at the des plaines river, and that is where they found him last week. No more happy average family, no more husband and wife working out the newer kinks, no more carpentry contractor, no more man who even if not perfect certainly tried for light years.

Done.

Replaced by questions, shock, and sadness at where it went wrong. Children being chased by their own mental shadows as they grow, wife haunted by places in time where amends could have been made and weren't, and blaming themselves for it shaping to a conclusion no one could have foreseen.

What's in a name? Chicky, Jeep? Justy?

I Shall pass this way but once......once.....once.....so many chapters though.

"Chicky", it could define so many things in this life, farms, science and industry, a guy to a girl, Chicky.

As far as I could remember my name legally was one thing, but my name I ran to as a child was "Chicky". From what they told me Dad named me this due to my holding me baby legs up in the like a chicken tressed with thread for roasting as we did in the old cooking days.

Chicky was a very happy young child.....a girl in body parts, a boy in nature hanging out observing all she could in the yard front or back yards, watching her ever lovijng brothers play, and learning from all of that. Chicky loved dirt and worms, and at then end of the day covered hands coated with hard core dirt she was the last one to be bathed, dirty water drops surrounding her tub. She loved red and white plaids, had pants and coats to prove it, she loved laying on the floor with Beauty the Norweigan Keeshound snuggling nose to nose, arms around eachother both wearing a whole in the dining room roll up carpet that would eventually be down through the pad.

She loved the sound of the chicago street cars running down North Ave, down California. The warmth of summer nights out on the porch, all families sitting out, renters and owners alike as so many of our were two storied.

She loved hide and go seek being played by the elder children, more to listen to it, observe it than to play it, playing it could be scary.....enough for peeing if you got caught......she was little, she couldn't run fast yet.

One night running she forgot the new pipe fence the neighbor had put up and hit her gut full force running fast, oh God a bad heimlich move, it knocked the wind right out of her body, she couldn't breath until she could finally throw up.

Chicky's best friend lived next door, her name was Chesana, Ukranian of culture, Suzanna when she grew up.

Sometimes you could smell the Vanilla on the air from the Oberweiss Dairy that was on North, sometime Chickens from the place down the street from them.

Sometimes day walks with Ma to the store and then past the TV repair place where Zulu the cat lived in the front window of the shop. So much to see for a little one.

Chicky died sometime in December of 1961 when her parents moved to a different house.

The amusement come with cousins, and on occassion brothers using this childhood name, and for just a moment with the users half here, and half gone, she responds with a light in her eyes, and a sweet smile around her lips, and for one split second the child is there.

So for all of us, Chicky's, Justy's, Jeep's, sure you can call me anything......as long as you call me!
Make me smile. Take us back. It's ok.

Love has so many perspectives and beholders

I Shall pass this way but once....it has been such an interesting journey, quite often I am like a child let off in a candy factory, I keep wander through all of these wonderful human elements, and yes I see the ugliness to, but these days that I value so much, well I am intrigued by love and deepth of love more and more.

I keep in touch with a friend of 30 years, we have been sisters for a good portion of it, I think we started as acquantances, she was once a partner to one of my other sisters, and yet it was grief over lost parents that bound us together in our wanderings and wonderings of after life exsorbing materials we pondered. And worse yet as I buried my second parent, her lovely brother was struck by a car and killed, oh God they had started on the siblings. From then on we talked to eachother better, our eyes showing the love and kindness as mirrors of our hearts. Some years passed and once again we were struck by losing another brother on our side....but one of her brothers none the less as she loved him dearly, too.
Her current life partner and herself walked along us on this dark path of illness and death, the company and kindness they showed us has always been phenominal.
So it is with great joy for these mature women that I have been told they became official life partners yesterday, our state allows this partnering and this way one can finally access the others benefits, they wish to cover eachother legally until they exit this world.
I wrote her back with congratulations, I am happy for anyone who solidly feels love for another human to the point of wanting to protect and cherish them. My own marriage has worn so many hats throughout the years, there is the newlywed hat....fun but a big learning curve as you try to combine two household thinkings into one, there is the childrearing hat whereby your spouse might think he now has two kids as the wife is always in flannel & playing with bubbles and chalk and when she's more herself she's running around with disinfectant cleaning bathrooms so no one else will catch a sickness. Then there are the lost years where she's done rearing children but you really don't get eachother anymore, her goal is survival of a day, week or month. And your goal is still the new truck, a boat, your hunting or fishing trips. She's happiest when all people in the family are finally in bed for anights sleep, safe and not out subject to disasters, police calls, or worse yet a stranger at the door, ringing it with bad news. Your happiest when you get away from the family for a week of relaxtion.
It takes some time to get through this stage, some people utterly fail, they grown so far apart they end up divorced cause it's easier than trying to find eachother again, to gain some common ground., To stop being two far apart parallel lines and instead go back to constantly crisscrossing eachother in interests and playing as you'd be more comfortable doing.
If or when you make it back to crisscrossing, laughing, talking, smiling together it will usually be after you have suffered losses together, sad to say, but true. The losses rob you of so much, it wakes your ass up to what you truly value in your life, who you truly value, and you can become quite happy if your kind enough to show your values to eachother.
So I wished our friend: "Golden Moments", and I wish more of them for us as well.

Life with the right mate can be like living on a rainbow, I see so many more colors through my love of spending time with you. I still see much humor, and you know at the strangest times I still make you laugh.....going back to the beginning that was what you liked best was that I made you laugh, and so the clown side continues to try for that here and there. And you these days, well you make me smile.

Yes, if I could wish people anything besides good health, I'd wish them deepth of love.
Of course, if they had deepth of love, maybe more of them would stay in good health?

Yuppies defined by Sunshine

I Shall pass this way but once, but I need to shed some light on this modern culture we live in.

Dearest Yuppies:
Yes, it is true that when your parents gave life to you and saw you through birthing they wanted the very best for you, they wanted you to have all the best in life that could be available as you grew up.
What they apparently forgot to tell you was that you seriously need to obtain and keep a job, so you can afford these perks or extras they wished available for you.
Understand that all of us parents, Aunties, Uncles, cousins who have our names on a car deed, house deed, debts of all proportions including but not limited to Mortgage's, Auto Loan's, monthly billings, well to say the least we have all worked more than 40 hour weeks to obtain this vast array of sunshine, and you must do your 40 as well if you expect to obtain what we have worked so hard for.
This is not a cake walk, this is not a freebee, this is not a daydream, this cold reality.
If you want what we have then go get a real job. Go out into the masses day upon day, come home tired, shovel afterwork in the winter, cut grass after work in the summer, rake leaves after work in the fall, fit groceries, laundry and cleaning a house around that, cook meals 7 days a week for all of your lovies, and then come talk to us about wanting what we have, about all of the perks you want. You might even get a few of them along the way if you work hard and don't blow it all on useless fluff.
In real estate it always fascinated me that all of the youngster I took out wanted a home better than Mom and Dad's ....or at the very least comparable to Mom and Dad's, well the hard truth here is Mom and Dad worked a life time to obtain that house, and so must you.
Sweet auto's, thrilling rides, well again save up from your job, and then go get one.

End of story, yuppies.

God Bless you and His Blessed Mother...too

I Shall pass this way but once, but thank God I've had you by my side most of the way.
How can I go to sleep when thoughts of you make my cheeks so sore from smiling?
And so this weekend, after hours of grueling bushcutting and packaging the debris, you noticed one of my statues in the backyard was so tired, but you knowing I love this replica of Blessed Mother asked me to come with you and learn how to air brush paint by redoing her.
You've worked non stop on the gardens for weeks now, we are 4/5ths done with that project, and so we start on our painting project you thought would take an hour, which turned into almost 5 instead....no dinner we were having so much fun with the colors, the experimentation of painting this child size statue.
She is beautiful, metalic blues, pearlized whites, the green snake under her feet, lips and eyes to make a soul think, you captured her as you capture all you touch, and you captured me too.
I thought back to our christmas ornaments made the winter of 78 for our very own first little tree on Octavia, and I remember how much fun we had together, I'd paint one side of them my way, and you'd paint the other side with your colors, and this is why they still go up on the tree, it's the love we shared sort of being remembered, switched up and deepened with the passing of so many years.
It was a lovely afternoon. She is beautiful, and sometimes so are we.

My Irish Grandpa used to say: God Bless you and your blessed mother, too.

Sunshine go away today, I don't feel much like.....

I don't feel much like dancing........

One of my youngest sisters always said this segment of "our family always continues to put the word FUN in DysFUNctional", it still makes me laugh, we are so damn naughty sometimes it's enough to make ya cry.

My closest sister perpetually talks about moving on.....some many do not understand her, they think she means vast changes.....she only means to imply to get past a thing, to move on from yesterday if it was a bad weathered day, and to face today with a smile and a fresh start.....to move on into tomorrow....with an open mind, a fresh day of sunshine and light to be explored through. She is right and life could be this simple if hearts were opened to it.

Grandma Kate Walsh is remembered by many in the family for many deeds........
my very limited relationship with her consisted of a couple of visits to her and Chauncy, and I saw them as two sweethearts aging, yet residing with their own dignities still at that point, they were in their own home he had built for them light years before.
He would pretend to be deaf and not hear her words.....and when she walked away he would wink at us, and let us know he'd heard every word she spoke at him, a wink and a smile from Chauncy.
She would run to her freezer's and try to get out her many homemade goodies to try to gain a meal for her visitors.
It was all good to me and my mindseye, my visits to them with my rather new husband at the time. They were his family, and I'd only had my own Grandpa for a GrandParent, and had always missed the Grandma theory.

GrandMa's gift to me on one of these visits would last decades, it would become incorporated in my living styles: "Never go to bed angry at eachother", "Always say goodnight-and start over fresh in the morning". " A day will come when you won't have the chance".

I have tried hard to live this theory with my own lovies. It has not always been a perfectly easy thing to do, you must remember her underlying wisdom, you must come to know it has a reality to it.

It was truly a beautiful gift from a family woman I met in passing with my then young husband, as he tried to have his family come to know me.

Funny I still love to travel anywhere with him. He is a keeper.

So: the moral of these stories are, no matter what always say good night, at least maybe in your prayers, for we do not know what tomorrow will bring us. And start each day as fresh as you can.....today is all we have, and there is no guarantee on the whole day.

Our Houses, Condo's and Apartments = Home

I Shall pass this way but once......and once only

I came from two depression babies, My mother was younger but felt the influence in her household of the depression measured by changes in food, lard used instead of butter on bread,
economical meals her mom could make out of what the weeks wages brought in. My Irish Grandfather had been a street car person/conducter for many years, but there were lay offs and cut backs even in that field. So he began working at a cold storage facility in Chicago shortly after the depression hit, and did in fact work his way up to a department manager, this did help with the food shortage and every once in awhile grandpa would sneek in with some butter as a rare surprise or a dozen eggs, with four children to feed and clothe it all went quickly. I remember mom speaking of the daily ice they would get for the ice box, and of seeing soup lines but not having to resort to them. They had owned a home out on the southside of Chicago near the old South Town Movie Theatre, and many of our Irish relatives still reside in that area today. The home was lost, I believe Mortgages at that time were 5 year notes, and their note was called in when they ran behind. SO they moved back up to the North side to the 1800 block of North Ave and a boarding house. There have been plenty of boarding house stories, stories of friends made throughout the years., stories of going up on the roof on hot summer evenings.

My Father's side during depression years also lived in this same North side of Chicago neighborhood, his father was a half partner in a butcher shop, and eventually he would loose his partnership but remain on as a butcher. My Father loved school, but due to the economics of the day was forced to quit, so he could go dig ditches to bring in monies for the family. My Father stayed an honorable man throughout life. He would eventually join the army and end up in the Battle of the Bulge, he would also take magnificient pictures of the war torn countrysides before the bombings and after, his pictures would include several of the war camps in those war torn countries, but his pictures would show the Germans being held in them at the end of the war, a novel switch from all of the Jewish Peoples captured and held there.

So we grew up hearing all of the stories from these two households, are parents tried to be frugal and make ends meet, and sometimes barely scrimping by their extra's included a $300.00 Christmas bonus that would purchase the gift for three children and the food for the holidays bringing us to the late 1950's.
We had a 2 story home on Richmond, we took a major loss on it's selling price in 59 and moved further out towards Gladstone Park, to a single residence.

Everywhere we ever went as a family, and everything we ever hear about as a family, set up the mindset for making a home. Some people think you have to have land, and your own purchased house to make a home, but it's not a reality. A home is made by the people within it's walls.
If you live in an apartment it is your own people within your walls that bring the shell around you to life.
If you are in an apartment, a condo, a cabin, a high rise, a trailer, a house, no matter as long as you have family to share it with, this is what make Home something you desire to come back to.

As long as I have my family, I am home. You see my point? Home is a haven, home is a haven within those walls that carries safety, our loved ones, our possessions meager as they may be, it's the environment within that gives us our refuge. For some who have lost their people, home is still the safety that has so many good memories within the corners of it's walls.

This is an economic recession, or so they've labeled it, I view it as another depression that hasn't bottom out yet as it continues to blossom it's ugliness out at the masses, my final point is: none of us knows where this is going to end yet, none of us knows what will be left. We may lose walls that once were cherished, but the bigger picture is as long as we have our loved ones and family, we have not lost our most real homes comprised of our families.

Fuel Tanks without a mentality

I Shall pass this way but once.....and sometimes my head is spinning, a revolving door trying to seek solutions, and how can you solve anything when you really don't comprehend what the problem or multiple problems are, if it wasn't so important to so many, and to where their Karma plays out, I would walk away, but walking away would give off so many bad spirals that a hundred years from now it would have turnt out so much more chaotic than it was ever intended to, the future would be deeply flawed, walking away would have robbed any of the good that had existed, why the good might not even be remembered, so horrendous this action could spiral out:

I can only compare us lastly to fuel tanks, who are need of gas, and don't have the mentality to get to the pumps.

This will render the vehicle's all useless.

We need to find gas.

We need to gas up all of the cars.

And I thought water seeked it's own level, persons seek their own level. So would this be a drought?

And the three men I admired most:

I Shall pass this way but once......

And the three men I admired most, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost,
well they took the last train for the coast,
the Day the Music Died.

-Don McClean, American Pie

We all have a day the music died, don't we?

Maybe in our lifetimes, we'll have a few such days. A day where it really marks the total ending of one era, and the beginning of a new much more complex regime. A regime with so many new rules and conditions.

In our case it's become rules and conditions for loving. Rules and conditions for communicating.
It is a harsh regime, especially given the one we just rolled out of, which by comparison looks in retrospect more like the time of camelot.

We used to talk, we used to talk about everything, we'd air it all out, throw it on the table and by talking we sometimes would gain a piece of information for insight, so we could make some type of sense of it. Sometimes you would even shake your head at the insanity of things, but then would come that grin, and a compromise, a higher ground. Even on more serious subjects that saddened you, you would still come up with this answer and that answer as you didn't want to affront anyone with what you really felt or thought on the situation at hand, so it was always a compromise, always a graceful, yet rational answer back. Many would not believe what lengths you would take this to, caving in so others would be happier, and have what they needed? Yes, you had great Heart.

The new regime doesn't want to talk. If you receive any words they'd be flung at you as a person flounces away.......1/2 of the words on the air for us oldsters missing some of our hearing dynamics, body language replacing those last words.

So you can try calling them for one on ones, you can trying emailing some of them, but it all works out the same, Silence.

So you get one inuendo, of what's going on to result in this chaos, but you get no sound point, reason or logic to it. Just silence. I think they like silence better as it makes them feel justified in their very own actions, but it gains no grounds for resolving anything. Life still has run amuck and it can gain no balance until communications with all would be re-established.

So, to anyone who thought I gested when I called you the heart of the family, I was ever so right on it, when you boarded that train with the three men admired most, the music stopped because without it's heart it could no longer thrive. And so we have two brains, lots of useless limbs, but no heart to initiate the repairs, we have so little time left on our clocks that this upcoming miscalculation will be remembered harshly when the clock strikes midnight, and no one will ever be able to rise above it. It will become the ultimate mistake, the final mistake, And the music will certainly have died, unless you can send back your heart....your heart might be able to pull us through this.

Waiting for.......Heart to go on.

Grandpa's Take

"Be the change you wish to see in the world", Ghandi

Grandpa says these are words to live by:

The belief that if you do not like a quality in another human, look within yourself first and find it, fix it, work at it, the next time you look back at the other person you will see them healed of the blemish as well.

We humans have so much luggage we carry and accrue, we have past misdeeds, we have past errors committed, we have our own very real faults we are aware of and wish didn't exist, we have many misunderstandings of eachother, be it body language, words spewed in poor timing,
mountains made out of molehills, and sometimes we have all of it. Tolerance becomes extinct.

My brothers, my husband, my own son have always been amazed at my capacity to understand and forgive others, for just about anything. My own sister has labeled me the family chump, even though in truth she is standing right next me when I am in the dung pile, we laugh cause we're both labeled bitches, and on kind occassions evil twins, but in truth we both are highly re-slient and loving creatures, we are out to love and be loved somewhat back by our families and our friends. Maybe it's the quality of mischief we carry with us.

I have been accused of being being a hugging, smiling hyprocrite, embracing people I don't really like, the answer to that charge would go back to " Is the cup 1/2 empty, or is the cup 1/2 full?
In truth it is not an accurate description of who my inner child is: My inner child hugs and loves, and talks and walks with seeing the best of a human, not the worst. , overlooking a bad mood when I am hugging them and trying to drag them into my light, embrassing the meanest mooded and reminding them I love them very much for their best qualities, and I overlook their shadowed and embittered side.

When my own family has dark feeling evoked, I chip away at them with this same re-slient, peace, love, dove old hippy persuasion until they can see the humor of how short life is, and why it's best to embrace all the good things now.

I can honestly say in this life I've had few regrets, and am only answerable to my spouse for any of them (no not what you assume, other regrets),
So I do love my familes, I do overlook the naughty as one day they may overlook some of mine,
I do think some need to take a day and go think it out, really try to look at things from other perspectives in order to gain insight into their own conducts of future, I try to do this myself, an old habit from when I was self employed calling "critiqueing", it holds me in balance to a bettered degree just as Grandpa's Iodine theory is needed when I start going ballistic on the entire world, and I'm ready to cry at the drop of hat.....and ready to murder anyone in my path, I think Iodine????? Three days and we're good.

I don't pretend to be able to explain this theory of granpa's very well, only the best for how I have grasped it: But look within for the flaws you see in others * Fix your own, and slowly it will evolve a better picture or vision of the others.

And maybe always critque yourself a bit, too. It's time I am taking a week to go do just that, I am taking a week to think. The past few weeks have been overwhelming, I am beat up and need to regroup. Of course there's so many of us we could form a club.
Our club could be named "Family".

Living up .....

Out of the dark and into light,
knowing this bettered your very last plight,
daily motions left weakness and battered your soul,
you cared only for your loved ones too soon left alone.
You struggled your energies,
all details were placed,
and with great deep love for all,
you moved on from this place.

You still shadow some,
so thorough was your touch,
that many loves live on,
enhanced by your seasons.
And others they suffer from grays and the shadows,
and have trouble finding love in all your old corners.

And so some will try to gain you better momentums,
For the love that was given to all on the journey,
has gathered like ripples once seen in the waters,
giving strength to so many and leading them onward,
through their own loves, and living, we can only get bettered.
It's the best we can do, moving on from your sorrows,
gaining courage from your loves, and wisdoms of the past,
Now you rest awhile and watch, and give us this chance.

Memorials to you and your life

I Shall pass this way but once, any kindness I can do, let me do it now.

No doubt we've all managed our sorrows in different ways, some of us more loving because of your loves, and some us becoming embittered by your passing, unable to process past what's gone from our lives, long enough to see what you left in our lives.

And so we all had our own very memorials to you as well, just a time to gather and remember different aspects, different times.

Before gathering at the diner she did invite your sisters, apparently they could not come, one answering and one not. She invited different nieces as well who did drive out, many of them had been counseled by you throughout the years, and are stronger women for it. They love you well as you never judged them or condemned them for their off paths., you simply took the patience to tell them where they might head for the next chapter.

Slightly before we left the diner, 2 women, your co-workers from the Post Office came in for breakfast, many of your old friends visit with your lady and son, but to your lady one of these was very special: She is the kind woman that helped her through all of your paperwork: medical forms up the kazoo due to government red tapes, and all of the paperwork after you left through the portal, this woman was amazingly kind and helpful to your family. She spoke of all the changes since you've been gone and how you wouldn't like many of them, she spoke of layoffs being conducted instead day cut backs, she spoke of your replacement who could never replace you, but it was sweet these two women had planned their outing with you in mind. It was a pleasant surprise to see how much simple co-workers miss you, and valued you.

Your lady and I then sat quietly back at your home you made for the family, for the afternoon listening to some wonderful CD's you had made of music, one of all your music, one of all her musics, and one of all your various songs enjoyed together. And we laughed about many of the memories associated with those days of old, including men's moves for dancing. She doesn't know when you made them all but it had to be recently judging by some of the songs, and she's happy for it, it leaves another one of your thoughts and surprises for her.

We celebrated your life and your impact upon all of us, we were a long way off from last years fish fry celebration a whole family affair, but we did do the best possible day considering where we've gotten to. The starkness and loneliness caused by lacks of understandings, and indifference's has become overwhelming. I've been there twice and despite sitting out, it's become a ghost town.

No butterflies came, but the full moon winds on friday night gave us pause to remember when the 8 flew off two years ago, that it was such a sign that nothing would ever be the same again,
You had left our daily paths, and without the reassurances that your whole being gave us, we do seem to be very lost.

We need to find a good path.....we need to keep seeing the beauty of life and people.
And so how do you start a group hug? You start with one, two, three, four, five, six.......

Cell Phones and Text messages, Amer Bus 101

About 1986 I had leased a pager for Real Estate purposes, and also for emergency use by the family, it proved useful for both, however when you would get paged and you were out on the road, be it the city, the countryside, working phones were far and few between, one's cord cut even though it was encased in metal, the next with something resembling vomit all over it, I opted to get a bag phone that had a huge battery and a car adapter which plugged into the cars cigarette lighter port.
Oddly enough I kept the pager which was invaluable to me until I finished hospice for my mom in Oct of 2002, in had worked out well for light years of schools finding me when my child sick and doctors finding me to drop another thud on me, the child was now in college, and my mother through the Portal, I was done and happy to turn it off.
The cell phones throughout time continued to get smaller and smaller, to the point where they barely fit ear to mouth concepts of the phone designs contouring to the human head. Again for emergencies or medical information updates when someone in the families been ill, they've proved to be friendly.
Text messaging started a few years back.
Most phones have package for the infrequent users, but oh boy the frequent users better have an unlimited package, one of ours did not .
So receiving a billing that should be $104.56, and instead reading and hyperventillating at the same time $504.56 at .20 cents per text incoming and going, well you do the math.
It had been our belief that we were covered adequately, we had just reviewed it with the phone company, but now that one of our household is dating, and becoming more social obviously this was not enough coverage. And the future phone bill not in front me was mounting as I read this one.
Oh boy you try to work with these other humans at a company, and they forget they're human, they become drones, company yes men, they forget that if they have children they are going to get some of these surprise bills down the road, they are going to want to speak to a supervisor as well.
Text package now in place on the nastier phone number for this account, future billing modified , but nothing can be done on this one, it must be paid out in increments since in this economy, its become impossible to pay it out in one wack.
I'm thinking about having the home phone pulled or minimized to base package. Groceries minimized, all else minimized last year, now the gas assholes are back up over $3.17 a gallon and all for no apparent reason other than it is summer, who controlling any of these morons, who is checking up on the greed and corruption within that field?

Disgusted keeps reaching a new level regarding American Business Practices.

Ode to Loving

We grow, we talk, we walk through days
like they were cotton candy
We like, we love, and often laugh
never knowing how soon they're ending
and days and years flood past us now
as fewer loved ones are left standing
by our sides are the treasured remaining loves
we savor still though we're all dying

And so it's a pitious crime to waste our time
on occassions we're not in agreement
but rather reflect that unconditional love
sees the good and looks past the bad seedings
So sorries should be more frequent
forgiveness her equal friend
when loving the best in eachother
no regrets when we're alone at the end.

kms 6/6/09

Yearlings

I looked for my soul, but my soul I couldn't see,
I looked for my friend but my friend eluded me,
I looked for my God and I found all three.
-Anonymous

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on the snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there; I did not die.
-Anonymous

And so 2 years ago you were fading, floating towards the portal. The women and I doing sleepovers with no sleep. Today we do the same, it is the only way we make it through, one distracting the other. Tomorrow will bring more distractions. And then next day we'll think of something.
2 Days ago driving my same work path course, the mother deer and her fawn crossed the road about a block from where they did last year, the mother slowly while the fawn skittered ahead of her, and then she turned her head and looked " You can go now". And I smiled my dreamers smile knowing that I had just witnessed a moment of beauty to be held separate from the uglier world.
And so our minds wonder, the first year is harsh, the 2nd is a slap in the face, and next year will bring a numbness. " I am the thousand winds that blow"

Losing the edge

I Shall pass this way but once.

Some times life gets so stressful that you start losing your edge, that sharpness that can grasp multi details at one time.

Last night as we spoke I felt more hyper, and more hyper the more you talked the more I thought I was going to have a melt down, and yet you skipped through so many subjects.
I could barely process the first one, and you were onto the 2nd and the 3rd....whoosh off into warp speed I go.

The melt down was that they were all serious in nature and threat, if not immediate then of future.

By the time you were done, I had to look at my feet, so you wouldn't see the tears in my eyes.

My sister laughs cause I've told her recent events have me broken out in acne like a 16 year old.

And I say oh to be 16 again, and be off dancing at the holiday ballroom.

Sisters, so many kinds, so little time

I shall pass this way but once: any good that I can do, or any kindness that I can show, let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
W. Penn

And so I born into this world last trailing two boys, my entire life I wished for sisters as well. Some of that came from knowing other families growing up or other sets of sisters as I speed through my teen years. Some of it came from the closeness brought out by the very best friends. And the thought still stayed as I achieved my younger working years, as I worked with a unique set of women, and we were very tight friends throughout our days as well as co-workers.

Acquiring sisters takes time and effort when they are not born into your fold, your core family.

Core family sisters:
And so I have one in Central Calif. who makes me laugh an awful lot, and also appeals to my most practical side, she always sees a tough bottom line in serious matters, but the twinkle in her eyes when her humor emerges is infectious.

And I have one who lives in our burbs like me, and although she hasn't always understood me on all issues, she has on all of the important ones, and she knows my soul well enough, to know what I value, what means a lot to me. We don't talk too often but the underlying love is there and comes through in good times and in bad. We share the same values.

I acquired some more sisters on my husbands side:
One views me just for me, she loves me, and it won't change. Her world is simple as she wants it simple, so we talk and hug and it is all genuine, she's slow to anger, and doesn't usually hold a grudge. She is very loving of her siblings, and loves them well for their best points.

The next is smart and caring and cautious, and loves to tease us, diverse of subject matter for long talks, but lives in a remote world from ours, and the busy life styles work and responsibilities thrust on her, leave no time in her memory bank for phone calls or communications, so we must live on days of old for our bonds. Better days will come as she moves to retirement, time demands will ease up and she will be able to spend more time with each of us.

The next is a sister of the heart, we don't always need to talk, we know what the other would think, we've counted on the other for follow through of details, and getting things done in a time bind, we have a great trust in the other coming through their situations. If I could I'd live next store to her, we'd do long walks on the beach, I'd let her bury me in the sand again even though I know now those micro-organisms would still get to my skin buried beneath the wet sand, I would willingly go anywhere with her as she makes me laugh until my cheek bones hurt, and I would sing along of her three nights a week even though she always yells at me to sing louder.

My youngest sister can be sweet, affectionate, and has great humor which she uses to get through her days of inherited responsibilities, inherited since she moved home, before that she was the free-est one of us all., so the change has been managed well. I know I have lived her life previously so I do have a great understanding of her days., it is rare she can relax, she is living an on-call lifestyle 24/7. She has no regrets, and will see this through. She needs to realize and believe that all of her siblings would help her if she communicated with them. She needs to understand we were there for light years prior, we all have opinions and the capability to assess, and trust us to be the best humans we can, caring for her and caring for our others, and that we have always had a vast array of relationships flexing and ebbing throughout these decades, and we've always risen to our occasions as we could. We will always love each other intensely, but don't have to be yes men, or be concurrent in opinions. We would be boring if that happened.

My sweetest sister is like me, me is you and you is me, we share heart, humor, one of our brothers calls us "the evil twins", we love it. When he first said it he was laughing at us taking a day off from work together, dancing on the sidewalk outside, she'd turned her car radio on, we have great fun, but we also solve out great problems, we've been through so much throughout the years, they probably don't remember how well we fought and argued but we do, and for that reason we argue no more, it did occur to us both how much stupid time we lost when we argued.
We lost years arguing, but will lose no more time. We value time, it's all we've got: my husband says never to count on 5 minutes & more, and that's a very true statement. We've done the 5 minutes and calling paramedics, 5 minutes, and the surgeon comes out with the bad news, 5 minutes and they tell you the real truths, 5 minutes and a good friend was gone. We've done all of this, we will do it again, but the interval is what we live for, and we do live!
She is the sweetest because she would do anything, for anybody to ease their path. She is all bark, and little bite, she knows what she could do evil, and she loves to argue with us, but she always walks a better path, without fail, she is a true to heart person, so when she speaks of moving on.....she is looking for more ways to help the people who walk into her path, She's like this at work, at bowling, with family, she looks for where she can help, she carries your heart with her, and actually accomplishes many good deeds. She has a child like side to her, that this child loves and appreciates, she rises above most of it.

Their sister loves them all, she understands why they tick the way they do, she has always had the capacity to see both sides of their coins, and to understand how they became themselves. She enjoys them all. They are a very unique grouping of women, so I am glad that we are all sisters to varying degrees. I wish them true success in knowing what is important, what is really fear of the unknown, I wish they would look and really see the best of what we each carry inside of us. I wish them peace, I wish them the capacity to find unconditional love of each other, and I wish them profound memory of you, if they have profound memories of you.....it will guide them to the light together.

As sisters.

Promises and Tears

I Shall pass this way but once.

We. They never did grasp the friendship, and they never will.

Promises made with heart. Tears exchanged, me slapping my head for breaking down, and you smiling through the tears cause I am a dumb ass sometimes. This occurred twice, once at the beginning of a very long road, and once a week before the end of your road here, before you traveled.

I wasn't promising just for me, I was promising for mine, and you for yours. It counted, it was a vow you counted on, it was your one piece of mind so you could travel.

So far my part of the journey with mine has encountered some bumps and thumps, but we are doing it, we are living it, and so are yours. We will not break this promise. We will always, while breathing, keep our word. Some best part of you knew that, some part of you foresaw, and no matter what questions you poised, and you did quiz me on the most bizarre things during that span, you knew and understood our souls, our roots, and you believed.

So when you see this tired, lame but ticking lady in her believe t-shirt, know that she wears it for you, she wears it for where you travel to, and she knows that many types of love live on for you, and your beauty of soul continues.

As always, a tear and a smile for you.

It's all about greed, corruption & fear

I Shall pass this way but once., but throughout the years I have seen much. It must have been the right set of circumstances, Frankie and Mike always prided themselves on reading a room, but this girl joined their ranks at sometime, and has pretty good instincts, throw it together with seeing some peoples Aura's and what do you have, a knack for knowing what the real reasons are., what the motivation is., and most certainly what is powered by greed as it changes the Aura.

Kings of old overpowering their rivals for the land and taxes it would render, slaughtering the masses, just to get the land and the revenue.

Rulers throughout history powered on by Hatred of another skin type culture, another random excuse for overcoming the different people, and stealing their lands, mass executions, and savoring their gold and riches.

Government rulers throughout time, making excuses for wars that were not needed, invading lands, capturing their resources, pillaging their finds, acquiring their slaves.

Whole cultures wiped out or nearly eradicated by the greed and corruption of others.

Now throw in Fear. Fear of an opponent. Fear of their difference. Fear of a skin color.
Fear of a different culture. Fear that someone won't think and re-act as the old ruler did. And what do you get? Chaos, rules changing, breaking with well founded principals in the name of self preservation? Going against every sound thought and good feeling you ever experienced, because of fear, greed and corruption. This can and does shape and develop into a new animal, bringing un-predictability with it, it is a live wire ready to electrocute at a moments descretion/indiscretion.

It has arrived. It has hit countries. It can hit small towns given the right circumstances. And it can hit very small groups of people. They will lose their logic, they will loose their loyalties, some may even cross the road and lose their minds over their own paranoia, greed and corruption, and fears.

Now, let's throw in some bad apples into the mix, the bad apples always thought what was ours, was theirs. They were the coveting people depicted in our ten commandments, they always felt righteous about acquiring another mans goods, lands, golds, and art, just as Hitler did, he rationalized every move with lame, damaged logic.

In the old days a few wins were gained by purity of soul, good winning versus evil.
It only takes courage, conviction of really knowing right from wrong, and it does require purity of soul. When we encounter greed, evil, corruption or fear, let's stand strong, let's stand loyal to those who counted all along, let's keep our ancient promises, let's stand together against a wrong being committed against a people.

White light God's light, shining over the lands.....................may the good win as many rounds in the future as is possible over the chaos.

A Lovely Evening

I Shall pass this way but once.

I never know what I am coming home to, few of us does I would guess, but I pull into my garage, and you're walking out of it, you've been busy after your arrival planting more flower gardens for me, they are beautiful because I see your hand in them, more than the flowers.

Storms are coming we decide like children we decide to grill anyhow, and get ours, trapped in the garage at times, we talk and trade animal stories and get caught up. And then we spotted the duck up on the roof, a mallard enjoying the rains. You tell me he lives close by to be chilling up there, within 5 or 6 houses.

The next two hours pass like this, and at the end, the mallard flies home, the sun comes out, a sunshower in play, and we look for the rainbow....nope, and when we turn around we see a wonderful rainbow overlaying the terrain, and our minutes have been all good.

Dancing, and dancers, livers and laughers

I Shall pass this way but once. I often think of Bobby Weida, he was my best boy friend from 13 to 16 years old, not a boyfriend as some would think....he was litterally one of my best friends.
I met him through Georgie at the holiday ballroom, they went to school together, grammer school and then high school. We both had idiotic senses of humor, so I'd see him every friday and thereby the friendship developed, if I wanted to dance we'd dance, if I was hungry we'd run out into the weather and down to the corner restaurant, burgers or a sunday whatever, and we'd talk over the current events, current boyfriends, girlfriends, heart throbs. With Bobby I was safe, unlike another of our acquantances of that gender who would try to over power some of us.
Bobby cooked me one of his special meals for my birthday when I was 15, I was invited to him family home on Lieb, a home that would become some 6 years later my Marital home oddly enough.
So he cooked and his mother and brother watched and enjoyed all of this activity, and whala after I ate it he told me I had just had Rabbit and Venison and watched my face knowing these were two of my real life favorite animals I never wanted to injest, and he laughed his ass off.
He fit in well with my other girlfriends, and we had so much fun throughout the years on our holiday nights, my own mother was always fascinated that I could be spotting a higher fever but would make it out the door and to my favorite haunt and collapse on saturday.
Bobby's Ma rented out the house and moved him away to Minnesota, my brothers had him come back for a surprise birthday party they threw for me one year, and when I got married he lived upstairs from us with his own bride, and we had many fun times together, different but still always interesting with alot of laughter.
My husband and I would have stayed longer but his mother decided to sell the house towards the end of 77, so we ended up moving to a new apartment a few blocks away, and that pretty much ended our years of friendship, he continued to go duck hunting with my husband, his brothers , and my brother for another 4 years they'd drive to Minnesota and pick him up on the way to Canada's Lake in the Woods for their yearly hunting trip.
Sometimes when I experience humor or laughter, I still can hear Bobby laughing if he were here.
Sometimes I still miss him. And I wonder how he fairs?

The Art of Getting Tired

I Shall pass this way but once.....

Sometimes we are all so tired, permanently tired.

I look back over my shoulder and remember my childhood,

I look back over the other shoulder and I see my twenties and thirties years flew by.

I look down to see my middle age mid crisis years, well they've disintegrated and took most of the crisis with them.

Now I am classed as the first stage of Senior, next year brings 55, Arp and extra discounts at some stores....she laughs, ya have to see the humor in it.
It's whizzing right past us.

Health, Health issues, we care but we don't want to know, enough doom and gloom, so many of us stop going to doctors purely on the principal of how many others are getting bad news.
Tapped out between 2002 and 2006, & 07....I just haven't been able to go back and do this, yet sometimes I know it could be a preventative wrong I am committing. Lymph's are nuts, not acting logically, so slugged by something I'm am not wanting to look to see if it's the lady or the tiger there either.

Bah Humbug....said scrooge.

Ok how are we going to solve our very real current problems?

How do fix things that have been broken?

Glue? Ignorance is Bliss never worked well. Yep, maybe glue.

A mini vacation

Do you know the value of "a day"? Or two days, yes we finally had a mini vacation, only half of it was planned, but the rest of it shaped up.

After my sons graduation party last year us four ladies promised we'd go out, listen to a favorite band together and go dancing together. We've planned it 3 times and each time it was cancelled for one reason or another, but this weekend we finally made it out together. We weren't sure how any of it would shape up but boy did we have fun. The band was excellent, the owner knew we wanted to dance as did other ladies there, and she had an area cleared of tables for us, we had a blast.

When we thought we were done and leaving, we found out that the adjoining banquest hall has Salsa dancing ( Mexican/Spanish Dances/Music), and we had free admission there since we had been at the first bands sets. So we danced to different music and learned a few new steps and had more fun together.

Still not burnt out we sat up talking till 4am.

Yesterday, we walked around the pretty lake near our house and admires all of the flowers planted there, and saw Great Blue Herons flying over lake, and ducks and geese, and Red Wing Black Birds, it was real nice.

Then dinner bar-b-qued, and a fire pit going for nightfall, staring up at the stars, hearing kids off in the dance playing hide n go seek, it was a proper summer night.

So all of these things have been on our wish list, we were so patient, so we finally got to do them all.
It was a mini vacation.

This morning we went to the diner and had breakfast together. My man stayed home to work on lures as is his weekend hobby custom. It's good for him especially when he's worn down. His own thinking time, as the lake was ours.

Oh, but you warmed my soul with books

Do you know the value of "a day"? I do have a soul. Some call it spirit. Some recognize it as the brains emotions.
Sometimes this soul has worn down, multiple factors, could be economics, could be people problems, could even be from multiple worries.
And then something tiny but sweet happens and it sends me up a few flights for awhile.

For two years your books have sat on the back porch in their boxes, one was supposed to look through and whatever he didn't want I would take back home, well the young man was so tired and worn from the days work, he told me to just take them home.

I moved them from one vehicle to the next, silly I know but my way of being private, trust me no one wants to go in my truck except on grocery day to unload. Last night while dinner was cooking I meandered through a box of your books, the books we'd always talk over like we were holding our own review, and as I got deeper down I started laughing, and felt a surge of happiness again knowing that you had read a few more of my favorites, knowing that you'd remember key characters as we encountered some of our own characters so like the books, I laughed when I finally got to "the dark half". Few people know or care to know our Stephen King, but wasn't it cool that for every book he wrote under his own name, he wrote a darker flip side book under his pseudo name?

Of course your brothers watching me eventually, he probably thought I'd come out of the back seat crying and here I am laughing, playful and happy for awhile over my finds.

And so we continue to grill our food for awhile and think of you and better times.
Thank You for one more gift, Love you

My darling man, you are appreciated and loved

Do you know the value of "a day"?
You've left your mark on this world, by trying to help those where you see a need. You don't make them grovel, you simply start moving. You've always kept your word that you'd come back and finish a project.
Years ago people would see you coming and get out a hammer. Last week your brother said that you'd better repair it cause he didn't have the tools, you got your tools and made the repairs in record time.
You have truly earned your John Joseph for life as you always lent a hand.
You have always wanted for the key people to admire a job well done, and some do. But really when all is said and done, you are only left with yourself. So you must realize it was enough that you came, you touch, and you did it all as right as you could.
To get a segment of the family through a devastating loss, to lighten their burden path while they lightened yours, that was truly the gift here.
What we have, was brought in large to our table by you. We have eachother, our family, and that is all we really need as time permits it. Everything is bonus/gravy. We thank you for the many years of doing and giving and caring for us.

Special Needs, Success, and Empty Spoon

Do you know the value of "a day"? Yes and no, we are all so different, with different lifestyles, how can we know in true measure what someone else's day is like, for many each day is a month, and yet they put one foot in front of the other and make it through, many are special needs people, their required care might make their days harder than yours.

Special Needs encompasses so much anymore, years ago it could have been rubella victims, someone born with a heart defect, someone else who had a muscular problem, someone who had polio as a child, and that was plenty in category to try to help make progress, the end result to teach them to be self sufficient, to find things they would enjoy doing that worked well for their bodies and health conditions.
Now special needs encompasses many different types of children damaged one way or another by drugs their mothers took while pregnant, vaccinations they were given to help ward off worse diseases, chemical unbalances within the brain which depleted a need component to keep them adjusted and fined tuned as a people machine, as a logical machine.
Now put them into classrooms, shared classrooms. Over crowded classrooms, the one not understanding the other, neither compatible as all of their individual needs are so different.
First lesson, maybe one end can feed the other spiritually, but it must be done with finesse or else the lesson will be lost on half, contempted by half. Or at best you might reach through to a few, is success a few within a classroom?
Or do we need a better system? Is there a better system?
Years ago there was a book and movie called " The Empty Spoon", it was excellent, teaching and when and what is a success.
The moral of my story is success is not measured by volumes, it is measured by individual pages that make up the chapters of a teachers life.

Close your eyes and listen

Do you know the value of "a day"? The best of instincts. The best of pre-cog. A clarity for reading through the dung and seeing what's actually really there. Gone? Or just muddied?
So, let's get back to some very basic heartfelt pleasures:
Close your eyes, and listen!
Close your eyes and hear the sound of waves approaching on the beach as the tide rushes in, do you hear their impact? Can you hear them hitting? Now, listen to the waves crashing in again, open your eyes and see them hit the rocks.

Or close your eyes and listen to the rainfall, chores are done, all are home, no worries for the moment, now just listen to that wonderful rain falling onto the roof, hitting the windows, and enjoy this small earth cleansing miracle.......drowsy due to lack of sunlight, you want to nap, there is something comforting about this type of rain.

Close your eyes and think back, hear the baby crying for the first time? That little voice, you'll remember that tone, that one is yours.

Close your eyes, now you're in front of some flowered bushes, it's 70 degrees out, the sun is shining, your eyes open to a curious light fluttering noise: it's a hummingbird the size of a butterfly and they really do fly backwards, the are wonderful to watch, so quick darting to and fro.

Now close your eyes, and think of other good things.

Walking away to regroup and strengthen

Do you know the value of "a day"? Sometimes it's easy to lose the value of a day, so many tasks and obligations funnel into one day, and one day into 7 similar days.....1/2 month, month & quarter rolled away by tasks, errands, obligations, work schedules...on and on the droning bee goes.....time waits for no man, eh?

So, sometimes we need to walk away, we need to go find our own space or place to rejuvenate or re-energize, and today at some point I plan to take myself for a long walk to achieve this, I need to come back into harmony with this planet, ill or not (the planet), being at one with nature has always re-balanced this old girl. So off to twin lakes I go for my walk, my observation of ducks and geese and little birds we've grown too accustomed to whereby we take them for granted and we shouldn't they are all beautiful.
A walk in the sunshine.....some sponging of the same sunlight into the soul will have to provide light for a woman whose loved life.
It is a vacation day for this gal, she will do laundry, tidy many things, go see her old ghost friends, and then she will come back and walk into the light., and try to get my insights, my intuitions back, they have begun to erode from all the chaos out there.
That would be the plan.

The economy is worsening for main town USA, like a Stephen King novel, it's all out of balance, it overflows onto all walks of life, jobs are not getting better they are becoming more extinct, spring had promised new horizons, new hope, but it is being crushed swiftly out there on the streets, as more lays and company closures head for the masses. What will be the end result, people driving cars have become more aggressive the last few months to the point of rising danger to others., no doubt it's the anger and the anger comes from their circumstances, so where I head is: IF it gets 60% worse, how will mass volumes of humans react? What manner of behavior will the choose? There way too many of us for them to get overly aggressive, to think they have rights to do oh so many crazy things...because they're angry, and they think the guy next door to them has it better....do you see where I am headed?
We need to rise above the very bad circumstance that are coming towards so many of us.

We have to remember, we are a new world, we are a new country, we can put it back together slowly so it works, but maybe someone in my house is righter than rain this time.....we might need leaders with a good plan, but we sure the hell don't need politicians anymore....they slow it down and mucky it up.

But in the meantime, I will go for that walk, and try to regroup.

A recollection....

Do you know the value of "a day"? A little girl of 3 stands in her 2nd floor homes kitchen and sees the new album covers picture her mom is holding out, it is of a little blonde girl with big blue eyes, and she's holding & face hugging a little white kitten, the kitten has blue eyes, too.

The song she will come to love is on there: Mommy told me something a little girl should know...........And let the sunshine in, face it with a grin, frowners never win......

Anyways memories like that of early music, Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening......
or: When I was just a little girl I asked my mother what lies ahead, will there be rainbows day after day, and here what my mother said.....

well these songs still make me smile thinking back to better days of a young girl who felt like the sun was always shining on her......and her adventures.....
no wonder the music stayed important in my life.....

Music has totally gotten me through so many situations.....it is a wonderful creation.

Music for the Soul and Heart and You

Do you know the value of "a day"? Oh the days were long gone but every once and awhile I pull out the guitar, I strum through a few old tunes and I think back. When I was 18yrs present I began learning guitar, and I was blessed with some voice, a voice that comes better from the soul and could touch some, when it was warm when it came from my soul., and so she wrote some songs......one brother said she had depth, another brother named her Stormy which would stay her young adult nickname over one of the songs she had written.
Some of it was fun, she's write a song on a paper towel or napkin, and keep them tucked in her guitar case which was always close by. She wrote songs about Racism, she wrote songs of unrequited love, she wrote songs about an Island in the Sound, she wrote songs about people who came and went in her life, she wrote all of these as she was a loner, lively in a lonely world.
She liked the art museum, she loved being by any body of water, she love the forest preserves wooded paths near her home, she was a dreamer, and was waiting for her ship to come in, she felt she'd know it when she saw it, and so it came to pass.
She would abandon her music mostly for the playing and singing, she would move onto different paths and chapters, but the love of music, the love of heartfelt tunes would never leave.
The last song she wrote was over 11 years ago, she was deeply alone, and so she wrote Forks in the Road, it is one beautiful song, the melody, the chords and the words were no effort they flowed as they always had when she was younger, there is no recording of it, but to this day it plays back in her head.
She wrote it for you, she hears it for you. You, whom so much was about.

I haven't forgotten

Do you know the value of "a day"? A band of friends, the comfort that came from sitting and playing together, we were at home in our surroundings.
Diminished.
I have not forgotten you, I have not forgotten that terrible date when they told you the truth finally, I have not forgotten your pain, nor your eyes. I have not forgotten your hand gestures when talking, I have not forgotten your laugh, your smile, or your tears. I still see you there amongst the walls and furniture. I see you often in the offsprung man, in his gestures for sure.
I still see you tucked into your favorite corners. I still see you striding along side my man as he works, finding the exact tool for him. I still think to you, I still talk to you, I still miss your real presence, I still miss your very real advice, how you saw the bottom lines in our mutli-layered problems, how you a non-religious man prayed for our ways back into the sunlight.
Your still here, more than there, right?
Sign me if you can, some times it's stronger than others. Today it is strong.

Failures are different than faults

Do you know the value of "a day"? I am so sad and numbed at times by my own failures which are quite different than my faults, in my English Language.
Faults are something you can work on, be it a flaw in your thinking or personality, a flaw in your appearance, these can be worked on or brought to the best possible level, improved with time and effort.
If you believed at any time in Karma, you could try to be good to your fellow man/woman as needed, and be extremely forgiving to them, "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you", and somewhere along the way you would see some type of scales of justice balancing themselves as you walk on in your life. Perhaps these scales wouldn't stay in balance all of the time, but most certainly they would stay in alignment enough so that the world, your world, made sense to you.
I guess my point is most faults can be directed, corrected if you want them to be.

Now lets talk about my own failures, looking back I can only see a few, I have pondered them long and hard, and I can still say I never understood them, actually I never really understood them at all. They involved me, and my own actions, but they'd always come to pass as well because others were involved, and intermingled with my own actions., and like that good old 1st Law of Physics tat has so intrigued me through life.....well to every action there is a reaction, and to every lovely reaction ....well there is another reaction or action, isn't there?
And with time many failures with had work can be brought up to a better level, you can't undo all of the damages done, but you can eventually arrive at a point where it becomes workable again, better again. Taking a bad thing, and shaping it slowly and laboriously as they work metal into a different shape at the foundries, until it becomes something better.

My first failure involved a type of female greed.....I wanted something badly that another did not, I looked on it as the perfect blessing to a love, to feelings and emotions that defied any type of written description. Well that resulted in one of my biggest personal failures, from the first moment until the last I was doomed, really heading down a dark road for disaster, so after a time I came to almost believe that it had occurred for all of the reasons that showed their ugly heads one after another to me in that dark time period.

My second failure involved a perfect heart, a perfect soul, and a perfect child who still wanted to cure the worlds problems, to very definitely protect members of her own family. The problem arose due to too many ingredients in this particular recipe. Sometimes something is created and all of the ingredients don't want to blend together., like mint and mustard, nope.
With time it worked itself out to it's best possible level, but not without many damages done, not without us knowing that the passage of time had stolen our youth and our carefree days.
So when we finished that chapter we knew we had done the very best we could on most of those days.

My third failure, had to do with my 2nd failure, it culminated out of no. 2, I did not ask for it, I did not want to own this thing flung in my face, for one involved it was the result of all of the injured pride number 2 inflicted, and for the the other it was a grief brought on by the devastation of loss, real loss. And lost is where I stay, a human piece of broken mirror, reversed for a long time showing the coated side of the mirror to the world, barely able to function so deep was my grief. Eventually I was able to shift the mirror slightly and show the world back what it presented to me. It was something I never could document.....but it had to be real, my instincts and understanding of human behavior had always been my edge until I slipped or was pushed over it, a precipice to the dark.
Eventually things that come our way can soften us, and we move on again to another better level. We work through it, and at it, and yes we can evolve. We can even find the light again.

My fourth failure, will be delved into this time, the here and now. Yet again it involves so many hands stirring the pot full of faulty ingredients, my mind worries that this cannot be fixed, my hyper active mind can't let me settle down to tasks, and then the sleep goes.
I may not find solutions to this that will keep the cooks happy or in their norm, this may be the proverbial straw......Better directions are needed here for certain.
There are most certainly solutions within sight, but they would all be too radical to the cooks of the pot, they would involve ultimate sacrifices to be made. They would be unthinkable to them.

My old strong suit used to be trouble shooting any situation and being able to see the holes, the gaps, or how it might best allign, but as you age the vision does go, and then the mind.

Taxes & Dying

Do you know the value of "a day"? April 15th, what's in a day? One month later than the notorious Ides? Two months later than mine and Susan B Anthonys Birth dates?
Nope, Tax Day, all taxes must be Post Marked/paid before midnight, or else you get fined, the joke was always: What are the two things you have to do ?: pay taxes and die.

Well you reach a certain age and you know you're dying even if you don't have the physical disease or ailment yet, or at least can't see or feel it yet, but it's there shadowing you as your friends and relatives diminish, isn't it? ***Yes, you know it is, so put that little hummer aside.

Taxes. We the nation of Boston Tea Parties and the midnight ride of Paul Revere have managed to allow ourselves to be taxed oh so much. We have 25-30% of each weeks pay taxed. Our food is taxed, our medicines are taxed, our gas is taxed, our phone lines are taxed, our television is billed monthly & taxed, our cigarettes and alcohol are taxed, every product we purchase is taxed, and then at the end of a bad year when we've not had enough funds to meet all of our obligations.....we have to file our taxes for the year and even with A Ton of Home Mortgage Interest, well we get to pay in Taxes on our incomes that were already taxed in the first place.
And thus it was with deep anger I wrote out a check to our Treasury Dept this year. I had not had to do this since before we bought our house, but for some reason this year when we have made so much less income than we did three years ago, the son of bitches got us one more time!Can you still write on your check " Under Protest", or does this immediately put you onto some kind of a black list?
And so with all of that in my head and in my heart, I rode to work that morning after posting this gem at the Post Office, and I laughed when I heard people more creative than I obviously were sending TEA BAGS to the Treasury Dept. along with their own checks comprised of Taxation upon Taxation, upon Taxation. And the big corporations pillaging and raping the land of Scenery, Environmental Protections, Sour Ozones, and Clean Waters, skate once again into the sunset of greed and corruption, but we humbled masses teetering on the brink of losing our homes, well we paid our taxes didn't we?
We've even been advised to have more taxes out of our checks weekly to protect against next years taxes. And so now I make less than I did before February, but hey it's in the tax piggy bank somewhere. No doubt just like all of that social security money they deduct weekly from us, is most certainly in the SS Piggy Bank, right?

She laughs with disgust.
Tea Parties should be had more often.

And today brought us you

Do you know the value of "a day"? Yes, I do, today brought us you, and you are very special. And long may you run, my dearest.

In your own right you have always shined, you are a cut above the rest of the populace, a class act, and very hard to follow, I should know I have been following you around for 2/3 of my life.
You bring light and hope to any situation, you lend the confidence that everything will get better somehow.

You were always the very essence of: "You can grow up to be anything you want to be", and you did it, you wanted to be a carpenter RDJJS and so you have been, a very fine one.

You enjoy pretending your a hard ass, and yet you are one of the gentlest humans I've encountered, and how many good deeds like Janice after her accident, and you picking her up everyday for work, you never said a word about it, but Janice did as she told me what a wonderful man my husband was. How many stories are out there about you my friend.

I have always felt you behind me during my own darkest moments, knowing if I fell you would catch me, trusting in that. The humor as you and our young man roast me, and so enjoy doing it.
The warmth that we all enjoy coming home the most.

There are no simple words to tell you how happy I am that you were born, to tell you how much light you have brought to my days, to tell you how much shine and light you bring to us. You are a keeper.

With enjoyment and love, Happy Birthday to someone I really celebrate...
Your Kath*

There but for the grace of God go I

Do you know the value of "a day"? Who's Day? They can all shift with little or no notice, can't they? What is fortunate? What is bad luck? Life with it's ups and downs of the roller coater ride we all share, renders different days to all.
The happiest day of your life, may simultaneously be someone else's nightmare day. Your eyes brim with tears of joy, their eyes water as they sob out their hearts in sadness.

And so we go to our title phrase: "There but for the Grace of God go I". Common sense makes notes along life's pathways.

The girls next door to us at the new house had been identical twins, one was a young lady of twelve yrs. frozen in time by some evil spin from measles they had caught when younger, speech impaired, body growth stunted never past amid adolescent. Her same age sister was stunningly pretty, and a well developed 20 year old who was engaged to be married. While she worked her 12 year old frozen twin and I would swing on the double swing in their back yard, I was seven, I knew my friend was different but she was pure of soul. Saw the good side of what was in front of her. It was said that she was reverted to being a baby in manners of personal care.

The girl who transferred into school who could be kind one time span, and totally temperamentally out of control moments later, her name was Kathy, too.

Another child in school who's rage made him lay down on a sidewalk and bang his head against the ground.

Others that decided their group could become hunters and prey upon these weaker links, often making them weaker or more enraged, definitely more damaged than what life had doled out already.

So when Stephen King wrote Carrie, well it came as no surprise where Carrie's rage at being mistreated by her peers would take her. It actually could have happened in real life at either of my grade schools.

A young teen girl gets pregnant from a fling with a neighboring boy who threw her away, and somehow when she emerges 10 months later after her trip to Europe, she is not the same....she has regressed mentally to a child of 8 or 9. She has no baby with her upon her return. One could only imagine what would have induced such a change in the previously likeable friend who lived 4 doors down from me.

A man at the end house falls to his death from the Tribune Tower Construction, he leaves 3 orphan's, and a wife who is never a good mother again, she went over some edge. The neighborhood rears and guides the child into some sort of street safety.

A young man at summer school pierces the back of my skull with a lead pencil on the end of a protractor, the lead is still buried in my head and a hard scarred bump is still there. What was up with him?

A students and football stars hang themselves in high school, how did this happen?

30 years ago, We date, and have plans to attend a show, we travel in the old buick on the expressway the trans is giving us trouble, a man comes up behind us and rams us, we think it's accidental and pull over, he pulls over and when my significant one gets out of the car the man proceeds to beat him and thank God others came and stopped their vehicles to aid us, we get back in the car, and the man follows us, and shoots at us, why would someone have a gun in their glove box we saw him reach into?

We drive on the expressway another day and the truck in front of us seemingly is moving towards us, his trailer has disengaged.....near aversion.

The hospital wakeup, we've lost ours, ad the news blares someone else has thrown theirs out of the window? There is no logic or love out there, where's the karma? Another mans son is born with a correctable problem, but the man finds it necessary to beat the child to death in the hospital it was just born in?
We rationalize that ours would have had a permanent heart problem, and ours might have had damage to the brain from internal bleedings, who knows what the quality of her life would have been?

Our close friends or relatives lose their spouse, some of us lose our parents, the devastation rocks us, changes us, toughens us, but most will remember what the value most, and enjoy it better, caress the relationships with more love. Most will be able to comfort others down the road, to give of self to other weary beings.

And so we watch the next generation of children grow, and sometimes we see a troubled being, be it a disease of the mind or a body limitation and we know in truth that There But for the Grace of God Go I.

We have our young man, and now he will learn so many segments as special education is to be where his teaching program starts. He will see truly disabled humans of all sorts of ailments, he will see mentally challenged humans, he will encounter mentally damaged people of all walks of life and he will learn what their special needs really are and how hard it is to met these needs due to how diverse the needs are. Hopefully he will see their souls. The little spirit that lives within each of us.

And on a very humbling hard day, Maybe he will remember: There but for the Grace of God, go I.

Touched by a natural tragedy few witness

Do you know the value of "a day"? I was tired, driving home yesterday afternoon 5:30pm I was on the off ramp to Palatine road, 1 car in front of me....always cautious on this ramp since a fox ran out in front of my car light years ago. The car in front of didn't see the ducks fly into his path from the grassed lands, the mallard made it, the drake got hit by his right tire, in my view like a moment in slow motion she lifted and strain her neck as she looked at her mallard, put her head down gracefully onto the pavement, the mallard stretch up his whole body and his neck elongated as turned his head and he screamed a call out at the vehicle that hit his beloved.....
The tears welled up in the witnesses eyes, she was saddened and she was touched by these beautiful creatures she's observed so often throughout the years.

Chicky, the child.

Grover's Disease

Do you know the value of "a day"? More learning curves......some more research that might benefit some one of us out there in surviving a seruosly distressing skin ailment:

Regentra Hydrating Mist
Soothe Symptoms of Grover's Disease Ingredients that Soothe Grover's
www.regentra.com

Grover's disease
Natural Treatment for All Ailments. Start the Healing & Visit Us Today!
www.egratex.com

Grover's Disease
Find the right answers about grover's disease
www.Healthline.com

Grover's Disease
Grover's disease (transient acantholytic dermatosis) is a condition that appears suddenly as itchy red spots on the trunk, most often in older men.
http://www.aocd.org/skin/dermatologic_diseases/grovers_disease.html - 18k - Cached - Similar pages

Grover's Disease. DermNet NZ
Mar 18, 2008 ... Grovers Disease. Authoritative facts about the skin from the New Zealand Dermatological Society.
http://dermnetnz.org/scaly/grovers.html - 11k - Cached - Similar pages

Grover's disease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grover's disease (also known as transient acantholytic dermatosis) is a polymorphic, pruritic, papulovesicular dermatosis characterized histologically by ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover's_disease - 27k - Cached - Similar pages

The Presenting Symptoms of Grover's Disease
A retrospective study confirms several notions about GD that were proposed by Grover himself when he first described the condition in 1970.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/549162 - - Cached - Similar pages

Grover's disease
My guess on the subject is that there might be something in the genes of a person that gets Grover's Disease from sun damaged skin. ...
http://www.skincell.org/community/index.php?topic=187.20 - 96k - Cached - Similar pages

Grovers Disease Can Be Treated With Various Protocols Depending On ...
Grovers Disease Can Be Treated With Various Protocols Depending On The Severity Of The Condition.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Grovers-Disease-Can-Be-Treated-With-Various-Protocols-Depending-On-The-Severity-Of-The-Condition&id=890432 - 50k - Cached - Similar pages

Grover's Disease Treatment Tips
Jan 5, 2008 ... Grover's Disease is also known as transient acantholytic dermatosis. Grover's disease is a skin condition affecting the chest and back.
http://www.articlesbase.com/diseases-and-conditions-articles/grovers-disease-treatment-tips-297122.html - 53k - Cached - Similar pages

Transient Acantholytic Dermatosis: Overview - eMedicine Dermatology
Feb 22, 2007 ... Grover disease seems to occur more frequently in patients with ... Grover's disease: successful treatment with acitretin and calcipotriol. ...
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1124347-overview - 56k - Cached - Similar pages

Grover's Disease
Jul 7, 2006 ... Grover's disease is probably the better diagnostic term since not all cases are transient. It is characterized by an itchy (pruritic) ...
http://www.thedoctorsdoctor.com/diseases/grovers_disease.htm - 53k - Cached - Similar pages

Grover's Disease
Jan 9, 2007 ... Important It is possible that the main title of the report Grover's Disease is not the name you expected. Please check the synonyms listing ...
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/grovers-disease - 122k - Cached - Similar pages

Grovers disease
Relax. Take a deep breath. We have the answers you seek.
www.RightHealth.com

Treat Grover's Disease
Identify Alternative Treatment Options. Visit Now & Learn More!
www.Grovers-options.com

Diseases Grovers
Diseases grovers Information Get Better Results on Ask!
www.ask.com

A letter of thanks to my siblings

Do you know the value of "a day"? Growing up can be a tortured filled project, and yet it requires so many years to achieve it, to successfully and safely come through almost intact.

I write this letter of thanks for my siblings which were two older brothers, one is 4 years older than I, and other is 6 years older than I. They both gave me as much coping and survival skills as they could, and I think adult siblings do not always know or remember some shining moments given to the younger ones, some component they gave that sees you through your darker times.

They being boys taught me to love and collect bugs, have Illinois Prairie snake races, play kickball, volleyball, baseball, basketball, some tennis, handball, hide n go seek, they taught me to ice skate, how to dance, they contribution 95% to my initial love of music, and 95% to my life long love of dance. They taught me my Chicago Street Smarts, which has served as my best logic in times of danger.

They taught me how to stand up for myself, they taught me how to stand up for others, they taught me how to love the guitar and my initial skills for teaching myself this beautiful instrument, they taught me that all of us have fine voices if we want to sing...especially when it comes from the heart. We were dispatched to the laundry mat weekly, then they preceded to teach me another lifelong beauty: my taste in art, three pictures hung in the laundry mat by Robert Woods.....we loved one of them especially and we would find this replica and purchase it for our families home one day down the road: It was called Woods Cove. Woods Cove is in Laguana Beach California...it is where our oldest brother gravitated to originally, sometimes he'd sleep outside b the cove on warm summer nights so happy was he finally in his surroundings. It has a wonderful staircase walking down to the beach, a staircase we have spent hours on while watching the seas crash to land, it is heaven here on earth this spot. We've both always wished our middle brother could see this sight with us. It is a place where there is only us and the beauty of the sea and the cove which makes you appreciate it's earthly beauty. It is a place of the soul.

It is the reason of terrain that I return to California whenever this economy will allow. It rebuilds me somewhat for the next round of everyday life. Shops in the Laguana Beach area might produce a Robert Woods Painting of Woods Cove, different times of the day, different lighting captured. It is a small Cove really, a hidden treasure.

In case you've not understood my perspective of my youth, and who I would become for an adult lifetime.....thank you for all of the lessons equaling knowledge and skills to live by, I don't know were the road is headed, but parts of you both will be there with me when I arrive, assessing it all.

With Love, the baby of the core.

Now I lay me down to sleep, a website for thought

Do you know the value of "a day"? Always thinking.....see a website or many and they impress different ways:
Now I lay me down to sleep is a website where children's photo's are entered, and you can vote for them individually by donating a dollar or two dollars, whatever you'd like to donate, part of this money goes for children's education, and of course there is always a winner, the balance of it goes to a charity for children who will never go home from the hospitals so many are in these days, thus the name of Now I lay m down to sleep.
If you read this blog further back you will find it was always this woman-child's favorite little diddly when she very young.
If you read this blog further back you will find this woman child was unlucky enough to lose a child, and so Now I lay me down to sleep touched me, still half a woman and half a child.
A tear and a smile for all of you out there, I cannot say I've ever understood the whys of it, and I cannot say I ever will. But you are certainly special, all of your brave little souls that shine upon us.
My friend Maryann helped me with advice for my mother in 2002 because she had a little grand daughter who was very ill with Colon Cancer as well, and the two ill females had had the same surgeries which required the same body cares. I lost my mother, and in 2003 my friend lost her little Colleen a precious 7 year old who was laid out in her special 1st communion dress, and all around this little seven year old girl were other children who came to say how she taught them to be brave and taught them more of what mattered, I never saw so many children attend a wake.
And so we end again with Gilbran, " A Tear and A Smile.

A lesson here and there, remembered.

Do you know the value of "a day"? It's been a long time since we made you laugh so hard. I swear it became my weekend goal to see your laughter.
I see you all of the time with my minds eye. I see you through your family, I see you when I space out on the wild life during my drives within a week, yesterday I saw the deer over in Busse Woods again as I drove in for the tuesday bowling, earlier in the day the ducks swimming in a rain ditch, the mallard so pretty, his head the color of my emerald green heritage.
Then my sister tells me the story of her and your sister entering the donut shop, stopping where you frequented daily all of those work morning to buy your sister a donut and coffee...they run into the man you'd talk to everyday, he tells them "hey, where is your brother, I haven't seen him in the longest time", eyes tear,but then they explain where you've gone to. These moments are so bittersweet, sweet because we do run into other people who knew another side of you or who you helped with different advices, or by simply just listening to them or swapping tales over a cup of coffee., bitter because it slams us back into that lessened world shaped without your daily presence.
Remember how fun you thought it was that you had the ghost upstairs, and how you'd tell us about hearing the door open and close and no one was there.? So how could we not see you sitting in the kitchen in your space, or standing by the stove cooking, or standing in the shadows of the porch as you so often did.
One thought that's out there is that life doesn't really quite end....that different time zones and warps in time are part of our world, and that layer upon layer, time zone upon time zone, we stay alive in a different time zone that continues to play out, so maybe we really do still cross our paths...at the very worst we are lucky to have our memories echo out at us on occasion.

As my father said to me " I miss them like it was only yesterday"., and so we say this as the years go on.

See you later,
km

Family and our inner workings

Do you know the value of "a day"? It would be a Bleak lonely world without our family.

So many are gone, but at this point so many remain, and we value and love them.

In our prudent moments we see some are lovely and giving, some are cautious about loving and giving, some have their selfish moments, as on rarer occasions they have their selfless moments, the good moments make you overlook a lot of their self indulgent days. TO FIND THE BEST IN A HUMAN....a life long working...I think it was my goal on one hand?

Sometimes I come close to bottoming out, throwing up my hands in despair over different matters accosting me, and just then a pleasant suprise....a phone call with a brother, an email from my niece, an inquiry from a nephew, a treasured shared by my father in law and friend, teasing from my boys at home about my need nightly to burn the vegetables, they are onto me and rescue these little food creatures while I have a brain lapse watching a favorite TV program or daydreaming some, so then like a small miracle something will pull me back into thanksgiving mode, and make me see with clarity that I have much....I have it all....mostly....i have some wonderful characters in my life...I have some wonderful family to enjoy, and we are back to the big picture instead all of those little nasty pictures that infringe upon our true enjoyment.

Korea, needs to be stopped.....

Do you know the value of "a day"? Natural, well really un-natural disasters occur all the time now.....I watch the news, I hear about these unusual volcanic, under adventures, earthquakes, TUSAIMI's, and many have been after a publicized missile laughing, missile testings underground, bomb testings underground...compliments of North Korea....THEY NEED TO BE STOPPED BEFORE THERE IS NO EARTH LEFT TO WORRY ABOUT WITH THE GLOBAL WARMINGS.

KOREA THINKS THEY ARE ENTITLED TO BLOW HUGE WHOLE IN OUR UNDERGROUND LITTLE KNOWN ABOUT PLANET.

COME ON PEOPLE SEE SOME OF THE CORRELATIONS HERE.

WATCH THE EVENTS UNFOLD...LIKE YOU'RE A WALL FLOWER SITTING IN THE CORNER OBSERVING WHAT'S REALLY PLAYING OUT, AND SOME ONE SHOULD GO STOP THEM.....THIS IS A BIGGER WAR ON TERRORISM THAN THE OTHER!

We at together in the park

Do you know the value of "a day"? Our second date, a date at Triangle Park - Chicago bordered by Harlem, Talcott, and N W Highway, a little Park, the November night sky, our breaths in the air, guitars out and chords to Nights and White Satin strummed..... in November of 1975: "We sat together in the Park, as the evening sky grew dark, I looked at him and felt a spark...tingle to my bones, twas then I felt alone, and wished that we'd gone straight....and watched out for that Simple Twist of Fate"., a lovely song Joan Baez singer...written for Bobby Dylan and her.

It was our fate, that wonderful feeling of at last finding your home, your person in life. You.

The God Complex Via Doctors & Arrogance

Doctors and the GOD COMPLEX has always fascinated this girl, it is a totally disgusting beast that runs too rampant in the medical profession.

For 6 years we have been back and forth to doctors trying to obtain a diagnosis on a skin ailment that plagues a member of the household. This equals 6 years of discomfort and itching, and infections, and weight loss from muscle mass, and scaring for this person. For the 6 years the doctors have dibbled and dabbled in us, try this test, and we'll see....you wait patiently for the test results...some of which were for serious ailments, and the bastards call you to tell you that the test was negative....it's not that, keep using the cream, and dismiss you into their world of no follow ups.

You get worse eventually and go back, and get another test, and another round of bullshit. Meanwhile your lifestyles are totally changed and your time together is spent on trying to figure out what might relieve it better today.....just to get through a work day, and to try to sleep some at night.....yep that's a good focal point.

This last ass was like the great white hope....he's an internist who specializes in infectious diseases, and you're relieve as you think you've finally been referred to a place and doctor that will figure it out. You get there, he's so 80-95% sure it's Lyme disease, he tests you for it, he prescribes 60 days of heavy duty anti-biotics, you wait the 8 days for the test results, you have another appointment set up for the following week you think to keep progressing and that maybe one of these people/doctors will think to culture this for bacteria or viral origins if it's not Lyme diseases and you have hope even though this skin condition is at it's all time worst****

***No, you get a call from the doctor himself, he tells you the test says it isn't Lyme disease**** (but that the test has a lot of false negatives), he tells you to finish taking the anti-biotics and he says he can do nothing further for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He refers you to a dermatologist.

So on one hand he's telling you he's still cock sure it's Lyme....and on the other hand his arrogance won't let him use common sense and test for the bacteria or viral cultures that could also lend an answer to your problem. This is truly a tragedy, this GOD COMPLEX, and it's encountered by so many of us mere mortals, many people throughout a year will commit suicide because of these assholes not taken time and care with the patient....we are not numbers, we are very human.

Where do we go from here? An old song title that lends a very real question. Where?

Morgellons Disease, and researchers needed

Do you know the value of "a day"? Researching Lymes Disease, one article states that 70% of all people with Morgellons Disease have had Lyme Disease. 50% of Doctors recognize Morgellons Disease, The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta recognizes it due to the increase of people showing these symptoms, some poeple think it's an internal parasite that sends these color thread and black particles out of the skin, one man thinks it is a bacteral problem tied into older Hot Water tanks, the research is endless.
Alfalfa Tablets (25 or 35 of them) baths with a scosh of Color safe bleach might lend to some relief from the insane itching caused by the so called colored fibers coming out of the wound...what I see is a little minature hard piece of spagetti uncooked stabbing out of the wound, and I do eventually see the black particle they speak of..........
So the bath gets done, and 1 tablespoon virgin coconut oil with1-2 drops of oil of oregano get mixed into it, and applied to skin instead of all of this over the counter shit people get stuck with.....Some kind of healing occurred during the night, we will try this again, some kind of relief is needed.....this is one of the most insane adventures traveled for eons.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/morgellons-disease/SN00043

http://www.morgellons.org/

http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/2008/01/morgellons-disease.html

http://arthritis.about.com/b/2006/08/09/morgellons-disease-causes-diagnosis-symptoms-treatment.htm


http://www.dldewey.com/morgel.htm

read this one to the bottom, there is a site you can email the cdc for more info. this is a paragrah from the end of the article....So far, the only connection found among Morgellons patients is that half are also diagnosed with Lyme disease. The CDC investigation is looking more closely at who is affected by it, and where it's most common.

Those searching for more information on Morgellons can email the CDC at morgellonssyndrome@cdc.gov.

Bootie Calls, it's one way of dancing...

Do you know the value of "a day"? Singles, Marrieds, or somewhere in between?

Apparently some people need love, some people need friendship, but many people just need a bootie call. It's like a call of the wild feeling hat over comes them, and away they go following the needs or urges of an illogical body that gives them signals and brain impulses.

We are all different. One person needs hugs, another person is a kisser, and some people need more to keep the stresses off of them, to feel like their lives are good and sound. Some of us just need to go dancing, to feel the music, to feel the melody.

Live each day to it fullest, and dance like there is no tomorrow.

I was always the chaser, but I also complete you.

Do you know the value of "a day"? I have been running after you for as long as I can remember there being an "Us", you always had to have the feeling of being pursued, being in demand. Pretty funny, I just have always really loved you. I love the good you, I love the kind you, and I even love the other side of you, days where you decided someone else is not up to snuff, days when you are aloof.
I mirror you at times to survive in aloof mode and other days I am completely myself, an average crazy woman, laughing as she goes no matter how serious life really is, which quite often brings out the best in you.
It is my disposition, that makes your own best possible. I is you and you is me, you are you and you are me.
This is really who we were to be in these years, and I love you as much now as I did ever, only possibly more if any change has occurred.

Lyme Disease, more research to benefit.......

Do you know the value of "a day"? The values change with information processed into each of our lives, doesn't it. Old thoughts become mute, old feelings and emotions are replaced with other feelings and emotions, priorities change for certain.

So one of us is tested for something to believed occurred 6 springs ago. Not exactly early diagnoses if this is the case. Trying finding information on advanced cases never diagnose till it was full blown everywhere, damages incurred where?

Advanced cases are tackled with 24 days of intravenous antibiotics, and 24 consecutive days of blood transfusions.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lyme-disease/DS00116

http://www.surviveoutdoors.com/reference/lyme.asp

http://www.lymediseasedisase.com/

http://www.canlyme.com/rashnews.html

And of course a more holistic approach:

http://content.nhiondemand.com/psv/HC3.asp?objID=100235&cType=hc

Aquarian's love animals, I love Dogs especially

Do you know the value of "a day"? Since I can remember I had a dog standing beside me until 1989. So I've been a little lonelier since then.
When I was a child, Ma tried to give me a spanking one day and my lovely Beauty A Norwegian Keeshound put her body in front of my mothers spanking hands. Beauty and I went everywhere together in my days, and at night I laid down on the floor with her, I can still smell her scent in my memory. She was my protector, I remember so far back I remember her sniffing my diapers with her cold nose. She had to be put down one august due to cancer. The world became a little colder for the girl of five.
When I was six we moved to a new house, and then next summer Dad brought home a little pup we name Lady, now she was a dog who went through much, which probably became reflected in her mental wiring, she was a little unhinged at times, but she also had a squirrely household to live in at the time, so she was prone to biting if I tried to milk her on a hot august day which I confess I did try, and I suffered about twenty bites to my hands for my actions. Another time one of us or all of us got bitten due to rough housing on the floor with her, inevitably our hair would get caught in her nose slits which cause her great pain...I believe it could cut her....so she'd loose her mind again and bite the shit out of your ear, nose, whatever was handiest, and you'd come away bleeding, we called her Fierco...as she was pretty fearless at times.
It was strange we had more good times than bad times and she fit in with our rather dysfunctional family at the time.
She mellowed out by the time we were teens, and was mighty sad to see me go when I got married and moved out. She loved in laying in the bean, which is odd I still have it, inherited with my Ma's passing in 2002, and somehow I can't throw it out.
When I got married....a month into it, we stopped at a shop we frequented, and their dog had had puppies, and they had the runt of the litter left, and were threatening to drown it the next day unless they could give it away....I ran and found my husband and worked on him to come see the puppy, and somehow he was kind enough or got chumped himself so that he agreed we could take her home " if that would make me happy", the next week we still hadn't named this crazy little thing who still yodeled at night for her mother despite the little alarm clock we put in with her....and we were cleaning on Saturday then as we do now listening to music, and we named her Moonshadow after a song we liked that sort of fit her following us around. Moonie for short. I loved that dog, she was arrogant like my hubby, she was fast, she was smart, and she acted like a queen. If I put my face in hers challenging a point...she would gently put her teeth on my nose to make her own point. If I was asleep and she wanted to go out, she'd run up and bite my nose to grab my attention, and accidentally hooked the inside so that I still have a hard scar their from one fourth of july when she wanted to go see what all of the people were doing outside. She gardened with us, she really loved that as we learned ourselves how to tend to the vegetables, she liked you to throw things so she could retrieve them, so Rick threw dirt clumps, I threw her ball or toys...except the one day I threw a tomato and laugh so hard when she pounced on it, surprise for her...and the look she gave me.
She knew how to tell time, when Rick was due home at 4:30 everyday she'd start pacing & looking up at the ceiling in a peculiar way until he walked in the door.....then he'd rub her ears, and talk baby talk to her unknowingly that this was being witnessed and overheard from another being...too funny.
She'd sleep in between my legs at night which proved a hardship only when I was pregnant and very awkwardly trying to get up for those cursed nite pees women have at that time...if she was sleeping happily enough...she'd bite thru the blankets and get my ankle in reproach for inconveniencing her body.
When I lost Lauren, Moonie was my best friend during those 6 weeks off at home recuperating from the C section and whatever damage was done to my soul, Moonie and I spent August and September days gardening, if I cried she came and hugged me, head over my shoulder until I would stop, I had her company for years she was a good friend.
I put her down in 1989 I had never done this myself before, Dad came with me for support as he had always been the one to do this harsh task for the family dogs. And it is hard to see the life go from their faces, replaced by a peace is the only good part. Little did I know Dad would be gone the next summer, my friend of strength and grace off with the dogs.
And when Mike had to put down Bandit he in his honesty was devastated and said " Never Again", he talked to me cause he knew I'd done Moonie, he wanted to know more so he could put his own pieces in place, and there was another weird bond we had from nature.
Mike and I also lived in very close proximity to our parents, we both felt we were riding shotgun for them. We both had times were our own lives were affected by our folks preferences over ours or our spouses, so we had this different take on the world compared to our siblings, but at least we knew why we'd try to make the best choices for all or why we'd cave in on something that might rock our own boats. Siblings or others might see us as weak, and yet we were in fact particularly strong characters. And more than the dogs these days, I miss Dad, Ma, and I really do miss Mike. I think he knows, I think that's why I've already seen my deer several days this spring, he's just saying hi, my Dad's used to send me monarch's in 90, 91, 92, 93 and slowly they faded from plenty, Ma send me the red headed hawks she always liked seeing and for a developed land there are a lot of those hawks seen on my rides to and from work daily, fascinating. I wonder what I would be?
And so one thought leads to another.....again.

On death and dying, questions and points & beliefs

Do you know the value of "a day"? For this girl there will come a day.....one never knows when, which is the point of this posting for the dear old blog.

We all hold different beliefs, we all cling to our own beliefs tenaciously, do not let others doubts enter this territory for your very real self, one day you who perhaps have been vibrant at times will be extinguished as a candle, you will simply go out. When you go out follow your own very real path.....it may be another wonderful adventure, it may be the portal of beautifully colored lights for for this gal, it may be the great re-union you hoped for and perceived from Ma's talkings in that deep sleep she entered which sounded like they were slowly all hooking up and her finding them after all of these longs years, a reunion you actually believed in since you could walk and talk, and they took you the graveyards and you believed in tea parties and smiles and hugs of all of them reuniting, one of your first very vivid images, maybe it will be all true, all very real, that story remains to be seen and felt, and I smile for that.

For the ones in this real time life we love who are still here after we step through the portal, well it become important for your husband, son, brothers, adopted siblings, and friends to know you loved them as much as you were capable of, you forgive them for any wrongful things they put in your path, and that you hope they forgive you too for where you floundered or did wrong to them, especially some of the life altering/shape shifting items, sometimes done with thought, and sometimes done in error without the proper thought they demanded-these actions which might have wrongly impacted anothers life.
You wish to let them know that you usually tried your best to do the right thing, for them, for the household, for their souls, for their needs or cares.
And the acquaintances, well they are in a separate category, but you tried your best there too, whether to provoke thought, or to impact maybe a self pitying moment or trauma they had suffered, you usually tried to give back much more than you took.

And for the ones that really count, you hope they remember that you'd want them to remain strong, to re-group and to go on valuing all of these days ahead as they value the ones that have past into memories.
You hope they will remember your better points, your better stories, and gain a strength from them, you hope they will keep some of your values, some of your lessons on how they could chose to behave, you especially hope they remember the first law of physics: "To every action, there is reaction": you hope they remember this when interacting with each other, and all of the ones they love, too.

You look at them, your looking back, you must go, you must go on alone for awhile. I believe I will see you again....at some point, I believe I will wait in my own time frame for you, so I will not say goodbye either, I will simply say: "I'll see you, later"! I loved you solidly.

Rose Madder story leads to another attempted rape

Do you know the value of "a day"? Sometimes when you're growing up, maybe you have older brothers, you come to know some of their friends that visit at the house, sometime maybe some of them get interested you, maybe for all of the wrong reasons, you may or maybe not be aware of this.
My brothers had a lot of nice friends throughout the years, and a few weirdo's as well, the weirdo's may have been short some fries in the happy meal of thinking, usually they'd be harmless enough, you say hey to each other in passing, time goes on, no incidents to speak of.
When I was in high school, the later half of it, one of the more trusted friends, showed some interest, I reminded the person they were my brothers very trusted friend, an alleged big brother to me for many years, and that they already had a well established family.
Months go by no more encounters, until one day when I'm walking home, they stop and offer me a ride (do not take rides, even if you know them, should be the rule of the road,) but sometimes you're mistaken, you get into the car, and believe the person - especially when a high adrenaline is hitting them can do unpredictable things like attempt to rape you in plain daylight, and the battle ensued one I never thought I'd win, but thanks the very good leg power from several years of dancing or walking or running I was able to kick the shit out of the bastard and get the hell back out of the car......and run & jump fences to get where I needed to get....away from this perverted asshole monster.
It did not help that his family had bought him out of every type of big city problem he encountered as a youth, this only made him think he could skate with anything.
Eventually, he sickeningly became an officer of the law in that big city, typical of how many wrong prongs can end up allegedly protecting the people, but some of them corrupt and evil from the very beginning, and capable of great harm to the very people they should be protecting, so when I wrote the previous blog thoughts about abuse, about Stephen Kings "Rose Madder", the abuse victim of his novel who in real life are all too highly numbered victims, I was thinking back about this asshole and how I tried hiding from him, and about jumping those fences to gain territory closer to home, I remembered hiding in my own backyard finally afraid to go into the house in case he'd be there on the pretense of visiting my family to see if I'd tell about his assanign behavior that day. When Rose Madder's husband she was escaping from turned out to be a trusted cop, and all of his friends were hiding his beatings of her...or turning away from what they really knew in loyalty to this pig sicko they protected rather than protect her when she was thrown down staircases, and beaten to a pulp, well I think of this crazy son of bitch that God allowed to suck air, too. I also think of all the poor people that get caught off guard out there, of all the ones that can't escape the violence someone decides to show them. I have never liked violence, I wish it didn't exist, I wish all of the evil people in the world would glow in the dark, so they could be caught, one day through medical science and imaging, and all of this brain scans showing which parts of the brain are active and in what categories, maybe it will become a possibility.
When they develop that test for evil, I hope they are injected and melted away so they can't inflict themselves into others lives.

Abused Women & Walking Away

Do you know the value of "a day"? A Day can can make a big difference in our lives, one single day can reshape your future, a single event in a day can alter your path entirely.

I have never been abused physically by my husband, but I have seen plenty of abused women in my time of Real Estate, the bottom line is still that the abused partner needs to find an exit door and walk through it. You need to leave, you need to leave as soon as possible.

What your shattered context of love is doesn't even matter, your face matters, your bruised and broken ribs matter, all of the trips to the emergency room matter, all of the lies to the doctors you've seen matter, all of the blood you've wiped up from yourself matter.

It doesn't matter that he's not drinking today, it doesn't matter that he says he loves you today, the door should be your focal point. A fresh start, a rebirth, plenty of underground agencies out there to help you, change your clothes, wait for him to leave for work, and for Christ Sake go....through the door, go now before a rib punctures your lung, or until you go down a staircase and break your neck. Please do this for yourself, tell no one where you are going, if you have a cell phone call no one you know, just go.

Go to a crowded city where you've never been, find the underground support people like Wings, and they will give you shelter and a new start, they give you time to recognize who you can become.

About 10 years ago I encounter a woman, she needed a comp done on her condo, she needed to sell it as a divorce settlement, she had a restraining order against her own husband, she had been beaten by him, face shattered, ribs shattered, she flinch when I extended my hand to her, her eye nerves were damaged, she couldn't do direct eye contact anymore, even though her parents and I were there she was skittery, and any noise gained her attention, especially from outside.
I had met them when I was selling the condo the 1st time, listing agent for some seniors moving out of the area, she was a newly wed, and beautiful, happy about to embark on her journey with this dream man...who would turn into her wildest nightmare....
So seeing this scared, bruised young lady, and knowing the courage it took to come back to this unit to obtain a value for it so the divorce could proceed and some type of settlement be made, was a powerful sickening moment.
The week before she had been living in the unit, safe she thought in the restraining order against the abuser in place, he snuck up late at night when many people would be in a deep sleep out of the buildings occupants, and he threw a chair through the patio door window and beat the shit out of her, landing her in the hospital.
After she would see me, she was escaping into unknown quarters, and praying he'd never find her again.
I have never seen her again, but I do think of her, especially when I see a woman flinch....flinch when someone goes to embrace or hug them, flinch when a rapid movement is made by another human.
I hope she made it into the light. I hope she was permitted to walk away free. I hope she got to start over.
Oddly enough one of the best books I read about abused woman was by Stephan King who usually writes about some supernatural scenerio, his book was called "Rose Madder", and Our Rose was a very special young lady who slowly found the light, and walked away from it all.

Americans don't take well to being told by Russians

Do you know the value of "a day"? Oh yes, the Russians and an Ex-KGB predictor....funny it used to be predator when did you switch vocations you asswipe....Lol ...he is predicting to the Russian Ex Pres now a Prime Minister or something equally fun who is also blaming the USA for their economies near collapse, we'll these two are predicting the USA's economy will finish collapsing by 2010 and plenty of doom and gloom to go with it....
When I born until I was 6 I lived next to a Ukrainian woman who had lived your Russian dream turned nightmare....you KGB boys should remember....it was a time when you abducted people off of the streets for a variety of reasons including food shortage whereby you would deliver these people to the lovely factories you had in place and turn them into sausage for your hierarchy, and trust me she did not want to go back to your country. Sputnik , yes it was a rocket you launch, but my Irish Grandfather taught me it meant SKUNK...still laughing.....

For years you conducted yourselves in the crudest fashion possible, with in human tactics to your own countrymen, so don't go predicting too much for America because the fact remains that we have always been different than you think, despite corrupt government members, despite an ill economy, we Americans do believe in Freedom which is a single word concept you could not possibly understand after having lived all of those decades suppressing people.

Americans are in the majority in loving freedom, loving this land we were born to, and we are very resilient, we bounce back up from a lot of adverse conditions and we make the best of it as we go on to a better level.
So trust me if we as a nation hit worse times than we've been through we will count our blessings and not our losses and we will move onward and into the next better level.

I've never murdered anyone.
I've never traded nor sold nuclear missiles to anyone.
And I certainly have never made anyone into sausage.
You think you're dealing with corrupt government officials or power seekers, but you are forgetting the American Human Element, and we are strong and will rise above anything corrupt idiots will throw at us.

So take your prediction and shove it up your ass!

A very basic beautiful scene, a rebirth of sorts

Do you know the value of "a day"? I almost went into a trance two nights back, my need for vacation is so great, I need my loved ocean, a commercial came on showing the sun rising out of the black sky and sea horizon, the sound of the waves.....my eyes took my brain away.....

There is a saying on my fridge, " You can never really escape life, but you can take yourself away for short intervals":

I was back down in Daytona Beach Florida, I was standing on the beach, it was 3:37am, I had driven to this place throughout the night from Orlando, it was a place of memory, a place my brothers had brought me some 30 years earlier for my graduation present from them.,......this trip my son was there with his best friend Chris, and of course on this particular trip my good friend Kathy was with us, coffees in one hand-freezing cold and believe me it is cold on the beach before the sun brings that warmth-you can see your breath, an April morning standing in the dark on the beach waiting for a sunrise I had promised them, signs posted about some curfew I wasn't ever aware of till that wonderful glow appeared out on the horizon slight at first-a glint of light, and getting bigger, stronger, rounder, and oranger with every 10 minute sequence, gulls flying everywhere, and sandpipers running up to the fresh surf as it pounded the sand on the beach.
Stronger, oranger, and finally bringing some warmth to this new born day, it was powerful. It was a keeper time frame, something no one's been able to strip from my memory banks yet.

It was a time when you had forsaken me, a stark and alone time frame, life seen in black and white-the color had gone, but God and light of new born days that we've derived from our questions of where it all came from, all the beauty that is, the Ocean, the Earth, Stars & the moon, those wonderful northern lights I still haven't seen, all of those un-measureable new starts gave me myself back slowly, gave me some confidences back that I could make a difference as well in the other three people's lives by sharing this time with them, for it was one of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen, this beauty over the white sanded beach of Daytona. It was as if after traveling a very harsh and long road, a road you didn't know if you could keep traveling, well at the destination it was as if you had received a healing from the beauty of it all.
If you could give me a day where I could show you my beauties, I would take you there, I would have you see the world through my eyes for at least 3 hours, there.

Recession & it's lack of logic preventing recoveries

Do you know the value of "a day"? To many degrees, I do......but do the others?


Try not to laugh too hard at my Non business, but related in many aspects, here is my list of thoughts for you, again I say try not to laugh too hard.....
Quite Simply:
We cannot cure the ailing economy until we as a people come to realize that lack of logic and excess greed will only throw further instabilities onto the masses.
We must realize that every level of business, every phase of our culture must give, must adjust downward, must walk away from greed and the power of the $$ sign, we must begin to make concessions to one another, we must learn to give back to eachother be it late charges, penalties, discounts, credits earned but not caught in time,

or as Patrick Henry said: We will surely hang together.....

Main point:
Business practices at every level must change to accommodate the economy, you can not lay off the masses, de-value their homes....keep the tax billings of the old higher values, keep the gas prices incorporated into grocery prices, when the gas crunch is long gone......
We cannot heal until we stop the greed.
So, 2 weeks ago I wrote to Barack at whitehouse.gov, and told him to regulate the charge card/loan shark companies from charging excessive interest rates to clients/customers as it is surely impacting the foreclosures, believe me they're charging their cards up before they stop paying on their mortgages......
Barack has not answered me yet.

Changing ones path and the story of lent

Do you know the value of "a day"? Valuable lessons are learned all of the time.

For years one gave up sweets for lent, and the other gave up alcohol, the two were sisters of blood. Both very religious in their own ways, both claim to love God and Jesus, and both are catholics of an older school. Eventually we joke of lent saving us , like a vacation from one problemed segment of life.
I usually had the privilege of meeting up with them on Good Friday, and again on Easter Sunday after their church outting. The sisters are also as different as night and day, one thinks she's strong and she is the weak one, and the one who silently thinks she's weaker is the strong one.
Easter sunday one is off to the refrigerator for chocolate hidden the last two months, and the other cracks open her first brewski as it is.

We reach difficult times, barely stand through it, emerge into a more somber silent time, a time that's missing one of our most valuable components to stability, and we become unstable, barely stable, we can hardly stand the reality of our new situation. We drink to find laughter again, we drink to find some path, we drink for solace, we drink to numb ourselves against everyone else's problems, and our own real loss. We do this process for some time. We finally arrive at a hurtful yet wonderful date in history, our history, too much pain still, seal me off from the pain and beam me up Scottie, she says. We become more than most can handle that day, the ones that love us best these days understand completely where we are headed and only try to get us through the time span until it can be over with. We succeed.

Oh crap there is much fall out, most unspoken of, no memory is the clincher here. Enough knowledge of what must have occur to shut us down in our tracks. We speak with our unblood sister, we decide it is time for our lent, an early lent, reversed. We quit, we shutdown, we shutoff the phones that bring troubles, we seek solitaire, we regroup. We will never be the same again, nothing is the same. But we can save ourselves, we can save the good memories by not electing to overshadow them in bad memories.

We have emerged stronger, and tougher still. We will take no bullshit, but we will give no bullshit either. We will simply walk away when it gets too much for coping.
It is the lesser of two evils, a better choice. And now that lent has arrived, we can give up our candy again. And her related counterpart must do her thing until April brings ten months of that back again.

Today is the first day of Lent: The unblood sister must step back, and get rid of her own Achilles heals, the two vices she hangs onto must be eliminated before they eliminate her.
We progress? The passage of time will tell.

First Time Buyers Credit Can Only Help Housing

Do you know the value of "a day"? The major single item that should help the economy in America was signed off yesterday in the 2009 Stimulus Bill, the item in that bill I speak of is a first time buyers home credit of $8,000. (You nor your spouse or significant other Cannot have owned a residence in the past three years.)

As this Credit is publicized it should breath some relief into the system.

You must reside in the property for 3 years, and you will take the credit during your income tax preparation, as long as you purchase 1/1/2009-12/31/2009. Should you only live there two years, then upon selling you will would have to pay the entire sum back. There are some other rules for it, but these are the most important ones.

If this bill doesn't help to stimulate the housing industry enough so it can get back on it's feet, then we will complete the collapse.

Drops of Water, the ripple effect of memories.

Water drop into a standing body of water, gently moves circles outward, so peaceful to watch.

Next drop, and the motion is repeated.

Aging Lady, Simple memories. Spiral out like glimpses in a photo album.

Young girl following after brothers everywhere, teaching her to climb high cyclone fenced cages at the school, really teaching her to be fearless, teaching her the caution that comes with many adventures when they go poorly.

Teen girl washing her first car on Saturdays, waxing the same red beast. Friends driving by and stopping to talk.

Graduation night after dinner, seeking friends, and all are gone, they are simply vanished, a sign of times to come. That summer will take many of them away on lifelong journeys, seldom to be hear of.

Music guitar and more times spent with brothers, patiently writing down music for her to capture with her own soul.

Love at first sight, ah it did exist, loved you then, love you more now. You're beautiful in many ways.

Birth of a little girl, " Put her out, the baby's not doing well", echoes & glimpses of sadness beyond belief. Family disputes as we try to seek, Whys.

Birth of a little boy four long years later, kissing his forehead for a first kiss and view before they take him to you. You and Ma making sure he's brought to me before I wake up in recovery, so insecure was I, so unbelieving in good fortune.

Days chasing butterflies and bugs on his adventuresome walks, teaching stop and go for safety.
Preschool for social skills of an only child, grade school days, and more growing of his making us remember some of our own, so that we can once again teach as all of our brothers and sisters, and mothers and fathers have done long before with us.

Watching him follow the green footprints we made on Saint Pat's leading him to the green pot of gold under a small bed, how excited he was that he found the pot of gold, a mere green ashtray to us filled with pennies, how much we enjoyed those moments.

Life as a Realtor so I could be here when you weren't for his growing days, and then go to work at bizarre hours more often than not, you'd come home dinner is ready and I'd have to leave.
Falling asleep at the wheel late at night, one time at a stop sign I thought would magically turn green, cause I was so tired from the 18 hour days, signed and initialed contract next to me.

Those years were needed, yet damaging, we sometimes lose ourselves somewhere in those schedules, don't we?

And then some good fortune comes and you find your paths back sometimes if you're strong and caring, you have learned to make all sorts on concessions.

Running home from a hospital to pick something up quickly, sobbing in the hall as you told me Dad slipped away, Jesus all night long fighting that flat line, such a brave fight, he certainly gave it his best shot.

Years of giving caution and care to family, families, and a few friends remaining.

The lost years, sad but nothing could be done, seems we have to go through motions, emotions, weaknesses to become stronger and stable.

Sitting through more hospital bad news, you cooking meals through our hospice days here, you coming home when it was over to be here for me and the boy.

We'd just found our light again when it started again for our good friend and brother. We did it the right way, the best we could, and saw that through.

We hit walls created by others at times, sometimes we can't undo their actions, so we have to learn to walk around as many walls as possible.

This year we had some of the finest days within our own walls, within our own yard. We saw a young man first and best dream for himself come true, and we help him to prepare to obtain his next step needed for future fulfillment's, and then he can teach, he does have a knack for it, he teaches us all of the time. Our long political talks. Talks about everything.

The difference now is so much of the ride is over, done and behind us.

The difference now is we don't know how much is left. Will we get to survive this housing crunch, this economical disaster?

Will we get to see our boy find a good lady, and settle down? Will we get to his wedding, his children?

We could have so much more fun, if it is allowed, us.

So in the words of a very touching story: I wish us enough!

February, an aquarian take on things, life

Do you know the value of "a day"? February Days

First flash thoughts since a child: White, Amethyst, Cold, Pure. Like glints of snow seen on a wintry purple night.

As a child it was the hardest month to spell, and a little harder to say...Feb ru ary, not Feb u ary like January is said, okay so I got that right. White, Cold and Pure, winters last month, one more time for reflection before we're off and running again into Spring and faster schedules.

For a person born to this months first 1/2 it usually gives you a good 15 days when things feel there rightest out of the year, things...lifes ingredients come into balance, which might lead to a better perspective on the whole picture, after all you can't cope forever with chaos, you need some type of time to regroup, and this is apparently a good time.

Astrology has it, you are best off with an Aries, okay, that was an interestingly accomplished lifes achievement, they are to keep you challenged, oh yes indeedy challenged is what we are.

Now through into that mix an Aquarian child....offspring, entertaining you half of the time, and making you nuts the other half, like working with a mirror all of these years, too much alike for rationilization, but a constant sunshine on this horizon whether naughty or good, much humor brought to this old gal as the offspring grew, and what qualities do we get?
Love of animals,
Loves to read and write,
Loves all types of music,
Loves the arts,
Loves the Ocean,
Loves to Travel,
Loves Friends,
and on.....a great capacity for embrassing lifes gifts to us.

And probably a capability to see some of his experiences in life as a three d out of body experience, almost feels like you're watching out of the top of a room, an observer instead a participant whom it is involving at the moment. Like looking down into a dollhouse instead of actually being in the room.

Little or no room/time for grudges, best advice get over it, move onward to a better place.

Friends, bottom lines, and comforts

Do you know the value of "a day"?
So we go on more adventures together, we get the other stragglers addressed, they are removed from your body, all is good for now, we pull back and we wait for word on these as they will be tested as well. We get you rest, and mending on that side, last time took to long for healing. This time you will be watched, you cannot overdue your bodies use. Think left, not right. Heal up.
If we remain lucky, if they are indifferent for now, we will ride shotgun on any future items that show up on the pretty pictures. We will always have to be watching and monitoring to make certain they don't turn ugly.
And since you're so much more or sometimes equally religious to me, we will know that God doesn't like ugly, and we will pray he doesn't give us anything ugly to deal with.
At least we are comfortable in our journies together, same moods, similar attitudes, hyper enough to keep us subject hopping, conversations always diverse in content.
There is a comfort to the relationship, neither pushing the other for anything more than we have in us.
And so we travel on.

FORGETTING, OR IS IT INDIFFERENCE?

Do you know the value of "a day"? WELL AFTER 384 MONTHS OR 11,399 DAYS, I STILL DO, AND YOU APPARENTLY DON'T. She laughs.

Okay so you forgot again. Depraved indifference? She laughs some more.

It takes me back to the embarrassment of the first anniversary in 78, they got a minature reproduction of our wedding cake, they had a replica made of my wedding flowers (which I still keep in one of the refrigerators, they had their cards lined up, you went out drinking with the boys after work and never came home, so she took the dog....her little 11 month old companion to the party and made it through it with a bunch of thanks and gee wizzes without her soul mates, and made it back to her non romantic life, and for her a romantic this was not easy.

And on it goes " I am not a card person". I am not a gift person, etc.

I used to get mad, or angered, I used to sulk, or get into a mood as you would call it.

I used to get you cards with real words. After 97 ....I slowed probably mid way into that 10 year stretch.....I quite.

Yesterday I spent my day wondering in my minds background wiring if you'd remember or say anything......I still mirror you when we get home, quiet, watch a movie...

We go to our sleep haven, I give you a couple of kisses and you look at me like I am a moron or whatever, I smile, and let you nod off.....

And I think to myself: He is different, he is unique, he is indifferent to alot of things I set a store by, but he is here, we are alive, and he has many, many fine moments. I love him, I am glad he is here.

It's that simple.

Sometimes you make a decision of who you would like to spend your lifetime with, all of your days wherever possible, and sometimes you have chosen the right path, the right person.
And sometimes at least some of us take a day, and celebrate that we have that person still resting gently next to us. And it is good. And it is enough.

Glad I have you, my dear. Love from the heart & minds life to you. You are still my throb.

A dream of someone else's life & days

Do you know the value of "a day"? Glad I am awake, but I hold a different knowledge now, I see a different depth to someone else's life, someone else's nightmare of a life gone bad, the horrible changing moments of who they were:

Last night I dreamt it was summer, early summer gauging from the warmth of the days versus the heat it would become., and we were fleeing as a family, we were in a different house, and so were many other families we knew as neighbors, we checked the ice box very little cool to it...not quite a refrigerator, there was little food we cooked one meal and more people came and it was eaten quickly with no ceremony, we were Jewish and the hunt had just begun, we were trying to out distance the German soldiers searching for us, people coming and people going, none of them agreed on which my be the best path to take.
German woman soldiers coming in with guns, waiting for the men soldier to arrive, going through our scarce possessions while they waited, and we were to be rounded up, we would no the very real pain of babies separated from their parents, and older children taken from us, and spouses/husbands and wives separated, not knowing who was alive, not knowing who was dead, most of us never to see the other again, death camps, hard labor, experiments, tortures, starvation all so crude and real in this dream. The very real pain they felt at separation of family, at becoming immediate outcasts, no longer viewed as humans, but processed only as cattle or live stocks.
I have no idea why this dream of such touching humanities came to me, I am 1/2 polish, and catholic at that but I could feel their souls, I could feel their stories and the shock that hit them as it unfolded.

Familiarity Breeding Contempt

Do you know the value of "a day"? There changes shaping, in astrology they would simplify it by saying that as we enter Aquarius some new changes are entering our days on the 1st of February or this or that date, something a little unknown that you can't see, but you can feel it's shaping it's uglier head....

Sometimes we are so close together during a very bad time period, and we apparently need each other after we go through a traumatic experience together, we are close as peas in a pod., to keep that strength. To be able to endure those days.

Then one of the involved parties will shift once they are stronger, they shift away from you, the slap at you, they insult you, they might even scorn you, because they need to in order to survive and thrive better, it is simply a case of familiarity breeding a contempt because you now remind them of there darker days, and they are ready to move on from that darkness that was so lifestyle altering to them, they will now shove you away.
They will cease to include you in their daily rhetoric, they will stop inviting you to this and that.
It is over, done, and out.

This may cause a confusion in you, you may feel like you've been bitch slapped, you might even in truth if told say that you are extremely hurt for awhile, possibly confused by all of the mixed signals, but again sit back, re-group, and understand that this apparently is human nature. If you have been through enough of the harshest times together, you may become a weakness in the future for them, rather than the strength of the past.

The sister you were that was gauged as better than blood, will be replaced with that blood again as it is less painful for the person.

It is alright, you served a good and valuable purpose, and now you have some additional freedoms back for your own days. It is all part of a growth pattern needed by all.

Many members of your family on both sides have perceived in you a weakness for many years, they view you as a chump, as an underdog, you've gone round in round with these conversations at one time or another, and a draw is always invoked.
You are not a chump, nor an underdog, you simply grew up always seeing both sides of a scenario, a coin, a picture, and that is where your understanding of humans comes from, especially the ones you love. It is neither rationalization nor justification, it is simply as your mate has expressed throughout the years: "What is, is." A very loaded, short sentence, but extremely accurate.

What is my IQ? Or maybe it's simply the bat again.

The Importance of Susans

Do you know the value of "a day"? Yesterday, today and tomorrow......

If my mother would have had a girl the first birth, she would have named her Susan, if my mother would have had a girl the 2nd time she would have named her Susan, instead 4 years after the 2nd son was born she packed all of the baby clothes away, and walla...the later than thought of daughter was born 7 1/2 years into the marriage, she got out the baby clothes, and named me Kathleen Marie the Irish-Polish best combined name the middle name for my Polish Grandma, the first name bettered for Her dislike of her mothers and her own first name: Catherine.

We progress to my favorite dolly: Susan, whom I poisoned with water & onion soup made by a 3-4 yr old imitating her mother at pre-dinner time combining ingredients, she died of Black spots...bubonic plague at a child's hands ( her story is somewhere in this blog.) Suffice it to say she was my first loss, and taken very seriously by this Kathleen child of 4 yrs.

Years later Susan would rear her ugly head again, she would be real this time, she would be my fiance & then husbands ex girlfriend, the one most of them really wanted him to marry. Even after their break up the family stayed in touch with her, she was his first love, equally traumatic for him who was never going to get married. I met him in 1975 and somewhere before 6/14/76 he had changed his mind, we would plot out a sooner the better date of 2/5/77 for starting our lifetime together.
Two days before the marriage the loving group had a brain fart, they sent the old gal Susan over to our future house we had rented together in the hopes of making our wedding day go away. Their old spark was gone he said, and we had a rehearsal practice that was very tight considering that was the afternoon he told me of the occurrence, it was hard to see his family knowing this little diddly. Harder the afternoon of the wedding listening to his mom tell my mom how much they all loved me.
But Susan didn't go away, she stayed friends with the group long after we were married, even after our first loss in 79, she was invited to card games and odd gatherings upstairs, she was now married to a nice guy herself, so we played UNO together, uncomfortable for this one here but survivable.
She left her husband and small child eventually for the life of drugs, and freedom. I always felt for the husband and the child. I always wondered what makes a person walk away from their own child, especially if he's not born with 666 on his head, I never got it all. Never heard from again.
*****
Meanwhile in 84 someone from my old life surfaced via the telephone, tracked me down, wanted me to leave my family and come have a life with them.....I changed my phone number.
There would be no walking away from my life built with my husband and son.

***Moral of this story:
Life's journeys bring all types of object lessons. And it does all work out long term, follow your heart. And my best brother by law in particular always enjoyed this little diddly. The two of us never forgot the humor in it all. His flake, became a valued sister.

President Barack:

Do you know the value of "a day"? Well do you? Most respectfully, shortly after your first week in office please address or ponder some of these side issues: Please find a way to address these points and issues:

The homeless are multiplying like rabbits, we live in a cold winter region, what is it like in the warmer areas, we currently live in a balanced town, a fairly nice town, and yet I see homeless people everywhere as they try to head to PADS for some clothing or food relief, that's where the man jumping the expressway medium strip was headed he was headed to PADS...I didn't think of it then , only later when driving the route again did it occur to me.....

It's getting harder to pay bills, wages are cut down to a minimum, but the bills don't get cut back, the same old high amounts are due, even in households where you have personally eliminated this phone package versus that phone package, this cable package versus that cable package, knocking out the second phone line entirely, shopping for groceries at a more inferior store to save the 100 or 75 or whatever it can be lowered by.....

The people calling in at work, taking their additional insurance coverages off to save on money, no repairs made in the future to these vehicles., taking off their spouse or children from their medical coverages as they can't afford to pay for the others any longer, so pick the ones most healthy to date to save their imaginary monies no longer there.....

The victims of identity theft we've encountered through work again, who struggles so hard to get back on their feet after these vipers have demolished their lives as they knew it, and yet the insurance companies cancel their insurance cause they could only pay $900. out of a $1200.00 bill, they are dancing as fast as they can.....and then when I get them to re-write the insureds policy they penalize them $150. more every 6 months for the cancelled item having occurred.....it has no sensibility to it........

New construction at a halt as bankers won't lend money to the companies building the homes as we've not got more stringent lending guidelines, and also more silly junk fees, stacked against lower valued parcels from 2 and 3 years ago..... the banks are hoarding these junk fees and point to try and make up for old losses which only injure further the people you were really lowering the interest rates for.....

Again through work and mortgagees clamoring to be added to insurance policies I see people who have always been stable clients turned down time after time by multiple mortgage companies who keep requesting me to make these policy changes, and I have to wonder how anything can ever get better again....with this vicious cycle going on behind the scenes.....

I also wonder when someone will step on the most vicious of cockroaches in our financial world = the credit card companies who continue to gouge their clients and charge 39% interest for a balance increase or one late pay.....I wonder how the hell anyone thinks this should even be legal....they are conducting themselves like loan sharks.....you should definitely step on these organizations as quickly as possible as they are positively contributing to the higher rate of foreclosures, these vermin are the scum of the earth....control them, monitor them closely and insulate the people from these outrageous, currently legal methods of conducting short term lending that becomes an albatross around the innocent users. Install laws that the interest cannot be more than 10 or 12% to keep it logical for the people instead of loaned sharked for the self/greedy.

Freeze or lower the outrageous incomes and bonuses the upper management of the corporate world, financial world, the golden parachutes should be eliminated, there is no room for it in the newly needed logic of trying to heal a people. Try, and convict any of these upper management people who have knowingly committed financial crimes against the company or against the people they were representing.

Protect the people who have long paid into social security, long paid into pensions, protect them from the people administering these funds who tell them there is nothing there for them or who file for bankruptcy and say the fund is gone, the funds were always supposed to be set a aside in separate accounts, protected by the pension bonds these companies carry on the PLANS/PENSIONS. I see companies going under or closing, and simply saying , "OH, the fund doesn't exist anymore?" Bullshit, it has to exist, it has to be accounted for or the bastards should be sent to jail.....for embezzlement!!!!!!

Auto makers charging old time prices on vehicles, in a market where housing prices have dropped 1/3 of their value, must restructure their pricing to coincide with the current living/wage values which have been shoved onto an unwilling peoples for the last few years.....

Never let the old high gas prices come back to the American Peoples, let's make accessible the newer replacements available but sidelined by the oil barons of old.....
And now that the prices have been lowered let try to keep them there, and let's get the gas increases back out of our products that went up so highly in price as a result, if it's off of my gas cards now, it should be off of the groceries and every day used products stocked at the stores, this more gouging that is being allowed to continue at the worst of times, it can be abolished.

I truly do hope, you are able to help the common people, the American Average people.

Toxic People, shake em off....

Toxic People are encountered throughout life, and unquestionably can bring your down, they can lasso your ankles and pulled over and down like you were at a rodeo, a prize calf.

However, lucky for us most of them use words to lash us, to smack us across the face.

I have often wondered why they do this? Why it must be consistent?

Sometimes I try to rationalize their actions, they must be hurting, they be hurting badly., but understand rationalize is totally different than JUSTIFY. Rationalizing is explaining away a persons actions...drawing upon the very thin air floating over your head. Justifying, is based on factual grounds.

So you proceed with your own life, and encounter this toxic breathing gift in the different corners of your life, re-group if they've caused some damage to your aura, your spiritual side, and put it aside.

Please put it aside as this is their problem, it is not yours. You would have a problem if you let their barbed words impact you more than the moment it takes to feel disgust for their tactic.

So much sunlight and rainbow people out there, wonder off....explore the warmth to be found.

Thankyou

Do you know the value of "a day"?

More brief outlines seen this week, some brief movement to the side of my site, I know your there, glimpses at times, invisible at others, I do not take you for granted, and I thank you for all of the landings made. I thank You for all of the circumstances and outcome assistance you've given.

I realize it's hard for you, and so many to keep harm from, but at times I feel the brief hugs and caresses.
I thank you each day, I know you are several, yet you are fluid in your movements at times.
I love you all

What do we learn from our parents & children?

Do you know the value of "a day"?

Oh the Parent - Child Relationship, so many steps and roads to this one. Parents are to teach their children the initial lessons in life: how to fall gracefully, how to brush yourself off and get back up on your feet, cleanliness next to Godliness, how to embrace life, how to embrace and love people and find the good in all of them, how to understand the color purple of all of our peoples, and their cultures, holidays, holy days, how to ride a bike, how to take a crash, how to mend an injury, how to mend a broken heart, how to behave socially, how to gather friends.
And then we send them to school...... schedules, responsibilities, the ways of remembering tasks to be completed, and a host of other children and teachers who have obtained in life their own agenda's and complexities due to their own family life and how they were reared (Ma always said: Vegetables are raised, people are reared, there is truth to this and you can tell when someone believed differently***is a thought). All of these new things intermingled at school with your own teachings....your own little person, mergers of personalities come to light, other little personalities merge their components into your child's components and slowly a revised little person emerges.
High School brings more complexities, the children reach an age when they will do everything they've ever sworn not to. If you have said never do this, it will be tried in most cases. Secretiveness emerges, and rears it's ugly head, and if you are smart you will invade their space when they're not looking so you can have a very brief idea of what they are really up to. This can be a very harsh time period, so much damage control being excercised as they wander on to find out who they are, and what roads they really want to land on, all of this without benefit of a manual or map, so many segments to be lived through, and survival is your only thought, survival of your child/children, survival of some of their better friends, trying to teach children the difference between friends and acquaintances, watching go out of control at times whereby it will leave a scar for the future, scars that are not easily erased.
And now the young adult emerges, a virtual butterfly, flitting here and there, seeking the right flowers to gather more stamina from, what do they want to be, and trying to quietly guide them towards these steps they want to take. Their first small broken hearts, their first real time broken hearts, watching for any unsavory signs, and guiding, listening until they find their next steps for that path, backing the positive, and not speaking of the negatives, and hoping they can do the same.
And onward we go.
Now the real beauty here emerges as all along the road, your children were teaching you valuable lessons you had forgotten or taken for granted: They reteach you how to have wonder for the world you've grown to accustomed to, they teach you to see the beauty in your surroundings and to cherish your own relationships, to keep you laughing, they keep you trying new things here or there, they bring current day music into your life, and all of the newest movies, theories, they keep you growing, too.
It is a beautiful thing this parent-offspring relationship. It is our fountain of youth, and so it goes on., one teaching the other, one re-enforcing the other.
One day, throughout the years, by your own actions, your own re-actions, you will have taught them one more final step: You will teach them how to lose loved ones to the portal of death, and you will teach them how to build and go on from that scenario. It is all we can do, teach.
And one day they will teach their own.
And so it goes, "a hundred years from now....it will have mattered in the life of a child"

Triggers, we all have them

Music can be one of them for a person like us. Odd a song called "maybe I'm crazy"....or a song like "I can fix it," which we heard yesterday can launch back into a painful 3 d out of body time period, we guess the mind saw it as out of body cause we couldn't take the pain.
In a persons life there may come a time when you are abandoned totally by someone that your sun rose and set upon, they may say words to convey their point, they may talk at you about rose colored glasses and your need to remove them from your future, they may tell you they can't go on in this life with you, they may speak of time perimeters around you life, they may tell you they want to walk a different path. Echoes, all echoes, darkness, and out of the body you go, the mind is numbed, the world has become blackened, you may feel like you can hardly walk or do a task, you may be able only to drive yourself to a parking lot, some place familiar like work or the nearby lake to think and to have music in the background, hours passed this way, just thinking, numbed mind wandering. Numbed mind asking a ton of question to the super sub conscious, how long has this????, Did it go this far back???? was it always?, or almost always?
Taking the full burden of the load, figuring all of it was through errors you made, trying to recalculate this time period or that.

It will take some time to get your act together after one of these experiences, it is the same as grieving due to a persons death, without the body, without the wake, without the burial, you have lost something special as you perceive it, you are launched into the dark and there you will stay until you can rise above it.

We can tell you slowly you will learn who you are, and it's usually a very close cousin to who you were years before, you need to become in touch with your artist self, your musical self, the person who loves plants and gardening, the one who loves the ocean so deeply theory upon theory that the ocean holds all of mankind's tears from the sorrow felt in this world of ours.

You need to spend time with your real friends, to go do something with them, and those occasions will get you through a lot of the pain until you have figured out your game plan, until you can mirror whatever is thrown at you, until you can mask indifference, until you are strong as you've remembered who you always were, and you have gained that old person back that was always within, but was forgotten as you thought only of your other half., existed for the other 1/2, replaced your 1st 1/2 with their half, which takes time to reverse.

Next you will find, the laughter, the sunlight, the good in mankind again, you will find you may want someone in your life, but you will know that you do not need them to exist. And you grow stronger, mind and heart begin to mend.

Somewhere in front of you, is ground zero to start over with, strength and stamina and laughter and music, so don't ever give it up, just keep walking and time will afford you the opportunity to continue well.

Occasionally, triggers may launch you backwards in time, old pains may simply bounce off of better days, with out the dark you wouldn't see the light, you may always feel the echoe of How did this happen, why did this happen, how long has this existed? We never get all of the answers to our questions, we simply endure and go on with real life.

Our Spirit Guides, and a Kat with 9 lives

Do you know the value of "a day"? Full of wonder and some fear.....

Tuesday was an exceptionally peculiar day, first on the ride to work I wasa in the 3rd lane of the expressway headed for my job like every other morning......when out of nowhere the homeless man with a duffle bag jumped onto our side over the concrete walled meridian and the snow piled along both sides of it, and bounded out into the left lane in front of me....crap....I avert into the next lane no cars there yet thank God, and I miss him, but I think of him for the rest of the ride.

Second, Not everyone can come home for lunch on a work day, but I seem to need my surrounding around me so Id drive 20 minutes home, spend 20 minutes here, and then the other 20 back to the job. This would sound crazy to most, but I can catch any errands/chores I missed in the morning, I can fold clothes, I can make a forgotten bed, finished any dishing that were soaking, I have no dishwasher unless I count myself for that task.
Anyways I am driving home, normal 55-60 speed and I am in the right lane this time, a young teen (off school day for Martin) zooms up the 2nd lane like he's going to a fire...had to be doing 80-85 in his head that thinks life is a video game, when all of sudden everyone in front start braking like crazy in front of us....usually a non noon time happening, this guy traveling the 80-85 had all he could do between swerving in right lane...middle lane to come to a stop without harming people, and we slowly come upon the problemed area we find a middle age man has crashed into the concrete meridian wall, ass end of his car still in the third lane, the man is standing on the side of the road looking dazed using a cell phone to call for help, I see why he's dazed...his driver seat is out all by it's lonesome on the third lane, and few yards up is some type of duffle bag also in the third lane, and I think oh he is lucky probably. ,and resume my drive.

When work is over this day I have to stop for cigarettes at the the shop in our work plaza, I get the cigarettes and when I come out the overflowed gutters have iced the sidewalk where I step off to the parking lot, I go airborne aas soon as I hit the ice while in the air I see my head will line up with the curb I shift my hand to the back of my head to cushion for the blow my weight will bring me upon landing, God's....I hit my hand and shoulders so hard and the impact slides me across the parking lot cars are coming now...but they stop or miss me, shit, I am sore, I am angry that the management company can't keep a better salting on these pathways used by all of the clients/customers throughout a winters day. I am stunned, I get into the truck and only want my home and some light to assess my damages.

Very sore, shouldblades, neck collarbone, right hand, thumb swollen, fouth finger bleeding drip style, left elbow, it will take days to figure out what is really hurt, can't for xrays to many spots throbbing would need an MRI for this....I will see how I fair out.

My conclusion drawn on the day is my angels rode closely with me today, it was one of the days I was maybe supposed to die, but they averted it, I have some other purpose still, but I've had so many close calls this winter that I fear how many of my 9 lives I have used up, I must be nearing 9, 8 for certain don't we think?

Respectfully in awe still 3 days later, I have headaches 3 days in a row, Maybe my hand didn't quite do it's job, I don't know, but I am still alittle buzzy, and am excercising more caution than usual in my day, and driving and walking to better serve me.

Regrets, I've had a few

Do you know the value of "a day"? I value my days with you the most, the others can sometimes feel like a motion that needs to be gone through to get back to you.

Regrets in life, yes some. Would I have done it differently under the same circumstances, nope I couldn't have, cause I am quite simply...me. I would have made all of the same mistakes if the circumstance were same.

One thing is for certain, I never regretted you.

Ears, and reading a room, a difficult skill

Do you know the value of "a day"? 3 years ago we went boating for a weekend, and this girl loves the wind blowing, in Daphne Du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek she would have been Donna...the lady pirate .....but stupidly she had no protection for her ears so it was also: Three years ago I had an ear drum rupture, I laid on the floor writhing in pain, I could do nothing else.....but stay in that fetal position. I was being treated by a doctor who missed that I need the anti-biotic for the infection, but with certain infections you need ear drops prescribed to assist the ear in it's infection, this was one of them, and he missed the gravity of the infection, suffice it to say I was in enough pain that I wished I was in labor again, I wished I was experiencing any other physical pain I'd ever known to avoid this particular one, it was that bad.
Apparently there is a mastoid cell ( bones really), liquid from a sinus problem becomes trapped around these bones, and fluid from within gets trapped and the eardrum can explode from this pressure build up, without treatment you are screwed.....

I spent several months going to a specialist, ears nose throat, who vacuumed out the ear, got me onto the ear drops needed, and measured my hearing loss at 60% gone. He also thought positively that I had a brain tumor causing all of this and thank God, the MRI I cried over for a week proved him wrong, but the adventure here teaches you perspective for the gifts you are receiving. The world became a scarier place as all of our normal sounds taken so for granted, airplanes for example became scarier than shit...the whole audibilty things out of whacked from what you'd known your whole life....sounded like something headed straight for the truck I drive.....
Your loved ones voices...so low, so flat...maybe 3 what's? to get what they had said or a part of it, nodding your head that you got it out frustration from asking them again....it is a terrible thing, not hearing things right.
And so you learn a new skill....reading a room, reading faces and their expressions, seeing the look that's in their eyes, it all tells you a lot. Yet not enough.

Slowly as it healed I was one of the lucky people where the scar tissue healed in a manageable fashion, and I ended up with a 20% loss versus the original 60%.

However the point of this blog today is that too many people blow off an ear problem, they don't seek help, sometimes people need to get a medical situation address, not always, a lot of the home remedies can do the trick, but not always.....you have to know by your own signals given off by the body...when you really need more help to get back to a better self., don't you?

Winter the harshness, and the moments of beauty

Do you know the value of "a day"? "A Winter's Day ...in a deep and dark December, I am alone, gazing from my window to the streets below, on a gently fallen, silent shroud of snow, I am a Rock, I am an island."
* A Simon & Garfunkel song well loved by this gal, her old guitar playing self is out in the truck picking up a prescription for her hubby.

She is hating this winter, it's so harsh, if she lived alone she'd have moved out of state by now to a warmer climate, it is this bad for her. Hell if she lived by herself she would have moved several years ago before the market collapse....and she wouldn't be locked into to this financial crap either.

But thank God she does not live alone, it is better to have my lovies around, I am no fool, I just know the differences between me and them.....and I can't take the cold for these three months anymore, it is painful to me, the body and the spirit as one overlaps the other during these long dark months. I seldom mention this to anyone.

I seldom mention alot of things, actually. Not at home anyways. A few of month friends know I'd be in California or Florida or South Carolina, some place warmer.

Mind over matter, we get through this, it is WINTER 1/2 Time, January-mid January, I can do this and survive to March 15th, when we switch to rains more often or 30-40 degrees which will be warmer.....right?

But as I sit in line at the prescription drive up......a small miracle of winter happens for these older, more tired eyes: it is snowing and as I look out my winter window these eyes see several individual snowflakes fall onto the windshield and the dreamer sees the beauty of each individual snowflake, Mom always said no two were the same, I try to find two alike and yet I cannot, they are all beautifully different, and for a moment I enjoy the beauty of this.

Like diamonds, like snowflakes all of us humans are different, no two are the same. and somehow this moment in the truck rights my world.

Just as the dreamer surfaces for this she also surfaces when a big beautiful snowfall is releasing itself upon the terrain, she drives to work in a snow fall enjoying the beauty that is all around her.....the dreamer always wins, and she realizes that she lives in the Midwest of a choice she made light years ago, the balance is in the whole picture, not just the warmer season, the beauty is in the whole living, people treasuring experience, not just in the best moments, she will need the worst to recognize the best as she always has.,
and it is good.

Two lines of thought, or theory, why? Who's right?

Do you know the value of "a day"?

Some times when benign tumors are found, Doctors will leave them, and say that they need monitoring, future mamagrams to be conducted every 6 months or yearly to watch for any changes., blah, blah, blah, blah.

And other doctors would remove these growths, even though benign. So say that there are 12-14 peppered in and around an area, how is this removal done, what does this procedure mean?

Are they removed through regular surgery, invasive at best, life altering?

Are they removed through the core biopsy method used previously to diagnose them? The healing time was long for these original samples, two months, what would 12-14 do?

How becomes the question, although the why question still echoes, why two such different opinions, is it the persons age?

Is it something they see or know of the cell structure and what it can evolve to?

And why really the two different approaches?

My mother was right, I always have more questions.

And so the first week passes....51 to go

Do you know the value of "a day"? The fresh year started and we off and running.

The injury mentioned in the 1/2/09 blog, resulted in a nerve having been spliced, and a surgery needed to try and get feeling back in that persons thumb. A right thumb, a right handed person, who likes to write, play guitar, and piano, drums, and spends a lot of time on his computer keyboard, enough said feeling in thumb would help this handy person., some feeling returned, but 1/2 not, we'll see if time does this trick after it's mended.

The Er the first night, The doctors office visits, the surgery day, and the re-check days kept us running sufficiently, getting re-casted, and signing up for therapy, we drivers winding it around our jobs, time off, making up that time by no lunch days, and longer hours some days.

Waiting out more layoffs at the job again this week, we are so lucky we are missed again, it's like a shitty lottery that we get to wait through, when will economics pick up, when will stability return to this nation? Layoffs are done, he's home early, but I see the company phone re-charging, we're still okay. But he does feel for the others less fortunate, he's tired from the week, and all of the goodbyes with more work people of 15 years.

Keeping an eye on our loopy person while they had to take pain killers, yet knowing it was good thing that pain could be felt again in the thumb areas. Still it's numb for the last 1/2 but maybe with time some feeling might come back, some Success of a week.

Another one suffers from a bad cold, but like his mother is not going to listen to anyone else's common sense like wearing a hat when you snow blow & shovel for 4 hours, or letting your partner help, instead of not allowing her to come out of the house.

So instead one cleans the area of snow hat less, and the other cleans the interior of house, checking on her idiot every once in awhile to make certain he hasn't turned into a frost or abominable snowman...

She cooks a lot this week to keep all of the occupants happy, soup and stews cold the cold person, chicken & ground beef dishes for the other more finicky one. Her guys, so much more alike these adult days, they're always reading each others eyes, it is good, they are close.

She talks to her Chicago sister, and finds more layoffs are there too, Another bad Friday for her staff and for her co-workers, she is tired, some people of 13 years+ let go, and she says the rest are on a 4 day work week, very slow.

The first week of 2009 we are okay, we have survived intact.

* My heart goes out to the Travolta Family, I can feel their pain resonating, there really are no words, only time will help a bit as their journey into the dark continues. The media, the limelight, they do not need at this time, they simply need each other, it is the only way they can find some light again.

Day one okay until 6ish... Day two spins off of it....

Do you know the value of "a day"? Are you nuts?

Day one of the new year went smooth until 5:30 or 6pm, then our son called.....he's been working in a restaurant as a server, but sometime they help out with what is called sidework, restocking glasses, condiments, rolling silver ware, etc.

He went to unload the water glasses out of the dishwasher, and apparently the disc portion of the bottom of the glass broke up and cut him on his thumb closer to the base of it right above that fingers web into the index finger. Figured it might need a stitch or two...

Three hours at N.W. community hospital, gained us a workers compensation claim, an xray that showed glass in the wound, they couldn't find the glass in spite of the probing and searching conducted, the stitched him up and referred us to hand surgeon who we expedited ourselves to today.

His xray finds no glass in the wound, however he find the nerve has been severed in that portion of the hand in between the thumb and index fingers. Surgery on the hand is wednesday. The artery is right behind all of this and they don't think it's nicked, but will inspect it on wednesday when they do this micro-surgery.

No work until this is repaired, healed, and some therapy will be needed.

Slow it down.......

2009, January 1st

Do you know the value of "a day"? Okay day one, you hold so much promise, if we let you.
You are anticipated to be many good things.

Oh, it's like the day old days in catholic school, green chalkboards, yellow chalk at St. Tarcissus.....and the nuns did not want the boards swiftly erased, no we were given the honor of washing the chalk boards after school. Oh how clean they became, I just hated to see them written on again....she laughs....

Oh alright it's a similar feeling, we get to start out at our freshest again. Day one....January 1 of any given year, you can put your best foot forward. You are given the opportunity for a fresh start, for some corrections in your life if needed, or if you carried heavy duty baggage the prior year, you now can start over without the bags, you can feel free to shed the heavy load now so you'll have the space and stamina to carry all of 2009's accrued baggage.

If your love interest walked away during 2008, now is the time to wipe the dust and grime off of your hands, not take it as personally, and say oh well they must not have been made for me, and walk out into the light brimming full of anticipation for your next good adventure, staying busy until it comes for you.

Time to plan out this years travel adventures, this years accomplishments you'd like to materialize. Yes, at day one....you really feel like you have time again......time to do it all.

Life is one big adventure, no it's not all fair, no it's not all a bed of roses...unless you count on those thorns, so each year starting over fair and square is not a bad approach, it is probably one of the reasons there ever was for them re-arranging the calendar so many years ago.

We all need a clean slate, and this is as good of a way to do it as any I could think of.

I wish for my family the very best of times, love, and health in this new year of 2009.

The adventure continues.

2009, The Ideal Life.............2009 Goals witten

Do you know the value of "a day"? Yes, but let's put some fun into it

This is going to be my I want list for 2009:

I want to win the Illinois Lottery, I want to find the Geni with three wishes, and I will make good logical wishes that will further each other wish.
I would:
Pay off this house, I would buy a summer home for winter's use.
I would buy my husband a cabin on his favorite musky lake.
Neither of us would have to work another day in our lives unless we wanted to.
I would buy my son a condo (he does not need the outside maintenance of a home).
I would invest the remaining money's in real estate.
I would buy three vehicles for cash.
I would still bar-b-que each night possible with my husband.
I would have my husband start his own business of choice, experiment or not, to be enjoyed and furthered as much as he'd want it to exist.
I would have my son start his own business of choice, I think he'd be surprised by the direction he would head, I think it would be in the arts, or multiple lines or arts.
I would quietly try to lighten any family distress or burden that could be lightened by money or actions.
I would have a ball: I would travel to Italy, Ireland, California, and Florida Frequently, and would finally get to go on a trip to Canada with my husband so that I could see all of that beauty, too.
I would buy an RV and travel these United States, and see the various terrains, all of the old history, all of the beautiful sunsets to be offered by this land. I would work two weeks out of the year to obtain 50 weeks of vacation if I so desired.
I would spend a large part of my time out in the daylight, and the great out of doors.
I would be a flower basking in the sun.

Dispositions

Do you know the value of "a day"? Oh the beauty of it all.

Are you a butterfly, a dragonfly, a falcon, a dove, a carnation, a rose, a snowflake, a drop of rain?

Are you a rainbow, a northern light, a sunrise, or a sunset?

Are you a bunny, a fox, a grizzly bear, a badger, a snake, a mole, an elephant, or a deer?

Are you the wind on a rainy spring day, or the sound of the ocean mid afternoon?

Are you the hush as it snows on a winters night? Are you the robin who wakes before it's first light?

If you a deer lived for years with a grizzly bear, would you still be a deer?
What would affect you?

Relevant or not relevant, it can affect us

Do you know the value .......

Arms that reached out for you two years back, three years back, may push you away one day.

Eyes that looked to yours for reassurances in days gone by, may completely challenge or ice you another day and time.

I think sometimes that it must hooked into "Familiarity breeds contempt".

One of my weirdest deals was driving to spend time during the summer....cause I had time... and having the whys of my decision questioned with vulgarity after I had spent a hopeless 2 1/2 hours onthe expressway (poorly named at times) to get to my destination. Rather crushing for it not to have been accepted open handedly....that at that point I just wanted to hang out with the masses on a friday night, cause I could. At some point there it became I couldn't., anymore?

Slowly we found a different ribal thinking had arrived. And it centered around a very few, but seemingly impacted a great many. But like any good cancer it won. It won in repeated rounds, and has become a new way of life, replacing the nicer one that had existed for so long.

It's like a beautiful miniature rose garden I had once, and someone throws the debris from a weber grill on it constantly througout a season, thinking it will wash into the soil, and all will be fine, only to find out that the debris did contain lighter fluid residue, and lots of charcoal, and that constant contempt given to the beauty growing there will wither it. The roses do not bloom the next year, they have been killed off.
**Me I am slightly insane, I still water them all season to see if I can get one shoot to come back.
But, they will not bloom, no matter how much water. The damages were done.

I used to think families and friends were both very resilient to bad times, and that we would endure what we had to, and bounce back. We get to a point or an age, and we can bounce back no longer, no further. Damages begin to chip away at us, usually we would just dust ourselves off, and get a fresh paint job to get ready for next round, but it is getting harder to achieve this.

Wild accusations get hurled by one to another, and when you're found not guilty, no words of apology are ever spoken by the judge or jury. And the next time, the same shit plays out.
Some of us must be exempt from the rules of the lesson:
It was simply:
"I am sorry,
I forgive you,
I love you! "
And if the world could understand it, live by it, die by it, then they too would know love, forgiveness, and regret of actions or inactions.

2008 Real Estate and an Economic Crumble

Do you know the value of your home?

Why yes, I've been a Realtor since 1986 of course I know the value of my home.

Yes.

Not.
Yes.

Not.

Two years ago my home was appraised for $360,000. My home hasn't changed, except for some improvements we made throughout this summer. We painted the outside trim, we painted the garage trim, and we painted the entire interior of this home.

Rates are good, at their lowest in a year, I look into re-financing, I do a market study on my subdivision, my area to make certain I can appraise out, and surprise-surprise: rash decisions being made by other people wanting to move or wanted to get out from under being foreclosed on is going to impact me greatly: The house would logically sell for around $290,000. This is a $70,000 drop. This drop has evolved not by how we've kept our home but by my next door neighbor who just sold their home for $190,000 and yet they had done no modernizations, no real upkeep to this home, it is a home whereby the man who bought it, is going to gut most of it and start over because it is still done up in 1950's mode, and yet that impacts us. Several houses within the subdivision have suffered into foreclosure, lay offs, lack of income once there is walloping another impact against every other homeowner in this 756 home subdivision. Another man went on vacation, he was unfortunately killed in a road accident while gone, his family comes back and sells his home for peanuts just to cash out quickly, one more impact for the neighbors to shock absorb if they need or want to sell soon. If they want to re-finance to get a lower rate, they are quite possibly screwed out of this....as their house may not appraise out in the wonderful world of finance in these economic times.

Furthermore in recent years I could have sited homes in other subdivisions comparable to mine, as long as the square footage, amount of rooms, bedrooms, baths, 1st floor family room, garage sizing, etc. was the same as mine, apparently this is no longer being allowed in the world of appraisal.

So you have all of these committees, and all of these billions of dollars being floated into a system that is so crippled by illogical rules and regulations that they've created a vapor lock over the regular people, and instead we are being forced into a worsened downfall in market trends because of the exceptions?????????????

So I close out 2008 in a Realtor Mind, in a homeowners mind with total disgust over where we mortals have been shoved off to, but stupid, greedy people of the financing world, who strip the poor to line their own pockets, and then continue on as if their actions have not been criminal, and continue to line their own pockets once again as the make up rules, and fees to charge the masses with, and still keep making invisible boxes around our lives with their greedy hands still outstretched.....for more of what we've worked for these 30+ years.

I have only a slim minds eye to the new President, new goverment officials, and anything rational they can achieve....out of this mess. They might have been better off to let it collapse when it wanted to, and let it land where it needed to. Glue is Glue. And we are being contained in a gluepot., that might not have the correct molecular structures to substain it.

Fate and Luck

Do you know the value of "a day"? Oh Boy....9 lives the cat said, which one am I on?

The red car that wanted to pass her on the regular road to work, now wanted to pass a truck from the right as the gain speed after merging onto the expressway....she almost got out a cigarette, but didn't want to split the concentration yet.

The red car hit some black ice & started spinning & Spinning out in front of her and also in the second lane an oncoming truck......warp speed of the brain....is this it? Will the he hit the truck? Is the truck gonna veer into my right lane to avoid him? And I throw it into 4 wheel drive knowing I'll hit the patch next while braking won't be a good thing.........

I can't say how times he spun until he got it to stop, but the truck and I held our ground, and made it to a halt without hitting this presumptious animal in the red car.

Somehow God or the earth decided on a bonus life for Kath & the truck driver, let alone the idiot in the red car who could have avoided this whole scare.

We thank You God, we thank you heavens, we thank Mam Dad, Lauren ,Mike, Dicky...Grandpa John, whoever guided it to a stop safely.

I think I will value 2009 more than I thought in lieu of this mornings activities. I will complete my 54th year of lving soon.

Good choice, I certainly don't want to go yet. Thank You Again! A Kiss on the wind, & A Smile to you.

The real Sunshine*

Simple, but true

A simple young lady of 30 years past, merged somehow with an older woman who wishes to remain simple. Similar to an aging tree, I wish for some breeze, some sunshine, and some water.

I wish to see as many rainbows as these eyes can define, I wish to see birds at play building their nests, and squirrels playing with eachother around a tree, sometimes tumbling or wrestling with eachother.

To view a few more magnificient sunrises or sunsets, where the colors are so vibrant they affect your soul and mind. And to see Butterflies dancing their winged dance, any dragonflies of rainbow colors hovering nearby.

I wish to watch you when your intensely working on a project, and don't even know someone has approached.

To see our son dozing on the couch, and note that his face hasn't changed from the infants in sleep mode, I can still see the child within the aged face.

I do not like the complexities that come our way whether asked for or uninvited, I wish life to remain simple, I wish life to remain with beauty to it.

I wish to remain simple, with simple surroundings, and simple views.

Being an asshole with little or no efforts

Do you know the value of "a day"? Yes, but sometimes I step in the dung pile without even thinking, I sort of jump in, I think I'm being cause and helpful, but oh when the shit lands in my face it is too scary to comprehend. I look to my son for guidance, he says I was wrong to answer a three recipient email whereby I was one of the recipients, he says since it had to do with a fourth party, oddly one who does not have an email address, I should have remained silent, quiet, and not have offered an answer. My initial take on it, was that the person writing it was crying out for help, my son feels she was making a statement of finality to the people she has cared for out of this peculiar acquantance.

I usually live life with little or no regrets. I am or have been called a Maverick at my once removed job, what did he call me????Oh yes Commando....funny that was the name my Dad gave to his little Army Dog he adopted in Texas. Little did Jim at my old company know what I thought of that tag....he's also the one that told me I was a Maverick, but in truth I've always preferred that to being one of the silent lambs being led to the slaughter, and I don't think that part will ever change.
This gal emailing me/us I felt she wanted intervention, she wanted hope, I felt she really thought regardless of her words that we were being looked to for some sign that her last 8 months hadn't been for nothing, that the vows she had taken meant as much to some of us as they had to her, why would she abandoned them, why would she run away.....so for me it came down to re-assuring her that some course of action was being taken on behalf of her and her children, and that her husband, although not her preferred method....was taking steps to protect her furture
and her children's future...... thus my question of How great is the love?

So I don't know anymore, maybe I need the iodine doseage, or maybe I am abnormal and care more than I should about people, maybe I felt her lonliness of the last few months, maybe I am wrong, maybe I need to really try and step back and see if I am not totally in error here and other place for caring. Maybe I should learn empathy......the ones on the sidelines who don't do shit constructively and let all sorts of ships sink....Maybe that's where I belong.

A wallflower, a quiet person who does nothing and just bares witness to all sorts of chaos.

2009 here I come....is there hope for correction of my personality?

"In my Life" holds the truth

Do you know the value of "a day"? Yes, and I connect this song with you. It tells a story, and a true-ism:

"In My Life"-John Lennon/Paul McCartney

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

In my life I love you more

Holidays at Home, and some reflection

Do you know the value of "a day"?

The best part of the holiday season can be arranging for a couple of vacation days, so you can have time at home to relax, which is exactly what we did. We had some leisure time, we had some relaxation.
The last few years I try to take Christmas Eve off and the 26th of December as well, strung together with the holidays and weekends, it's a nice 5 day vacation, it gives time for the family get togethers, but also time to spend time at home, and get a few projects completed.
You relax enough so that you can sleep alittle later if needed. Cook a few meals you wouldn't tackle on weeknites. Have a few phone conversations catching up with out of state family.

There are three of us in our immediate household, we get caught up and stay in touch thoughout the week, but this has been an enjoyable break. More talking, and then off to our own hobbies for a while. It is probably a fine way to close out the year, and do some reflecting on where we've been and where we are heading.

2008 took alot of our freedoms away from us, little freedoms that some may take for granted but lower and middle class don't take for granted, they know extra's are always the gravy. Economics took the gravy away this year, but we substituted it with love and family, interesting how we humans can adapt to changes thrust on us. Many of us became closer.

2008 also tried to take some more people away from us, and although the losses were felt, we had a few wins this year as well. It is the wins I carry with me, they are equivalent to hope. Hope is tucked into the back of the mind for the next times....maybe we don't always have to suffer a loss.

The doorway of 2009 looms just ahead, it carries an unknown story for us, another chapter in the book of our lives. More tales of adventures as we travel this life.

May we travel in light. God's light, white light.

My gift

Do you know the value of "a day"? My gift is possibly a capacity to love, and to convey the deepth of my love. I love you very much, that is what I can give to you. You are my most serious subject, you are a target always within my scope of sight, not an obsession, but you could have been if I didn't discipline myself with the realities of life and what it could throw at us.

That you who do not believe in cards, or gifts, could place in the tree this little box for me, I was so surprised, and so touched when I opened it. Something I had said awhile back, and you filed it in your thoughts and somehow went about obtaining it for me, so sweet of you, so touching to my heart and mind. I was overwhelmed and barely capable of words for once...so I could only put them on my ears to show my happiness, I am so inadequate at times, aren't I?

From you I take this gift openly. I love many people, many different ways, but in my life I do love you more, and the most. No regrets,

K

Christ Mass, Christmas, idio to warmth

Do you know the value of "a day"? Christmas Day No cards out. Very few gifts given, a lean year, gifts to little child only. Used to be able to cover many or most, Can't now, absolutely can't.
Hopefully in the future we can resume to do as we please, but this must remain a lean year for generosity of gifts. We can however be generous with our spirits, our smiles our laughter.

Christmas Day for known or unknown reasons will always bring me a sense of peace, a sense of harmony and balance:

We gather for our breakfast, something we switched to some years back, we have always worked hard around schedules, and who as they married needed to go to multiple households, in fact while our parents had lived, they lived in another state for some time which was very challenging to us as visitors to multiple households. So, we do not inflict these schedules on our children, it's too hard to be in many places within a day.

We used to be roughly eleven or so in numbers, today we are 6. But we get caught up alittle, and smooose with eachother. We have goodies provided by the family baker's/santa's. We have bacon, sausage and pancakes, coffee cakes, juices. We email a picture of boys with bacon tusks to our girl & boy who can't be with us today due to schedules, she loves bacon, my bacon she claims, so we figure this is adequate torture this marvelously funny picture. We're trying to smoke her out with a phone call, a rebuttal perhaps.

Two can't be with us as they are out of state.

Two can't be with us permanently, as they reside on a different level now.

Christmas story is on the movie channel, which evokes talk of our childhood, old metal ice trays that your fingers did stick to or old fashion garbage can lids of Chicago Days, much as the boy does with his tongue to the flag pole, the old style dress of snowsuits each of us donned at times as a child, comments made as to Ma & Dad possessing Vulgarity....I couldn't let that slide, I told the thinker that he hadn't seen anything yet until he had a Dolly for vulgarity, my folks were a cake walk in comparison....you see it's all in what surrounds your environment these units of measure, these skills developed by adults.

Yes, it's true my own father told over-cologned men they smelled like Whores to convey his point, and yes it's true he told me after I was married a year and half that marriage was not all lying on your back....but he wasn't lying......he used a descriptive phrase to convey a point.
This particular one would have me laughing on and off for 33 years.....as marriage is a serious commitment made by two people, two people who must work hard at keeping their relationship on track at times, and other times, it is a wonderful relationship. Your true best friend, your lover, your companion through the good times, and horrible times. You stop talking as much cause it's all in the eyes, and the eye contact many days., but it is not all lying on your back.
Ma and Dad arguing well yes that would be a top the topper.

But consistent vulgarity of verbiage, no that would my Auntie Maggie or this other fair lady, they take pride in consistently coming out with a humdinger. ...it's a legacy they want to leave for us, Maggie's off to the happy hunting ground now or still trying to figure out what shaped the lifetime, and the other woman will continue her words no doubt, but also leave many with memories of fine cooking, and funny card games, and funny stories to go with it one day, or the times her eyes would well up with tears and get so big from a warmer memory touching her for a moment, or gently reaching across a table to squeeze your hand, to signal she felt your pain, all of this will ride hand in hand with the vulgarity which some use to disguise their own heart, their own trap of body versus mind, and where they have gotten to in the body moven world, a trap when they can no longer do the things they wish they could do, so the words release instead.....

Followed later by: I love you, I'm glad you came to see us, I'm glad you liked it....

All of our people's as they are: Add color and flavouring to our days, you cannot have light without the dark, you cannot have dark without the lightness, you cannot have warmth with out the cold, and you cannot have cold with out the warmth of all of these people's...these characters.....

And the one's that are gone....did you have flaws, and faults, you did, but I still choose to remember them with the understanding of an adult to an adult, I who see so much through my child's eyes....I see your downfalls as an adult who avoids as many of the pits as possible...and I see all of your good points through my child like eyes as often as possible. And you still although gone bring me the spirit and the generosity of Christmas without fail.

Merry Christmas, lovies.

Christmas Eve, feeling, family love

Do you know the value of "a day"? Christmas Eve

My friend and father in law is right, a host of memories are made, and relived with this day, as will be on the next day.

On Christmas Eve we traveled, it had snowed again for the 24 hours prior. One of our surprises upon arriving at this gathering was that some family had driven and travelled much further than we had.

We were so happy to see eachother. First gift of the day, we still are capable of love. And we are still alive to hug some love to our family recipients.

It has been a long haul this year so different from any others, harsher. But under all of that, the caring was still there for the ones that counted. Not everyone will have understood the fine point of family and happiness at seeing eachother, we are still alive for this round, some of us have made it through the many health threats issued , things we don't talk about or share, perhaps, but scary non the less. Some of us are still in the middle of that road. But most of us have learned to value the days, time times, the years.

And when Holy Night, a beautiful Christmas song began to play, well there was a moment of silence as many of us thought back to other times, other times we've heard it play, other years, and I looked at our photo collage and found you there smiling as usual, smiling to see we still gathered.

Christmas is really for children, so the child in each of us surfaces, we talk, we laugh, we get caught up with eachother alittle, one of us children pranks their auntie filling up her mini-mudslide bottle with water....and waits hours for her to come back to drink this...so he can watch her reactions, and see if she knows who pranked her.....and yes she knows, cause Christmas is for children, and we are partially children again, each of us.

Good company, good food, good times, and into 2009's doorway we head.........

Christmas Memories

Do you know the value of "a day"? Oh yes, and Christmas day could be the best.

A magical tree, complete with lights and little ornaments, some of the ornaments represented or told a complete story within themselves. Always pictures of baby Jesus on them. A white sheet for the tree skirt....tree skirts hadn't even been thought of yet, the white sheet to represent snow. A manger underneath the tree complete with a blue light to illuminate the star. (Frankie's in charge of the blue light and the star. I will always connect him with stars because of Christmas, many Christmases.) Brothers as happy for my gifts, as for their own. Brothers posing for Tree pictures with me. Dad with his Brownie camera, black and white pictures with the year stamped on them would be the keeper. No color pictures thought of yet, much like the tree skirt.
The peculiar things I wanted as presents, too funny to my adult life: A jewelry box complete with Jewelry.....pretend child trinkets cascading out of the pretty little box from a majestic catalog, or a first distributors catalog (who would think I'd work there when I was 20.) Well I never did get the jewelry box complete with jewelry....but one day I would get a pretty little golden box with rose buds on the top of it, I often wonder where that went off to? I had it going into adulthood..........but then.....

I can't remember so many things, the years have Swiss cheesed my brain cells to some degree, and although I have good recall, it is flawed. Maybe it was all the very high fevers I had as a child Ice Sheets...oh God I hated that cold, the plastic sheets under me, Frankie Crushing Ice, and Rob setting up some religious thing to say prayers for me cause they were that worried as it hit 106. Or was it the baseball bat injury to the head...that causes these memory glitches?

My little washing machine......with real hoses for hook up like Ma's so I could wash tiny doll cloths.
My iron just like Ma's except maybe was mine Red and black instead of silver and black?
My lovely Suzie, her eyes would open and close as I picked up or laid her down, poor Suzie is the one that first had a mouth so this child here could feed her soup mimicked off of Ma's cooking, except my soup was bread in water, mushed with onion if I could steal some away from Ma, but then Suzie's my Doll that died from the plague...she got black spots all over her and we had to bury her with Petie our parakeet, and Pokie our turtle in the backyard....or at least Mom told we buried Suzie.....Suzie was a gift from Auntie Mamie...whom I loved solidly cause she shot her teeth out at me when she put me to bed...and I thought she was so cool for having that trick no one else could do......so I love Suzie alot cause she was from Mamie.....and Mamie always brought laughter to our house in my younger days.....the only one I loved as much out of the ladies was Aunt Billy who wasn't really related to me except thru marriage, but I loved her anyways, she was Auntie Mame's Sister......as different as night and day around small children, Auntie Billy was a Saint.....she knew children of both genders and she took it all in stride.... She Died right before my 7th birthday ...2 days before....and I was so sad not to see her anymore.

Christmas mass and the massive smell of the previous night's alcohol on various adults in church mixed with garlic and God knew what....ooooh I loved church but I hated that smell, still do......need food shortly after church or stomach will be very bad from the ugly leftover smells people produce, it was worst when I was a child, shorter I think was the problem.....bad odor do not rise to the top.....they linger lower and near tiny noses.....

It was always magical if it could snow on Christmas. And I got to play with my brothers toys as well, the three amigo's went many places together, and had quite a lot of fun during the holidays....bad as we could be at times we had an ornament fight one day when I was about 6 or 7, and all of the Styrofoam ornaments like frosty the snowman suffered tremendous injuries or like our Polish Grandma's hand made ornaments out of crinkly plastic paper.....oh they had been so pretty, but after they were in our fists, none of them looked too good anymore....but we had fun throwing them at each other as we ducked and hid around the tree......I still have a few of them, I could not part with them after Ma and Dad were gone......what story did we feed them when they came home that day....I can't remember that either.

But I am laughing now.

Never a Christmas Morning, Never an old year ends, but someone thinks of something, old times, old days, old friends.

Merry Christmas to those I love.
The inner child.

Health, Nutrition, Skin, ZIJA & me

Do you know the value of "a day"? Who out there can say they haven't had a cold in two years?

Why I can. I always had colds, fevers, sinus infections, ear infections, bronchitis, I was at the doctors at least 6 times a year usually more. I was chronically sick with one of these or another.

I have not been to the doctors for an ailment since September of 2006, I started drinking 1-2 cans of Zija a day which provides 60-90 vitamins and minerals to my body, nutrients as I see it.

http://30386.myzija.com for more information to feed your own body, to obtain a better health.

Define love and family for me?

Do you know the value of "a day"?

Can you define unconditional love? Can you really tell me what it means to you?
Can you effortlessly live it? Can you thrive well by loving everyone for their good points? Can you discard their unfavorable points or days, and flow with all of the good ones?

This is required in marriage, this is required in child rearing? This is required in families, big or small.

"Live each day to it's fullest, and dance like it is your last dance."

Horrid

Do you know the value of "a day"? Couldn't wait to sleep last night, up at 2:15am the night before for good, me and the coffee pot.

Cleaned house, did paperwork, went to my class, did the tests and passed, now that lovely continuing education is behind me for another two years. And all without giving up any vacation days to take the courses, now that was a win.

Started snowing on my way home, we waited for J to get out work, usually 3-4, instead he was needed till 5:15, said it took another 20 mins to get out of the parking lot, Woodfield has always been bizarre when the holiday season is in full swing.

So we were almost 2 1/2 hours delayed getting on the road to the family Christmas gathering.

Horrid will not even begin to cover the aura. I will leave this as is.

Such a big family, and yet such a capacity for loving, a constant surprise except for a few who can rise above anything. But there is a batch of gems in this family, and I am proud of them.

One of us had recently been saying they can't take it anymore.....no more, no more.....and maybe they can't, if I lived there I'd disconnect all phones for the balance of winter...so many people call with their problems, illnesses, death and dying a constant for 2 years, at work, in her family, friends, everyone has a greek tragedy playing out, and unfortuneately they turn to her...she has a frign magnet on her back for it that draws uncannily....they are preverbally coming out of the woodwork and seek her.
Everything is a drama, a problem, it is eating her alive. So it was a bad harsh day, but the gems were outstanding and gave love and care, and somehow together we made it through.

In the course of death and dying, we who survive but were the caretakers will gon to help others in need, others in similar boats. But we can only do this for so long, and then we need to firmly step back from death.......hold it at bay.....walk a good distance from it for awhile at least and seek the sunlight.

Spring has always been associated with rebirth, but so should Christmas...it was the birth time of Jesus for those of us who hold him dear, we can rebirth somewhat between Christmas and New Years., can't we?

I barely felt you yesterday, but I glimpsed enough to see the straight face, white t-shirt, lighter blue jeans, but you were serious, weren't you? It will be okay, needs more time.

The holidays, Michael & what's left of us

Do you know the value of "a day"?

Today is our first Christmas Gathering. Today we go to see the family. My husband's family.

It was always a fun house: One part of the family living on the floor, and another part of the family living on the 2nd floor.

When we were newlyweds Christmas was on the first floor, usually on Christmas Eve. Of course when we were newlyweds we did our shopping on Christmas Eve, paid Weibolts to wrap the presents in record time, and went straight to the house...arriving in the nick of time for dinner.
It was all different then cause we were all younger.

In 1983 our son was born and Michael was our sons GODFATHER and still is, we all misbehaved and had some what of a dispute....me, my sister in law, my mother - in - law......oh the shit we used to argue over.....crazy people.....
Anyways in 1983 Michael....God love him, our Michael took over Christmas.....and from then on most years it was held up at his house..........Michael brought the magic to Christmas every year....( Oh God's I am still crying...haven't sobbed like this for awhile....I really miss you, I miss your very exacting mannerisms, I have them memorized from all the years of you and your giving).
Well back to the story, Michael took over Christmas to keep it Christmas at it's finest, his Mom was more tired then, and had kept saying she didn't want to do Christmas anymore, didn't want to put up a tree, so Mike's Lady would put up the tree, and then Michael would bake bread, pies: apple and pumpkin, Cookies: sugar, molasses, sometimes chocolate chips, his big ice cream buckets would come out & be filled with goodies from the labors of his last few weeks, they were filled with love and caring for his family, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, everyone got a bucket of cookies. He would always make popcorn balls, and we helped him once or twice, oh what a lot of work it was to make that volume, and all day affair, but again each person in the family received popcorn balls in a brown paper bag. He always had to make a batch to be mailed off to Katie....it would take longer to get to her state.
This went on year after year, we eventually called them our Santa's. People would talk of having Christmas elsewhere, Mike and his lady were tired, but the kids would go on revolt, they wanted it to be held at Mike's and his ladies. They wanted the magic of the tree, the holiday music, the warmth of that kitchen, Michael standing by his cooks station listening to us all prattle about our drives in, or who was doing what to whom, and he'd always try to know or see who needed what, one would be short of money and he's magically put a collection together to help them out, one would be laid off and not to be able to buy for their own kids and they'd have something special under the tree or in a card, something to bring the magic back into their world.
So, Mike's lady tries to continue the tradition, she tries to do something special for Christmas, something to warm our hearts.

Grandma will have Christmas Eve for the family, and we've actually all been mailed invites for this year...that we've been receiving this week, and we will go to Grandma then, but we will not have custody of the children that day so:

but tonite we go to: Michael's and his lady's, he's still there in spirit, it's the nite and weekend when we have custody of the younger children, and his son and daughter will be there, and maybe together we can give and show these young child the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of giving, the spirit Michael left us all with.....the magic.

The magic.......

Most of us are not bakers, we can't seem to bring ourselves to try your dishes or recipes, they wouldn't be the same, we all get a different result, but the magic and spirit, maybe we can do that?

Friday, snowland, without benefit of salt

Do you know the value of "a day"?

The Child: Friday morning, to the eyes beautiful, white snow blanketing everything as far as the eyes could see.
The Adult: What a grind trying to drive the vehicle to work, no plows out, no roads salted yet.
4 wheel drive is a big helper for roads in that condition.

I am late for work, sometimes too often, but on this snow day, my shoveler husband was home, and booted me out of the house early (he is never late for work or most other things), I even driving through this white wonderland with few cars on the road as of yet, well I am on time for work.....I laugh cause I know it's him not me that got this result.

He is not at work today, he must attend a service for his Boss's father who has passed away suddenly. And in the afternoon, it is his company Xmas Party. This is how he came by the schedule to be shoveling, otherwise on any other day he would have been gone for three hours already.

My boss is worried about me, I let him know I am there, take his time....but he comes in at his usual time, and the phones are slow, we get lots accomplished, Holiday letters are mailed to our clients and friends, he has time to do some insurance applications he wanted tackled....we skip lunch so we can leave early ( Rarely occurs).

And we jabber back and forth, things that amuse us, things in the news, our now infamous Governor, the day passes in a wonderland, too.

I make it home early, most snow days it takes me 1 1/2 hrs to get home for a 15 minute ride in regular time.

It is the friday before Xmas, for him it is Hannukah, a holiday magic glow is over us. A winter glow.

Palatine Murder, What was he thinking? The Land*

Do you know the value of "a day"? I received an email yesterday morning from my dear longtime friend, and I couldn't keep from saying " Jesus Christ". I meant the words all ways possible.

My friend was sending me the link for a news article on her long time friend and neighbors murder two days before. I was oblivious to this news. I had only been following the snowfall, and also national politics and economics, not any of my local news.

So I opened the link and was totally surprised to see her friends name in the article, a name I had seen the last twenty three years in emails before my good friend learned how to delete all of the names when forwarding a joke or a good story.

Apparently this poor woman was going to bed for the night, not knowing that her longtime husband had lost his mind to the point of wanting to commit suicide....but he didn't want to leave her with the fall out of it, so he hammered and knifed her to death instead.....and then failed in his own attempt to kill himself. He was hospitalized for his self inflicted wounds, and yesterday he was charged with murder.

I tried to answer my friend back as I knew she was very upset about her friend being murdered.
I tried to tell her he had to be very sick of mind and logic to have thought he was doing his wife any favors, and he did not take into account the thoughts that traversed her mind the last three minutes of her life.

I tried to tell her that her friend is in a safe place now, a place where others will slowly help her to understand what happened to her, a place where she will be better after she has some time to understand what took place.

I tried to her to remember the very best of times they had together.

I told her when the market corrects itself better to move of out this bad patch of our town....something is very wrong in/on this parcel of land.

Years ago a daughter stabbed her mother to death & skated on a murder charge for way too long blaming it/ staging it on home invaders.....later the same daughter gave birth to a baby (she had denied being pregnant the whole 9 months), and she drowned the baby in the Salt Creek running in back of the house...later the baby would be found in Lake Irene and traced back to her by DNA, this DNA would finally get her charged for her own mothers murder.
I toured this home as a young realtor after the mothers murder, but when I was in the home I had no idea what had occurred, it was so dark and oppressive I had to get out.....found out the story later.

The following year Dr. Robbins went off of his meds, he bludgeoned his wife to death in their home, and drowned his two year old in the bathtub. He was found not guilty by reasons of insanity and he is out of the mental hospital for some time at this writing....I toured this home as a realtor, couldn't feel the darkness, only blankness....neutrality, but the blood stains had gone into the wall and carpet.

The Browns Chicken Murders, one them was a young man who lived down the street, he was very gentle and sweet of disposition, 1 of two twins, when he had worked at Dominick's previously he was kind enough to walk ladies to the cars after a string of purse robberies. The family who owned Browns were very excited and happy only a few days before their demise as they had gotten new counter-tops, and new upholstery.
I worked across the street from them, I drove by it coming home the night of the murders....I saw nothing....just the darkness of them being closed.....I had no idea the murderers were still inside it doing their thing....

Yes, it is an evil patch of land, it is this one square in Palatine where bad things happen to good people, makes you wonder if they dug up a graveyard to build on the land.....
I live on the southern border of the town, but I am happy I am not on the north end.............

Monkey Pox, it all started with Punta Cana

5 years ago A Man goes on business trip once a year, usually January-February, with all of the other company planners, done with meetings for the day he sits outside, some ignorant acquantances come up from behind him...he's sitting with his back to them in a lawn chair on a company trip during a moment of leisure. These other gents think it's funny to put the monkey on his shoulders, he tells them to get it off and they comply. The Region is Punta Cana near Haiti, tropical resorts surrounded by poverty stricken peoples, shacks, tropics. The year before and the year after was Jamaica, another resort area, poverty aplenty if off the resort property. In fact most occupants are warned not to leave the resorts in these countries.

They are there a week. By the time the man is on the return flight he has welts on back, arms, legs, come up like a pink pimple- a hive, get liquid head/translucent on them, burst, itch, flatten out into a dry skin patch irregular shapes. He goes to the doctor, they give him salves/ointments to put on it, a steroid pack to be taken to bring down the inflammations, and an antibiotic used for some stranger illnesses. They think he has two different types of rashes, they think the ankle area is shingles, they think the back and arms and legs are something else. Weeks pass it keeps coming back, They draw blood , they biopsy one of the regions on a leg. The results come back as Anthropoid, when asked what that means, they think he's been bitten by a monkey, but he wasn't bitten by the monkey. Was something on the monkey, some bug that had bitten the monkey, did it bite him, too? No treatment known. it clears up eventually, three months it takes. Is it some tropical disease stored in the central nervous system, that it re-occurs this way.

Every 3-6 months since then these last 5 years he will break out in these bumps, these hives again. The treatments and salves vary, but they are only a small comfort fix. Shower water if hot aggravates this, towel drying aggravates this, it is a bizarre skin condition.

Now I knew a peditrician in my sons growing years that advised that with allergies: if a condition is going on outside the body, than a reaction is also playing out inside the body. But is this an allergy?

So it started again in the early fall, and after the trip to Canada seemed to be a little more so, salves holding at bay, and then some projects to do before winter set in, and now it has blossomed full circle, we have done the steroid packs, we have done many tubes of salve, we have had blood work checked and it is apparently ok, biopsies have been done, they call us and want more blood work pertinent to liver functionality, I read up on everything via internet to find where they might be heading, there is a possible tie to Thryoid patients of which his is one, sometimes the thyroid disease can cause liver damage that would create these hives, the best I get out of my readings is that the histines usually produced by the body are not able to be produced, so as you encounter things your body is not able to combat them properly.

We will see what this test says.......and see if the monkey's guilty or not.
We will see where our road takes us.

Outcome: 12/18/08 3PM: No Lymphoma, No Liver Disease, And thank God No Leukemia.
Now we get to go back to simpler measures and concerns over the dreaded outbreaks, but at least we missed some major items.....

It's a drag, but now it's all good, lighter.

A week in the life of Sunshine

Do you know the value of "a day"?
You must know by now that although I hold warmth and love for the world and it's occupants, be them humans, or animals, that some part of me is Sunshine, and some part of me is being cynical and sarcastic when I refer to myself as Sunshine, it is a two mirrored joke at times.

We work a 40 hr week in an insurance agency, it can be very hectic and busy at times. The phone is constantly ringing and interrupting your line of thought to the point of riddiculous, where by the end of the day...you are so fragmented and beatup, that you can barely string a thought together as these interruptions continue.....you look at the clock and see it's 3:15pm...maybe I can make it till 5pm.
Holiday letters to be gotten out, finally printed, and labels run for the envelopes. Massive filing project almost done to maximze space available. So much to do before the holidays.

You've joined a bowling league, so you should be able to make the 30 miles to where it is, off work at 5pm, bowl at 7:15pm......so when does it snow.......tuesdays.......you missed one, and they called an cancelled the last one, it starts to throw your week you've become acclimated to off a bit. A minor nuisance.

Your trying to take your continueing education classes so you can stay licensed. Scheduling, use vacation days, studying self or classroom, or now a days computer classes and testing, all options.

But your also selling Avon which has two sales campaigns a month, the weeks you aren't keying in the orders, you're delivering the product., and the snow plays into that so much that you're meeting your contact in parking lots at 6am in the morning to get it done, or driving 5 towns away on your lunch hour to get the product to her via the diner around the snowfalls. Late deliveries to you can cause havoc here, the delivery needs to be gotten to the women before they spend their weekly paycheck.....so you can only count on thursdays and fridays, other wise their money will be spent till the next weeks pay. Mind you these women using these products work very hard all week...for very little money, some support whole households on their earnings, so I imagine they must need to know that 20-50 out this check is theirs. Some of them are married to wife beaters, to men who will gamble their own checks away before they come on fridays, drunk and in a angry mood. Even on a rent week many of these households will gamble their paychecks away, and not be able to meet their rent.

And when the order comes in your house is thrown into havoc as you unload and coordinate three to four boxes of little eyeliners, lipsticks, paperwork, receipts, brochures, bags, labels for the books, samples to inspire more, and then finally you can tell if the order is short or they shipped something to you in error.......into the bags, staple & "I WANT IT OUT OF MY HOUSE......NOW".

She set me up in this little side business so I'd have a part time job....mostly safer at home, not having to be out late working at UPS which was one of the options out in the burbs, she wants me home safe, warm, some computer work involved, some physical....deliveries have to come to my work to be signed for, and then getting them down the two flights of stairs can be tricky...this last time time they showed 1 box, last time was 4 boxes, so I couldn't believe how much trouble I had getting the box down to the truck, well I get home and in the door still struggling and swearing some, and come to find out it's a one box sleeve with three boxes within it....then it all makes sense, I thought I was having a low energy day, I told her I was turning into a wuss.

Now we need to fit shopping in, groceries are needed. Sometimes prescriptions are needed, these are our usual weekday errands.

In my present state of mind....whatever is left of it....I cannot understand how people could buy so much, so constantly....I am having to be very cautious just to come up with grocery money consistently....I am back 33 years ago to newlywed style budgets. And I laugh at the complete circle once more.

One here has a holiday party to attend needs a brownie tray, will obtain tonight so they're fresh.
And on and on..........in a week we go, the weeks drift by, you're surprised at where the calendar has moved to....where did it go? Deadlines and committements throughout each month, dreading that you'll actually forget one of them....and sleep, sleep is needed.

Continuing Education, defeating some purposes

Real Estate, and continuing education requirements:
If you were licensed in the State of Illinois prior to 1975....you do not have to take continuing education every two years to renew your license, if you were licensed after 1975 you have to take 12 hours of continuing education and pass the tests to maintain your license, 6 hours of mandatory courses, and 6 hours of electives.
When they first came up with this requirement which approximately 1986, I thought it defeated it's own purposes due to the grandfathered clause, and as these 23 years have passed I have only found it more let's say: silly, that I have been schooled so many times and the people licensed prior to 1975 have never had to take any further classes. It does not fit in with my logic.
So I go like a drone....do my thing...and shake my head over bureuocratic tape........
I must have one class completed by 12/31/08 or I will turn into a pumpkin. The other three classes must be done prior to 3/31/09.

Families and Communication Skills, or not

Do you know the value of "a day"? Christmas Day approaches, Thanskgiving is 3 weeks past.

Suffice it to say Thanksgiving was looked forward to, but the older woman wouldn't let her younger woman speak, she cut her off mid prayer...as the younger woman tried to communicate how much she values her family..............and that's when I lost my temper, and spewed a few words at the older woman who was behaving childishly...too funny...like and like...because by the next morning.....I felt bad that I hadn't recognized her second childhood...I really should have but in truth she pissed me off so badly I couldn't see straight.

Most of us could have been healed by the younger prayer from our summer communication skills, but I saw the evil glint in the older woman's eyes, and then she started praying but in a mocking fashion, so childishly mocking that I thought God would the house down around our ears then and there. Gods, Thanksgiving.

Oh communication skills, and what they can mean to a family. We went so atsray in many relationships, there's only fragment of damage left at times, many stay away, they can't do it anymore. Or they limit who they speak to. How sad you would be at all of this.

Why is it so hard for some families to communicate with eachother, simple explanations, discussions with eachother that would alleviate many problems that the opposite extreme of not talking to or with one another can cause. Not talking can set up all types of interpretations.....in relationships. And then some choose to do this for years. Then we incur all sorts of fall out.

Everythings private, hush, hush. Secret , Secret. Bullshit, little is secret within a family.
So we go off to our private corners.....each knowing 1/2 but not the whole., to let it fester and ooze like an infected thorn in your foot.

Really makes one look forward to Christmas, and the gathering. Duct Tape might be required, and I laugh but I'd like the tape with for the event, my mouth or yours.

And yet it is still the love that gathers and inspires us to come, and hope that people within a family will realize they are family and not the neighbors some proposed to have their relationship transformed into.

Oh my adopted brother, I certainly do miss you, how did you handle them all for so many years, and never show the stress? I will behave for Christmas, you mostly will be there amongst the memories, and the shadows of other years, other times. We will still cry for you, as it has not slowed much.

Brothers followed by the baby of the family.....

Do you know the value of "a day"?

Christmas month. In days of future past...the mind wanders/wonders yet again.

Little girl surrounded by two brothers....wears a cloth diaper and no top, standing in front of the Christmas tree with her brothers, Ma & Dad snap a picture with the brownie black and white camera, laughing, the girl wears her brothers old cowboy guns over her diaper. It is a good pic, it will get sm