An old paths ending

"When was the last time, you ever saw the sunrise?" And therein lies the real bottom lined question still.  It all counts, each day.

So going back to finding an old friend, who had at one point been part of the family, and in large part a humorous part of some family gatherings, he dubbed us: Donkey Quixote, Hot Dog, and Irene Dumpling, and it stuck, at least amongst ourselves.  His own mother he had dubbed as Eleanor Rigby.

Years back in Chicago I ran into an old class mate who indicated my old chum was in deep troubles, I've kept an ear out ever since, and did luck out about a year or two ago through facebook finding through his sister that he was alright, recently she approached me and told me he was now with a computer and facebook account, and to write him, and so I did.

Somewhere on his path years back he got into a band, the band led to drugs, the drugs led to Chaos mental and whom he was surrounding himself with, for him it had to do with his Dad dying, and possibly not in the best of terms, and it just kept on derailing from there, eventually as he came back from it he joined the union and worked at McCormick Place oddly enough doing their carpentry.

2012 finds him clean for 12 years,  loving his caretaker job, having found some semblance of religion without the overkill, deer come up to his cabin and wait for him to feed them, the manager of the religious campgrounds lives within a block, people during this homeless rash drop their pets off to fend for themselves in the forest, he and his boss have adopted some of them, he has two black cats from what he describes during a phone call that he just loves, life is much better due to the animals.

He has sadly to say finished doing a hospice for Dear old Eleanor Rigby, she didn't die alone, she had her son with her, she stayed with him the last year or so, so somehow for my long lost friend, it is okay, he leads a simple life now, he is possibly a little damaged from all he tinkered with, but he still has a very good Aquarian Heart. 

I am happy he arrived to a place of peace, in my younger days he was my third brother.  And so an old path ends well.

What happened in the missing hours, Mrs. Carlsen?

"When was the last time, you ever saw the sunrise?" Emotions conflict:

This morning I can hear my robin singing it's wake up call, it's February 17th, my robin's back in Illinois way too early for him/her to be happy long, another cold snap will come, harsh on someone looking for earthworms, I go to the front window and hear the funny clicking noise you'll hear from a tree or bush in warmer seasons, I love it and laugh as it's a cardinal hopping from branch to branch, it's just starting to get some light to the sky, I love nature and what it brings to my life even in february, you have to stay tuned to soak it in.

The headline saddens me, on February 13th a woman in the next town had her bags packed, Limo ordered to pick her up the next morning for a trip to Florida to meet up with her husband, by my birthday the 15th they had figured out through the limo driver, friends and family, that she never kept that appointment for the airport and trip, she and her car were missing.
By the 15th afternoon they found her car in an un-incorporated road in Wauconda, I worried for her and her safety, wondering what had gone wrong, did she meet someone, did she get snagged along the way, not the best area to be alone, and so the mind wanders.
She was found yesterday on a patch of land not terribly far from the car within a few blocks, she had an empty water bottle near her, and two bottles of emptied pills.  The Lake County Coroner office is now in possession of Marie.
Heart for the family,  all the questions, all the surprise, she had packed her grandsons Valentine's Day card, all the intentions of making the trip were there.  What happened to you after the luggage was packed?  What shaped or unglued in the missing hours?  Will anybody really ever know?  When I saw your picture earlier in the week you reminded me of someone, my thoughts wander to all the women on friday nites of old, out for dinner with friends, and some lighthearted dancing to the live music of the 60, 70 & 80's all of us enjoying that at the very least we were still alive, we'd make our own fun for a few hours and that served to carry us through the week.

And as your story unfolded, I prayed you'd be found okay, you could be any women.  You could one of us.
Your story has touch our hearts, and we are saddened that this became your path, that your family is left with this.
All of those years to get to this.

Loves Definitions

Familial Love, a long journey with a group of people: Parents, Siblings, their Spouses, their children, their children's children, so many adventures, good times, bad times, love and laughter, many years passed together, and then all hitting the finish line at different ages and stages.
First Loves, romantic, huge and usually thrown away by one of the originators.
Love of your life, you've fallen in love with each other, you're not sure where you're going but you want to go there together, many learning curves here: coming to really know each other, co-existing in the same rooms, feeding each other through foods, spirituality, sharing the mind and matters of the heart as they occur, sharing humor, co-existing with each others families, bringing a child into the world together and trying to rear that child, trying to maintain some common interests in real life so your road won't fork off, once people hit that fork and they've wander far enough, it's hard to know if the path crosses over again up ahead, too many are not that lucky and can't seem to find their way back, every once in awhile someone has the good fortune to land back on the path side by side,  and here is where some luck of character comes in, sometimes they fall in love with one another again, they find out that this entire journey was shared by the same two souls that started out years back. Time has taught you whom to value highly, and who to back burner.
It is this wonderful word love that makes the journey of life so warm.

St Valentine's Day in Chicago on Clark Street

Always an interesting piece of Chicago's History or another February time landmark was this little diddly:

During the Prohibition era, gangsters ruled many of the large cities, becoming rich from owning speakeasies, breweries, brothels, and gambling joints. These gangsters would carve up a city between rival gangs, bribe local officials, and become local celebrities. By the late 1920s, Chicago was split between two rival gangs: one led by Al Capone and the other by George "Bugs" Moran. Capone and Moran vied for power, prestige, and money; plus, both tried for years to kill each other.

In early 1929, Al Capone was living in Miami with his family (to escape Chicago's brutal winter) when his associate Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn visited him. McGurn, who had recently survived an assassination attempt ordered by Moran, wanted to discuss the ongoing problem of Moran's gang. In an attempt to eliminate the Moran gang entirely, Capone agreed to fund an assassination attempt and McGurn was placed in charge of organizing it.

The Plan
McGurn planned carefully. He located the Moran gang's headquarters, which was in a large garage behind the offices of S.M.C. Cartage Company at 2122 North Clark Street. He selected gunmen from outside the Chicago area, to ensure that if there were any survivors, they would not be able to recognize the killers as part of Capone's gang. McGurn hired lookouts and set them up in an apartment near the garage. Also essential to the plan, McGurn acquired a stolen police car and two police uniforms.

Setting Up Moran
With the plan organized and the killers hired, it was time to set the trap. McGurn instructed a local booze hijacker to contact Moran on February 13. The hijacker was to tell Moran that he had obtained a shipment of Old Log Cabin whiskey (i.e. very good liquor) which he was willing to sell at the very reasonable price of $57 per case. Moran quickly agreed and told the hijacker to meet him at the garage at 10:30 the following morning.

The Ruse Worked
On the morning of February 14, 1929, the lookouts (Harry and Phil Keywell) were watching carefully as the Moran gang assembled at the garage. Around 10:30, the lookouts recognized a man heading to the garage as "Bugs" Moran. The lookouts told the gunmen; the gunmen climbed into the stolen police car.
When the stolen police car reached the garage, the four gunmen (Fred "Killer" Burke, John Scalise, Albert Anselmi, and Joseph Lolordo) jumped out. (Some reports say there were five gunmen.)

Two of the gunmen were dressed in police uniforms. When the gunmen rushed into the garage, the seven men inside saw the uniforms and thought it was a routine police raid. Continuing to believe the gunmen to be police officers, all seven men peacefully did as they were told. They lined up, faced the wall, and allowed the gunmen to remove their weapons.

Opened Fire With Machine Guns
The gunmen then opened fire, using two Tommy guns, a sawed-off shotgun, and a .45. The killing was fast and bloody. Each of the seven victims received at least 15 bullets, mostly in the head and torso.
The gunmen then left the garage. As they exited, neighbors who had heard the rat-tat-tat of the submachine gun, looked out their windows and saw two (or three, depending on reports) policemen walking behind two men dressed in civilian clothes with their hands up.

The neighbors assumed that the police had staged a raid and were arresting two men. After the massacre was discovered, many continued to believe for several weeks that the police were responsible.
Moran Escaped Harm
Six of the victims died in the garage; Frank Gusenberg was taken to a hospital but died three hours later, refusing to name who was responsible.
Though the plan had been carefully crafted, one major problem occurred. The man that the lookouts had identified as Moran was really Albert Weinshank. "Bugs" Moran, the main target for the assassination, was arriving a couple minutes late to the 10:30 a.m. meeting when he noticed a police car outside the garage. Thinking it was a police raid, Moran stayed away from the building, unknowingly saving his life.
The Blonde Alibi
The massacre that took seven lives that St. Valentine's Day in 1929 made newspaper headlines across the country. The country was shocked at the brutality of the killings. Police tried desperately to determine who was responsible.
Al Capone had an air-tight alibi because he had been called in for questioning by the Dade County solicitor in Miami during the time of the massacre. "Machine Gun" McGurn had what became called a "blonde alibi" -- he had been at a hotel with his blonde girlfriend from 9 p.m. on February 13 through 3 p.m. on February 14. Fred Burke was arrested by police in March 1931 but was charged with the December 1929 murder of a police officer and sentenced to life in prison for that crime.
This was one of the first major crimes that the science of ballistics was used; however no one was ever tried or convicted for the murders of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Though the police never had enough evidence to convict Al Capone, the public knew he was responsible. In addition to making Capone a national celebrity, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre brought Capone to the attention of the federal government.

The Whoopla on Whitney

Do not get me wrong here, I recognize a good voice when I hear it, and I have a strong love for music, and Whitney Houston who did die this week had a great set of vocal chords, so I understood the first day of headlines, of face book comments, of Whoopla over an early exit, But not a 2nd day, or a 3RD day of it, this is not a public wake, she contributed to her lifestyle and wherever it took her on that road.

There is so much more that the news media could concentrate on, there are other stories, events, happenings that go unreported due to a Whitney who somehow couldn't value what had been placed in front of her.

And so somethings I do not get, I will never get.

Dicky 2-13

I had a favorite cousin who played us Buddy Holly,
he and Sis taught us how to dance to rock n roll,

I had a favorite cousin he taught me how to barb
with words as he walked away from his mother Marge,

I had a favorite cousin, who'd show up unexpectedly at our house
he'd call my mother "Irish" and loved us with his heart

I had a favorite cousin, he'd make me laugh to tears,
his rhetoric continued for oh so many years.

Our birthdays but a day apart, he'd called me year after year,
yes they were drunk and 3am, but still made my eyes tear.

I had a favorite cousin whose prostate gained him pain,
he called to say a sweet goodbye & told me to behave.

I had a favorite cousin, and still remember his day,
I don't think that would ever stop just because he went away.

End Game

In conclusion, it was really all about character, scruples, values, the simple things, the love in our lives that is so simple in real time and yet so complicated by human expectations.

I end my game exactly in heart as I started it, my head is still clear enough for that.

If others wanted to change,  over think it, so be it, I only want more time, more days, and another chance to watch the sunrise.

And that is good enough for this girl.

Sunshine

The Grand Prize of Being A Mother

I have enjoyed you so thoroughly for all these years. But believe or not I was in the room when you were born, it is one of the reasons my stomach looks like a football, and I heard your first cry, and I kissed your brow the first time,and I heard your cry as they circumcised you, I watched your Father feed you your first bottle.

After that I drove you to the doctor hundreds of time, and took you for braces, and washed tree bark out of your eyes, and dirt too, and I am the one you cracked up when you yelled at me the first sidewalk fall telling me to go get your skin and "put right back" on your knee.

I've watched you grow and learn, and strive, and become educated, your heart aches were mine, your successes were yours.  I've tried hard to have your back on most everything and anything, and think you've turned out to be a kind hearted human.

So when you get angry at me about something stupid, I already know your deflecting that I am angry with you about a bigger thing,  And when you still get pissed at me when you're sick, I still find humor in your thinking I can possibly make it better for you. And when you look off to your left when speaking to me directly I still know you've resorted to a lie.  Or when you bat your eyes several times while speaking that you're still trying to con me somehow.
 And when you come in Blitzed at 4:40 in the morning and give me a lecture about how you're going to make grand changes in your schedule while your standing in your boxer shorts, well excuse me for laughing,  and yes I'm happy you took the cab, too.

So yes, I've enjoyed it all, but honey it's time to get some more done and in place.

Finding soul, finding heart

"When was the last time, you ever saw the sunrise?" Not enough, I seemed to have missed them lately, poor timing, or not tuned in, or all.

Days bring details at work, work seems to be consuming, chipping away at the edge you sometimes possess. The edge I refer to is a rather three D perspective of being able to see it all, and therefore any pieces lacking, therefore being able to anticipate what's needed before someone else would even know it was missing.
The edge I speak of to me really is a 3D view in real time used in days of old when out with the girlfriends for dinner I was 3D'ed, and could hear it all, read the room, our table, multiple conversations, and all the while I was soulfully floating listening to the piano player and tunes from the prior 3-4 decades float into the atmosphere bringing tons of memories out of the closet as he played his music.

I came to the conclusion that I liked piano bars, and restaurants with piano bars in them, it was good for the soul, a healing effect, a lovely component to feed the soul. Was I even at the table with them, mmmm, not as much as they thought, I was abstracted so many places transformed by the music you couldn't have caught all my fragments with a butterfly net, and the above is the best description I can come up with to define a soul, which is governed by head and heart. Music feeds the soul, always.

Now they'd pull me back down into the table eventually, some problem in a life there, asking opinions for a solution, I was brutally clear cut grasping a bottom line they didn't expect out of someone so quiet, some mix of myself and learned spousal behavior thrown onto the table for them grasp, eventually they came to count on me for these answers. Part of this was from the 3D moments, and part of it came from having an "Edge", not all people have, just as so many don't even have common sense, but I do believe the "Edge" derived itself from instinct, my instincts were developed strongly from growing up in Chicago, school, work, the streets, buses, beaches packed in summer, being chased multiple times by someone or something, morons in cars trying to coax a child, a rabid dog encountered, and cruel children, how the hell could you grow up in there and not come out it with great instincts? I always figured only New Yorkers could top it.

Somewhere during all these dinners of 10 years, almost every Friday evening we gathered, same group on occasion mixed with a straggler acquaintance someone dragged into the mix, music, people problems, humorous evenings somewhere in there I found a middle aged women who had much soul left, who had a side softened by music, but she emerged much harder than anyone in her family would suspect....
well maybe her mother saw the change, this harder self, maybe she'd morphed at some point in life too, so it served it's purpose well, it brought to the front someone with so many components she'd forgotten through the years had even existed, and in doing so made her stronger for all the next chapters that would play out, some bringing heavy duty days she couldn't have faced well the old way.

Sometimes you need to take the time, and realign yourself, listen to music, go to an art museum, read something heartwarming, feed the soul, and your heart will re-emerge, you might even get your edge back. We need to do more of that. Time out and take a step back....and see, really see.

The box within the maze

There is a box in the maze, the box holds opinions, emotions, solutions or possible options for them.
She's always drawn the maze as her doodle, and yet the box was always at the core the maze, wasn't it?
I think she could have gotten out of the maze, the problem had always been getting out of the box, once freed from the box finding her way out of the maze would have been easy street, no the box was the damn problem.
The box has so much going on within it that it constantly sidetracked her from progressing, all those opinions most of which have been held silently inside tucked into the corners of the box, the emotions triggered by days as they shaped or by others who frequented the box, constant attentions and little details to be worked, left her with solutions to 7 things when she started with 1, now do this daily and you'll soon understand why it's so hard to get freed of the box.
Time becomes an important ingredient, time can give so much. Discipline, is sorely lacking inside the box, chaos should be gotten under reign, discipline's invoked, self discipline which have corrupted.
So we head back into the box to re-assess, notice it has the word ass in it....must have been intentional.

The diversity of facebook, pros/cons

The odd thing is one person will post humorous posts, someone musical favorites, someone else 28 weeks pregnant and a pic, someone else posts pictures of children malformed over and over again like that's all they can be drawn to, someone is on a dog campaign in Romania trying to get dogs freed to other countries and on occasion they post pictures of starved dogs, run over dogs, you can click on an item to remove it from you site.
Then there are the gamers who only go online to play their favorite games such as farmville, or mafia wars, others will post what they're doing in their day, or special landmarks of their family. Other post seeking prayers from all their friends for ill family members, some of them have an awful lot of sickness in their family, young teachers posting that the schools morning for one of the students who was in the townhouse where some crazy 1/2 relative shot them all and set the place on fire before he went home to off himself.
A wide range of emotions are released on facebook, sometimes it tugs my heart, and others I just don't understand, nephews through marriage posting lewd crap will either get unfriended or reproached whether they like the scolding or not.
It's a community of acquaintances, family, friends, co-workers, all piles into one streamlined posting after posting, depending upon who you let into your facebook page.

Sometimes music captures the heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrIiLvg58SY

Conversations never had .........................................proes 2012

There was a time and place as all of us played out,
the right turns and the left merge slowly brought about,
a thing that I have labeled conversations never had,
it is the place minds wander when they seek to re-convey
all the words we've never spoken on important matters in our day.

Too often life will lead us to shrug off, or walk away,
leave words hanging on the atmosphere, these things we never say.
No matter that we think them, the words could fill our souls,
but when left unsaid some part remains dead,
hidden in conversations we never had.

So live your life the truest, say what's on your mind,
there will be no backpedaling, recaptures live in film,
you only pass this way but once, today is what you have.

Depression through News

So many people, so little time
varied opinions, projected through polls.
Progress unhinged by these gravitating souls,
meaning no harm, but not stopping to think,
the boats turned around now, and ready to sink.

One percent protected for hundreds of years,
the balance of Americans sink under their tears,
In separating from England and all it's oppressions,
the laws that were placed here pontificated depressions.

The voter's no patience,short memories,traded sides
No hope up ahead, American Dreams Died.
Somewhere up ahead Mad Max really looms,
The varied opinions and Reptilians brought our doom.

A Beautiful Song by Mary Travers:

"When was the last time, you ever saw the sunrise?"



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTEdhMwXiM4&feature=related

What's in a month, I love February

First memories are triggered with the entrance of February, remembering Dad rolling in the door with flowers or Fannie Mae's for Ma, and little heart shaped boxes for us, stories of a ground hog that could predict how long we'd be waiting for spring to come so we could start playing in our dirt yard, My own birthday and presents from my Auntie Mame, my little precious dolls, and buggy that would used to house my worms excavated from the damp earth, how I loved them, nothing was as good as a day of earthworm mining. Little children exchanging valentine's cards even including the kids that had cootie's, and the school mortification of bringing a birthday treat for the class whereby way to many bullies tried to give birthday spankings, one year resulting in doctors office visit to remove pebbles from my hand and abrasions from sliding out onto Bryn Mawr as I ran from them.
Picking a wedding date and all it brought life, our son being born, and all these years of growing and loving, each stage was enjoyed.
Drive's home bring me sunsets, and amethyst skies, closer to spring now, and all that new life, for me February is a beautiful word.