Saturday, December 31, 2011

.......Hell and Damn.........Last Day & Blog of 2011 and Nuthin' To Say

Horrors!  I guess I will have to finish off the year with something old and familiar because I cannot summon the Muse.......lots of stuff going on, some good, some bad, but I can't organize my thoughts at all right now, so bear with me, folks.

I am still shlepping along  (and that's a good thing) so the odds are fair that you will get some decent blogs out of me in the new year. just no goodies to wind up the old one.

I must say I am grateful for having made it through another one and am looking forward to doing it again and wishing you all the same.

Meanwhile, in tribute to my old friend, Dorothy, who taught me most of the dirty words I know, let me just say,
                                             
                                                          "Shit, Piss, Fuck"

                 to all of the Bad Guys and the Bad Things That Happen.




  May the new year give none of us any cause to utter that beloved phrase in anything but triumph.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Merry Mishugina Holiday Madness

What's that you say?  Holidays?  Christmas?  Hanukah? Faugh.

All I know is, it seems to be the end of  December and I will be damned if I know what happened to most of 2011, and I am invited to a Neighborhood Brunch tomorrow and I just made a batch of my trusty Brownies and, for some mysterious reason,  they failed miserably......didn't rise a smidgeon....only fit for the garbage.......OMG, OMG...... ..so I am falling back on a batch of Hummous and am hoping it will be edible....gasp.  Now I only have to toast up some of my  seasoned Pitas chips and I will be ready, almost.  I hope I will be able to force myself into garments of some acceptable type so I can attend......thank heaven it is being held in the daytime before my bedtime at 5 pm, and am muttering words of gratitude because it is only across the street so I can walk and do not have to endanger the Western World (and my own precious bod) with my driving..............if you think I sound a bit hysterical, well.....you would be right.........anything which involves my being surrounded by more than 3 people and further involves my donning clothing and leaving my front door causes an instant attack of hysteria these days.  Any one of those things is quite enough to cause an attack.   Sigh.  Being a hermit does have a few disadvantages......

Before I become comatose with anxiety, I just want to wish all of you darlings a happy holiday season and reiterate my favorite words of caution:

                                              DON'T FALL DOWN!"

And I will try to do the same.

Bless you all

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Hmmmmm.......I am Perplexed


 I received the following email recently and am not sure how you, my beloved and perceptive readers, will respond to it if I accept the offer.
Are any of you interested in Scrapbooking and its related software?
                                 **********************************
 Hi!

My name is Liz and I work for a company called My Memories. We have an award winning digital scrapbook software that is extremely easy and fun to use. My Memories Suite is rated #1 by Amazon and TopTen Reviews. Using this software, anyone can create digital scrapbooks, photobooks, cards, calendars and gifts without having to buy expensive and complicated software programs.
I just ran into your blog and absolutely love it!  I was wondering if you would like to host a My Memories Suite giveaway on your blog? We would love to give you 2 copies of our software ($80 value) for free! One copy is for your personal use and to review. The other is to give away on your site. Additionally, we will give you a personal $10 off promo code to share with followers and friends. Every time this code is used for our software, we will deposit $20 in your PayPal account! It is really that simple! Everyone could use an extra $100-$500 per month, right?
 
Please visit our site www.mymemories.com and let me know if you are interested. I’d love to chat more about it with you.
                                                  **********************************************************
I guess I should not  be so jaded as to look a gift horse n the mouth, but I also would not want you to consider me disgustingly vulgar and sordidly commercial if I offer a free gift and put an Ad on my pristine and virginal blog.



All opinions will be welcomed with open arms.......that is an odd phrase, isn't it?




By the way, I seem to be recovering from my collapse and near demise after the yard sale.  However, before you give vent to too many "huzzahs" I must warm you that I just bid farewell to the Termite Inspector and may go into a decline at any moment............

Saturday, December 17, 2011

I Have Seen Hell and It's.........aYard Sale

Oy Vey.  Let me repeat that for emphasis........Oy vey, oy vey, Groan. Gasp, Screech, Sob.  These words are issuing forth to you from the tattered fragments of a creature who once , quite recently, was  some kind of functioning human being.  No more.  I fear I will never be the same since enduring and surviving my first and definitely last waking nightmare innocently referred to as a "Yard Sale".

Holy Moly, OMG and, to quote my father a non-Jewish Jew, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph".  The Human race is truly insane.  The idea that people willingly subject themselves to such horror......some even more than once........is totally beyond my comprehension.  And, not only are the presenters of these events totally bonkers, but,  from my observations, so are the attendees.


To properly explain my position I have to go back a few weeks and describe the tortures I, the proposed Seller, have endured.  First, I was led through my house by a hired  "Organizer" whose purpose was to help me select and part with things........something I have never been able to do.  I started collecting my treasures when I was young and was constantly putting things like interesting pebbles in my pockets.   I later graduated to saving my pennies to buy things.....one of the first of which was the most gorgeously realistic toy revolver/cap shooter for which I surrendered my entire savings of 25 cents.  I would still have it to this day were it not for the fact that my Mother was getting worried  about my fondness for deadly weapons and was not particularly thrilled by my ambition to grow up to be a  Cowboy  (or an Indian or possibly a common criminal) and she somehow surreptitiously disposed of my gun and collapsing knife  collection when I turned my addiction to Photos of the Big Bands and Frank Sinatra.  But I digress......

I was able to collect a lot of great art during my years as a starving artist since all of us were poor as churchmice and the only presents we could give each other were pieces of our own creativity.  And, during my 20 years of traveling the world I managed to bring home mementos of my trips......sometimes a thing as simple as a particularly lovely stone from the beach below Taormina, Sicily, and other times a gorgeous majolica platter from Ravello, Italy or salad servers carved from an ox horn in Bali.  Then there were the mementos inherited from my family which alone could fill the Superdome.......and every crumb was precious to me, so imagine my horror when Ms. Organizer began  to seize items from my shelves, stuff them into  boxes and say heartless things like,  "You don't need this."   The anguish was intense or worse.

However, after a while I began to tune into the charm of reducing the clutter so that one could actually SEE the things that remained on my shelves. I managed to join in the gathering process, even though I suspected I might sneak back during the night and rescue a few of the items I still coveted.  After all, they were still in boxes stacked in every room in the house plus the front porch covered in a tarpaulin,,,,,not the pleasantest way to live....but it would just be till Saturday.......right?

Except that, after crawling thru channels between stacks of boxes for days, the weekend arrived with rain forecast so the whole thing had to  be postponed for  week, whereupon there were another 7 days of crawling and another rainy weekend.  And the following week was Thanksgiving, so that weekend (which was sunny) was out.

Each nite during these three weeks was spent not in restful sleep, but in anxiety and worry, plotting how to construct display tables out of the scrap drywall and lumber in my garage, how I was physically going to drag boxes and lumber around when I was incapable of picking up a 20 lb bag of birdseed anymore and, worse, yet, how was I going to price these precious artifacts so people would not have to sell a child or 2 to afford them.  The nites may have  been the worst.

And then came a weekend which was dubious weatherwise, but not actually forecast to rain on Saturday at any rate.  So I called all of the people who had earnestly promised they would gladly help me when the big day finally came and found that, amazingly, things had come up and none of them could help me, gosh darn it and so sorry.  So I had to hire Ms. Organizer for the day and she couldn't get there in time to set up the tables, but she would help unpack the boxes and display the mdse.  Well, to trim a few pages from this endless epic, let me just say that by the time the first customers arrived we were still in the process and my back and assorted joints were threatening mutiny if I didn't lie down at once.  To which I laughed and kept unpacking wildly, managing to display my gorgeous precious objects in such a way as to make them look like the most quintessential JUNK.  Seeing them cast down there thusly, even I didn't want them.

And then there was the horror of the customers............one arrived with a Jewelers' loupe and proceeded to examine the bottoms of everything looking for valuable hallmarks I guess, looking for the Romanoff jewels,  while wearing an expression of total disdain.  He picked up a lovely carved stone box from Alaska and sneered, "how much?"  "Three dollars",  I quavered, whereupon he cast it back down and stomped off
to his car.  Meanwhile a strange waif with hair painted /dyed 3 colors was slouching up the drive peering through puffy half-closed eyes.  I did not want to speculate on what her night had been spent doing.  This one idly picked up 2 or 3 things, replaced them on different tables and slouched off.  At this point I could hardly care, having collapsed into a handy garden chair, carefully guarding my bag of ones, fives and tens, withdrawn from the bank under the impression that someone might offer me more than a quarter for something.  And so it went.  Finally a few people bought something for a dollar or even two  Wow.  I could hardly  cram it into my pocket fast enough in case they changed their mind.

But amazingly enough, something that I had put on display for decoration but never expected to attract any interest were a bunch of my late partner's colorful abstract paintings which I had bought from her son fearing he would simply trash them.   Quite a few of our few attendees were very interested and asked for prices.  Cosmic joke.  Before her death I had bought my favorite from her for  $600.   For once I decided to be smart about this.  Most of the canvases were large, about 40 by 60, some were medium, 40 x45, and a few were smaller.  A  few were modestly framed, the rest just on stretchers.  They would enhance any wall they got near...............I decided I wanted them on someone's walls if I had to give them away so I quoted between $15 and $30 and, wonder of wonders, one lovely lady who was an artist herself bought 3 as gifts for her family members.  Another young couple wistfully singled out 2 or 3 and said they would come back.  Damn......I wish I had given them the paintings right then, but I goofed.  Ah, well, at least 3 of Peggy's lovelies will brighten some rooms somewhere.  (I have hung as many here as I have walls for).

About 3 pm I had had it and so we staggered around and repacked everything into the boxes and returned them to the front porch from which they will go to some charity.  I paid Ms. Organizer for her help and ended up only about $50 in the red.........a cheap lesson at twice the price.  I spent the rest of the day and the subsequent week lying in my reclining chair panting quietly, wiping beads of perspiration from my forehead and being grateful that I was able to escape from hell after only 1 day.......the others on my block did it all again on Sunday!

As I said at the beginning......people are undoubtedly insane..............but not me.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Pollyanna Checks Back In

Amazing things do happen, I guess.

1.  I  do believe I am feeling somewhat better. 

2.  I  find myself disagreeing with my blog-idol, Ms. Moon,  who wrote quite a rant recently against being grateful..........sorry, Mary, old thing, but I cannot help it.   I am so grateful.

I am so damned tired tonite that I cannot blog another note.  I made the mistake of gathering up all the fallen limes from my prodigious tree and decided to turn them into marmalade, forgetting what an energy intensive job it is and how endlessly and disgustingly sticky.  I had thought I cleaned up all the various drips and dribbles, but just now I put my forearm onto the desk and had to spend 5 minutes prying it off so I can see I missed at  least one place if not more.   The only possible thing now is a shower and bed.

Sorry to have to short change you, but at least the sun is peeking out.   With luck, there is always tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A Crabby Word From the Ungrateful Undead

No, no.....not those silly Vampirish undead..........just those of us who seem to be given the gift of living without any obvious reason.  Sorry, my darlings, but you are  being subjected to the Worst of Lo......it was bound to happen someday...........this is the revolting other side of the Pollyanna girl and I am sure  in a few seconds you will  be praying for me to start sparkling with ", Glad, glad, glad and being grateful for receiving crutches from the Missionary Barrel ......grateful because she didn't need them.  Bah, humbug.   Fuck, piss, shit.....I DO need them goddammmit.

Well, not really.....first, I already have my own pair, plus 17 canes, the Walker, the manual (or  better I should say foot-operated wheelchair, since that is mostly how I used to scoot around in it when I had the  broken hip) and the electric razzle dazzle wheel chair for ramps and for street races with my neighbor Marge on her scooter.  And I haven't used any of them, except for the cane, for over a year.  Truth is, I am grateful for that.  I am not quite sure what is wrong with me right now.......I cannot imagine how even the most skilled vascular surgeon in captivity could have managed to remove my joie d' vivre while removing plaque from my left carotid artery.......but that seems to be what has happened and I am not only desolate but ashamed.

And considerably pissed off.

Actually, since I just spilled a cup of cappuchino all over my computer keyboard, mouse and 1000 notes here and there, you might say I am more than pissed....maybe apoplectic. And stricken dumb.

This is a perfect time to say....more later. sob.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

No Funny Business on Thanksgiving

I rarely approach the blogspot without thinking of the potentially funny bits I can toss into the pot, but today.....not so.  (Except that, to show the extreme depths of my boundless gratitude, I just overheard myself muttering to my innards, "Thank you, guts, for starting to work normally again."

I have so many things for which I am grateful that there is no way to enumerate them......... but I must tell you beloved readers how much your loyalty and good thoughts mean to me  (and of course, your wit and brilliance).    Even though we may never meet face to face, I feel a special connection to each one of you that is more important than actual contact and I believe that we communicate more deeply and meaningfully than many friends outside the blogosphere.

To all of you blessed darlings, "Thank You!........I love you."

And may it please you to hear......more later.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Graaack, Urkkkkklll, Blurgggghh........Mphmp......

Well, what's that you say?  Well, it looks like English to me!    What's that  ??????....italics?........hmmmm........I fear it may have to be italics..........I have forgotten the combination, not that I ever really knew it......sometimes if I pound on the Ctrl key hard enough it fixes things, but obviously, not today.......


And, furthermore,  if there's anything I hate it's when you are just drifting off into a nice blissful sleep and some rude masked man asks you if you can heave yourself off the gurney and get your bountiful bod onto the operating table.....hell there are at least 4 or 5 masked people standing around uselessly doing nothing......why can't they each grab an arm or a leg and heave me over themselves?.......


Anyway, that is the last I remember of  my former life.........there were absolutely NO great colorful dreams or adventures....in fact,  the world I was in was a strange grey brown color, I felt like I was lying on some odd, sharp  rubble like pulverized lava and people's faces were seen from time to time thru a haze of  gray-brown mist.......and the faces kept asking me how I was doing and I would snap I am just fine thank you, and go right back to sleep.


Apparently this continued for some time till I finally opened my eyes and asked, "What time is it?", and was told it was 5:30 which seemed about right to me since my surgery had been about 10 or 11 am........then I looked out the window and saw the sun rising in the east and asked, "What the hell day is it?" and when I found out it was Thursday not Wednesday anymore, that was when the wheels came off and the cart has not been running quite right since.  

I don't know why the idea of sleeping for 20 or so hours discombobulated me so much....or perhaps it was the idea of having lost a day unexpectedly.........it might have even been when I asked to go to the potty and the nurse said, "this is ICU......there is no potty"  that I lost my firm grip on reality. When she offered me the use of a bedpan and, I, for my own reasons, insisted on a commode or a real toilet things went downhill rapidly.  She assured me that a real room with a real toilet was in process of being prepared for me somewhere but now she had to go on her break........fortunately, still being in my post anesthesia stupor I could not protest too loudly and decided to just go back to sleep.


I have many more funny (?) stories of this hospital stay, but I will save them for another day when a few more of my faculties may have returned.  All I can say is that this visit was no fun at all, nor is this strange woozy convalescence I am experiencing...........I can only conclude that my brain, having accustomed itself to doing just fine on only 10% of blood flow, just doesn't know what the hell to do with this extra nourishment and has decided to just sleep it off till my body figures out  how to make things become normal again.  I have been assured by my doctors that this is the best idea I have had in three days.


Migawd, I have now been upright and awake for over 15 minutes..........I must immediately prostrate myself and drift off for a while.  Nice visiting with you.  Do come again when you or I or both of us can spend more time...............so sorry, but I must get a nap in here somewhere because I must be awake by 8 PM when NCIS and Mark Harmon appear on the TV..............NO, of course I haven't lost  ALL my marbles...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................

Friday, November 18, 2011

Newest News

Lo has survived and will be coming to you on her regular station shortly.  Home now and being tortured by cats.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Opening Wednesday 10am - Lo's Left Carotid......Closing 10:15 am....Hopefully

OK, my darlings......all the pre-op tests are complete and I am apparently in splendid condition for my adventure tomorrow.  I have decided not to take my laptop so you probably won't hear from me till Friday or Saturday.

Bless you all.......I love you........thanks for all your good thoughts.  Now don't forget what I have taught you.......especially "Don't Fall Down".

Fear not, Lo will blog again.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Hey, Mother Nature.....What Did I Ever Do To You?.....

I  would really be in  a state of Rant were it not for the fact that my Pollyanna persona and my Gemini duality keep seeing it as sort of a Good Thing.   (IT being the rain last weekend that made us postpone our Yard Sale.)   Hell, a person can live for a week with 17 boxes stacked in their Living room and on their porch, can't they?

"Sure, I  can", I told myself........"and I can use the extra time to collect even more stuff and put it in even more boxes."   And so I did.



Sob.  It is now the following Saturday and once more the forecast has called for rain today, so once again we have postponed everything.  Maybe the Pennysaver will give us a  refund for the ad?

Meanwhile, sigh, on other fronts I have just found out, after innumerable pokes, pinches, scans and invasions of the bod, that my left carotid artery  needs to be roto-rooted of clogs like my right one was last year and the Vascular Plumber has been scheduled.   Therefore, even if  the sun should shine for 24 hours next Saturday I will be unable to attend because I will be back in the condition where I can not turn my head from straight ahead to anywhere right of center for a while.  They make those stitches so damned tight........besides.......the advance weather checker has just informed us that it may rain next  Saturday too.   How fortunate that by now I don't even notice the 17 boxes piled in the living room and on the front porch.  So now it looks like we may try to have our sale the first or second weekend in December.  If any of you have any pull with the gods of weather, pulleeeeze put in a good word for us, will ya.?

I don't want any of you to worry about me........I am sure I will emerge just fine and 90% additional blood supply to my poor brain can only be a good thing, dontcha think?  I will probably take my laptop with me, but I may or may not feel like blogging.  Last time I was evicted from the hospital after only a day so it may not even  be worth schlepping the thing with me.  We will see, but, rest assured, I will try to keep you informed.

In the meantime, any good thoughts you would like to send my way are always much appreciated  and, I promise you that, if I should happen to be routed into the tunnel, I will  definitely send you Steve Jobs'   "Oh Wow 3x" message and it will unequivocably  mean only Good Things.

Love ya' all.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Moses' Tablets on Mt. Sinai May Have To Take Second Place

I am puzzled, perplexed, bothered, bewildered and generally discombobulated by the fact that nobody has really talked about it.  At least, I haven't been able to find anything meaningful said about it.

Am I the only one who was totally blown away by Steve Jobs'  last words?  
"Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow".

Maybe it is because I am so much closer to the Exit Door than most of you  (though I don' t really think that's it)  but I was absolutely flooded with awe when I read about his last moments and last words........and, I must confess, tantalized with a fragment of hope.

I happen to consider Mr. Jobs to have been one of the most monumental, brilliant, inspiring,  evolved and enlightened people on this planet and his contributions to the rest of us cannot properly be evaluated yet. Consequently I take his last words and calm demeanor very seriously.  I would have been equally fascinated if he had said, "Oh, Damn, Ouch, No, no, no,  Why me?" or (my favorite), "Shit, Piss, Fuck".  I would have been thrilled if he had said, "Oy vey" (but I realize that is just the shred of my Jewishness speaking,) since, having been a dedicated Zen Buddhist, I guess it would have been more in keeping if he had muttered, "Carry Water, Chop Wood".

I do not want anyone to think that I mean to denigrate my very serious and heartfelt feelings on this subject with humor.......I couldn't help speculate on what pronouncement I might be inspired to utter on my way out ........but, being a huge admirer of Zen as being the philosophy closest to truth and reason I must bring myself to admit that my own interpretation of his message, as best I can verbalize it, is that, finding himself in the tunnel between life and death,  he got a glimpse of something awesome that excited him to the possibility of  further adventures beyond the ones he was leaving behind.  

Face it, my dears.  It's what we all hope he meant  isn't it?   I guess I may be the only one dumb enough, naive enough, gullible enough, Pollyanna-ish enough  to put it in writing.   I just hope that on my way down the tunnel that is what I will be inspired to say.

Of course, I am willing to admit that what he really meant was simply "Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow'.

I would love to hear your own feelings and ideas on the subject if anyone would care to share them.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Game Called Because of Rain.....Damn....or is it Hooray

I have only enough strength to utter a few grunts and monosyllables....... the big Yard Sale Project has had to be put off a weekbecause of rain.  (Yes, it does occasionally rain in California.....especially on the weekend of the big yard sale)   One half of me is rolling on the floor thanking every Deity ever prayed to  by man.   The other half is kicking the furniture in frustration.....not that there is really enough room to kick any furniture right now  because of the profusion of cardboard boxes full of goodies taking up every inch of floor space.

However, the bright side is that now that I have gotten the hang of this Make Way for Empty Space thing I am finding more and more stuff I think I can bear to part with and the extra week should help me organize a bit. (Ha).

Whatever, do not look forward to the promised tell-all blog for another week. 

Oy.......but I just realized that now I have to live thru another week of this agonizing waiting........better start an office pool on what day and hour Lois will deconstruct and sprinkle particles of herself over North Hollywood and adjacent communities.  Sigh.  Dammit,it IS  always something........

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Holy Crap! What Have I Done? I Must Have Been.......

OUT OF MY MIND !

The thing that I have feared and hidden from has come upon me....no, the damned truth is that I have brought it upon me.....posted a sign, put an invitation in the PennySaver  and invited it into my driveway, onto my front lawn and godknowswhereelse.  Do I have to let them use the bathroom?

My dear friends, you must have guessed it.  Desperation has driven me to participate in a neighborhood Yard Sale and I have only a few pitiful  hours left before I must schlepp 4,327 boxes down the street or commit suicide (and you must know in which direction I am tending).

I had to hire an expert in the field to take me by the scruff of the neck and drag me thru my bulging domain uttering phrases like, "Here, this is something you don't need...it will be perfect". whereupon she literally pried It out of my gnarled, clutching fingers and dropped it in a cardboard box, stonily ignoring my whimpering and pleas.  I will not dwell further on this horror right now because it is taking all  my courage and dedication to keep myself from dragging all those boxes back in from the porch.  On the other hand,  it is more than weird that I find myself opening more cabinets and finding treasures I had forgotten I even had and putting them into yet more cardboard boxes  at moments when I am not looking.

To be a crazy hoarder is wretched.....to have been collecting stuff from the four corners of the earth and from several relatives from before Methuselah makes it worse..........and to be partly logical and dispassionate at the same time is total agony and chaos.  I am not sure I will survive till Sunday at 4 pm, but if I should be so lucky (or so ill-fated)  I will be sure to blog you all about it.  Sigh....Gasp.....Groan.

I wonder if collecting for 85 years before having your first Yard Sale will qualify me for the Guinness Book of Records?

Hmmmmm.  Now in which box did she put that adorable brass mouse with the wavy tail?...........

Monday, October 24, 2011

Just Passing on a Jaw Dropper

I was just reading an article that Ryan Air had to return to their flight takeoff point after some tape which had been used to repair the pilots' window came loose and the pilot's attempt to duct tape the window failed to work.

That pales in comparison with the final paragraph of the article, which I quote below.


"Ryanair has had quite a string of bad press lately. Earlier this month, the airline came under fire for its announcement that it will remove toilets from planes to make room for extra seats. This summer, the notoriously cheap airline gave a passenger in cardiac arrest a sandwich...and later charged him for it."

Gotta love it!.........sigh.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

I Think I Want to Be Somebody Else for a Change



Some odd thoughts have been popping up and down and in and out of my mind recently.....wispy, uncompleted thoughts.......fragmented, disorganized but determined, insistent to  be noticed and definitely repetitive in their meaning.  The gist of them has something to do with the fact that "I" ( as the entity which occupies this body ) was having trouble dealing with the ongoing disintegration of my "enclosing vehicle".  Been feeling a  bit like a turtle whose home /shell no longer fit well didn't navigate well and was no longer acceptable as a container for "me".    Worse yet......I hadn't a clue about what the hell I could do about this strange mismatch other than to just schlepp onward.  Very unsatisfactory to my way of thinking and I have been hoping for an idea to circumvent this undefined ennui.

Then today I was directed to a blog  from one of my favorite bloggers and found some beautiful, profound words which filled in the holes around my thoughts and and expressed them better than I ever could.

     "Is the self a cage from which one should struggle to be free?

      Or should we see it as a home?

      Is it both things?

        Maybe I should treat it both ways while I try to work through the conundrum. I can patch and  paint         the  worn walls, knock down the cobwebs, scrub the floors, fix the toilet, open the windows to let  in         some light.

    At the same time, dig at a spot on the floor with the spoon I hide from the guards under my mattress, ,                  take a handful of dirt out each day,  working on my escape."

The above was quoted from a wonderful blog  I first encountered today, thanks to the incredible Mary Moon of Bless Our Hearts.   The blog is called   "The Dishwasher's Tears" written by The Tearful Dishwasher and I am so delighted to have found it and him........for many reasons, not the least of which is that he clarified and crystalized my thoughts and described exactly the way I have been feeling inside.  I will try to expand on that.

The body and the persona that goes with it no longer feels like the real "me" .   Or, rather, it feels like somebody the real Me is just damned sick and tired of.   I have said many times that I feel like I have had a wonderful life (despite certain bumps  and detours along the road) and feel lucky and blessed with every bit of it.  I still stand by that, but suddenly, I am tired.   Not quite sure if I am tired of living or just tired of living as Lo and being this persona.  After all, 84 + years is a helluva long time to be with and part of an entity night and day, wouldn't you say?  The only damned vacation you ever get from yourself is when you are anesthetized for surgery and that is just a brief respite but not a really a renewal.   Besides, it's not much fun when the anesthetic wears off.

It keeps reminding me of all the stories reported by people who have died and been revived,  had near-death and out of the body experiences and every one of them seem to describe the same wonderful feeling of release in getting rid of and floating free of the body like being able at last to take off a choking girdle and agonizing bra and a costume that is cumbersome and at least 3 sizes too small to fit comfortably. 


 All in all I feel that the creature that I have worked on becoming for all these years has turned out to be a fairly decent job of work.  I am ashamed and sorry that I have not really utilized all my gifts and my full potential to the max,  but I feel that I have done pretty well considering some of the pitfalls I have had to navigate and conquer. No excuses.......I just took all the parts and pieces that came in the box labelled "Lois", assembled them,  took them apart and reassembled them in a million different variations over the years and am rather proud to say I have managed to have used all of the pieces without wasting anything, except for a few parts that were obviously my Father's worst traits and which I had no choice but to dispose of discreetly in someone else's  trash barrel so they couldn't  be traced back to me and returned, perish forbid.   When I consider the whole structure objectively I think I look more like I was created by Rube Goldberg than  Michelangelo,  but as long as I don't blow over in a strong wind I shouldn't complain.

And as far as who or what I would like to be if I could be someone other than me..............I swear there is no one I can think of on the planet  I would like to move in on and inhabit.   I guess I will just have to wait and see who or what I will be next.....right now, I think a Rock might be nice.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

And, Furthermore.......

When I finished my recent rant about the fact that, in today's world, you can hardly believe a word of anything  that is put forth by any of the media since they seem to have forgotten the difference between truth and lies , I was hardly ranted out.  To go further, they have also managed to avoid, ignore or forget the fact that it used to be their job to put out for public edification as much of the objective truth  as they could manage to establish and express.  Oh sure, the Editors and/or the Owners usually managed to impose their slant on things but still outright lies and fiction were rarely resorted to.  The focus seems to have changed from fact to fiction, and I have already said a lot in my last blog regarding how I feel about this turn of events.

Feh!  and Patoooooey!   (You have to visualize my target, the brass spittoon in the corner.)

What is giving me a hissey fit today is the incomprehensible fact that, with a thousand and one telephone type devices proliferating like rabbits, and  everyone having pockets full of them, people have all decided that they don't ever have to answer any of them if they damned well please not to do so.   Being that everyone I see on the street, in their cars and at the supermarket is always talking to someone I can only assume that some folks out there must be answering their phones, so maybe it's just the people that I call who prefer to let me leave a message so they can decide at their leisure whether or not they want to bother talking to ME.

Who's paranoid.........me?  No way!    Of course, I may be old fashioned, but it seems very disrespectful to fail to respond to a phone call when you are perfectly able to do so simply because you'd rather screen the calls and prioritize which ones deserve your attention.  It is doubly insulting nowadays when we have caller-id and you know you are being ignored on purpose. Faugh!  My contempt for such goings-on is unbounded.  And a lot of good that does me.  But I am not going down without a shriek.  Eeeeeeeek!  There....I feel a mite better.

This behavior has annoyed the hell out of me numerous times recently, but I am really pissed off this week because circumstances have sort of led to me playing a Saint Theresa act and the final good deed I was working on was trying to get a gift delivered to a bridal shower I was unable to attend.  All I wanted was to drop it off to a family member  who was going to be there.  Over a period of 2 or 3 days I sent several emails to the one who was hosting the shower, also several phone calls with messages to her, several phone calls with messages to her Mother and even a desperation email to her husband.  Timely responses = 0.   Bah, humbug.  I have put that  St. Theresa outfit into the bag for the Goodwill and have dug out my Evil Witch garb for use from now on.  Gosh and golly,  I still remember the days when we would all (even the old folks) run at life-threatening speed up or down several flights of stairs to answer the phone before the caller hung up.  In those days a phone call was next best thing to a hug.....a gesture that someone wanted or needed to speak to you..........not so  any more, I guess.   The easier the means of access the more difficult it is to make contact, it seems.

However, my dear ones, I am not going to leave you with the memory of this embittered creature who appears to have handcuffed herself to the complaint department desk permanently.  I have  temporarily unlocked myself to deliver ecstatic news to those fans and admirers of the Delicious Mark Harmon.  A recent made for TV movie starring the beautiful one has been made and will be shown on November 6, a Sunday nite at 9 pm on channel 105......I think it is USA or ION or some such.......do a bit of research yourselves  though I expect there will be considerable interruptions of programming to tell you about it.     It is a mystery/detective plot based on John Sanford's novel "Certain Prey" and features a rather interesting and charming Policeman  named, I believe, Lucas Davenport.  I have read a gazillion of Sanford's series all of which feature the very bright and appealing and ruggedly sexy cop and the buzz is that if this first one makes it big there may be a slew to follow.  Oh, Lord, please oversee this effort kindly and don't let it end up being a load of bullpucky.  There are so many good souls out here who deserve to have the dark clouds chased away and  their spirits lightened by a couple of hours of really enjoyable TV.    (I guess even if the script is not very good we can always put it on "mute" and just watch the pictures......or at least I can, but you must remember how easy I am to please when it comes to the comely MH).

Let all the clan (you know who you are , (all 4 0r 5 of you) send good thoughts to whatever place you think they will do the most good.    I have already begun my efforts and my vigil.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

What I Know For Sure,,,,,Is Within These Parentheses ( )

I keep seeing books and blogs by people who have apparently found all the answers or even some of them.....Titles like "This I Know For Sure"  and "Two True Things" or whatever, and I'll tell you, I take my hat off to those people who can state unequivocably  that they are sure about something.

Now I, for instance, have recently realized that I am not sure of anything any more.  Strange, because when I was Forty something I was sure I had everything figured out.  (I was really an arrogant prick for a while back then)  I look back and see so many of my absolute truths that have gone bad on me over time and that I have had to discard or thought I had discarded......, kinda like those small containers of food that get pushed, forgotten,  to the back of the fridge shelf and, when discovered, are displaying questionable spots of green or red mold making it impossible to even guess what they once were.  All you can be pretty sure of is that you probably should get rid of them .........at once.

The other day I  was thinking that the time has come when a person cannot read a publication or listen to a news program and have any confidence whatsoever that what is being told to us with the utmost false sincerity is anything but just hype....a bundle of lies concocted by spin doctors with nothing but the prepositions in the sentences remaining trustworthy and at all dependable.    (Really....how wrong can after, at ,by, down, for, from, in, on,  etc. be ....without a noun or a verb I believe we can be fairly sure they remain blameless?)    I suddenly realized  something shocking .  There are so many things that we accept as "absolute truth" that are so obviously absurd and insane that I don't understand why we haven't all risen up in riotous protest, burned books and stoned the offenders who have implanted these devilish worms of thought in our brains. 

With nothing making any sense to me at all any more my deep introspections have revealed to me something I should have thought of a long time ago....... we have completely accepted premises that our minds and our senses tell us is a bucket of bull crap.  I think I have finally arrived at one new truth.
 
Ladies and Gentlemen........THE WORLD IS REALLY FLAT.

Now just think about it for a minute.


Never mind  Christopher Columbus and all that shit.  He could have very easily have sailed right off the edge of the earth if he hadn't been lucky enough to bump into America or the islands off the coast. I'll bet a lot of those guys who sailed west to get to the East Indies and were never heard of again DID sail right off the edge of the earth.

Hell, just go for a drive across Arizona.......is the world round or flat, just tell me?  Take a cruise and convince yourself and me that the ocean that you see stretching endlessly out there is really on a curved surface.  Climb the highest mountain and when you peer out into the distance, aside from a few protruberances like other mountains,  what is out there?  Nothing  but Flat, flat, flat.

Now just think about this for a minute.......there are only recently a handful of human  beings who claim they have zipped out into distant space and looked back and seen this blue marble thingy and sent back pictures of it and have established beyond doubt that the earth is round..........yeh, yeh.....and we are supposed to believe them 'cause pictures don't lie.  Ha!(What about PhotoShop? )  And how do we know that  blue marble is the Earth?     I am not sure they are any more  believable than the people who claim that the moon landing never happened and it was all done on a movie sound stage in Burbank.


Just think for a minute  about the fact that we are told that, with the earth being round and all, that about half of the people on the planet are actually living their lives hanging upside down by their feet.   Got the picture?   And what is holding them on and keeping them all from flying off into space????  An invisible thing called gravity, we are told.  Can't see it, can't feel it but that is what makes Australians think they are right side up and perfectly fine, when, in fact, none of them have ever been right side up except  possibly Crocodile Dundee who visited NY and the one or two Aussies who may have vactioned in Maine or Canada.  What is keeping all those Aussies from having a constant dizzy, headachey feeling is also a puzzle to me. It, too, is attributed to gravity, but I know how I feel when I have been in an inverted Yoga pose  for just a few minutes and I don't know about that gravity thing at all.

And it gets even worse..........the Scientists tell us we are wrong in thinking the sun revolves around the Earth.  In truth,they say,  the Earth and a bunch of other big rocks all revolve around the sun which does nothing but just sit there burning away.  Well, if that is true how come I see the sun come up just beyond my lime tree in the left corner of the back yard every morning and I often watch it set way out on the right edge of the Pacific Ocean in the evening...down it goes.....plop.......day after day probably just about the spot where the ocean is fighting to keep from running off the edge of the earth.  (I haven't figured that part out yet about the oceans.)    So who is crazy?

They tell us that the Earth not only revolves around the sun, but that it spins on its axis and does a complete turn on itself every nite (that supposedly explains sunrise and sunset) while it is also spinning in it's orbit around the sun, a feat that takes a year to complete and that explains Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter because one part of the orbit is closer to the sun than the rest of it, making summer hotter than winter.   As  far as I am concerned that doesn't explain anything especially, with all that spinning around, how come we aren't all staggering off the sidewalks and falling down in the gutters all the time  without having imbibed a single drop of intoxicating beverage?

Hmmmmm.  Pretty tatty....all of it, I'd say.    I think we have all been seduced into believing a lot of garbage even before this current crop of Fox news hit the fan and I have decided I am going to start making up my own truth from now on.  Anyone who cares to join me is more than welcome.  I'll bet we can create a better reality than the one we are stuck in.  How could we not?

Humph ! Fickle Followers......Can't a Person Just Sit Down and Rest?

Yes, yes, I know it's true......I have been invisible and silent in the blogosphere recently and I apologize to all you beloved folk who keep checking in eagerly and have to leave disgruntled and unsatisfied.

What's worse ....today will not  be much  better but I notice that followers are deserting me by the handful....ingrates, wretches.......and I decided I had better utter a few small grunts and squeaks to let you know I have not traveled on through that dark tunnel to the light....not yet.  Just  been busy with several projects.

To the faithful few, I will be back soon, I promise.

And to the others I say......Feh!  (not what I really want to say, but "feh" looks more civilized than what I really want to say.)  Love ya' all.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Not Plagarism....Sharing Anonymous Genius With the World

Forgive me if you have already seen the following piece.  I just received it from my old and dear friend, Bruce Simkins who happened to be the brother of my beloved friend Anita ....sadly, now no longer with us.  They were my first friends in California and without them I surely would have died of loneliness or just walked into the Pacific and kept going.  However, that is another story.

I do not know if Bruce wrote this.....he may have....he is quite brilliant.  However, to whomever wrote it I give credit and praise.  I think it is wonderful and deserves to be spread as widely as possible.  Feel free to copy and forward it to anyone you know who needs a laugh.  And, if you know who wrote it, please advise me so I can give proper credit.

By the way...I had to work like hell to try to fit the type into my space so please forgive any choppped off words.
                                                        **********************************



DRAFTING GUYS OVER 60

No -  idiot !!  The subject does not read dating guys over 60 -  Put on your glasses & read it again !!

Begin forwarded message:


Subject: Drafting Guys Over 60
Date: October 8, 2011 12:40:34 PM CDT


Drafting Guys Over 60
This is funny & obviously
 written by a Former Soldier... New Direction for any war: Send Service 
Vets over 60!
I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older
          than 42 to join the military. 
They've got the whole thing ass-backwards. 
Instead of sending 18-year-olds 
off to fight, they ought to take 
us old guys. You shouldn't be 
able to join a military unit 
until you're at least 35.
For starters, researchers
 say 18-year-olds think about sex
every 10 seconds. Old guys only 
think about sex a couple of times
a day, leaving us more than 
28,000 additional seconds per 
day to concentrate on the enemy.
Young guys haven't lived long

enough to be cranky, and a

cranky soldier is a dangerous

soldier. 'My back hurts! I can't

sleep, I'm tired and hungry.'

We are impatient and maybe

letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make

us feel better       and shut us

up for awhile.
An 18-year-old doesn't even

like to get up before 10am.
Old guys always get up early
to pee, so what the hell. Besides,

like I said, I'm tired and
can't sleep and since I'm

already up, I may as well be

up killing some fanatical

son-of-a-bitch.

If captured we couldn't spill

the beans because we'd forget

where we put them. In fact,

name, rank, and serial number

would be a real brainteaser.
Boot camp would be easier for

old guys.. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and

we're sed to soft food.

We've also developed an

appreciation for
guns. We've been using

them for years as an excuse

to get out of the house,

away from the screaming

and yelling.
They could lighten up on the

obstacle course however... I've
 been in combat and never saw a 
single 20-foot wall with rope 
hanging over the side, nor did I 
ever do any pushups after 
completing basic training. 
Actually, the running part 
is kind of a waste of energy, too... 
I've never seen anyone 
outrun a bullet.
An 18-year-old has the whole

world ahead of him. He's still

learning to shave, to start a conversation with a pretty girl.

He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to

shade his eyes, not the back

of his head.
These are all great reasons
to keep our kids at home to

learn a little more about

life before sending them
off into harm's way.
Let us old guys track down

those dirty rotten coward

terrorists. The last thing

an enemy would want to

see is a couple million

pissed off old farts with

attitudes and automatic

weapons, who know that

their best years are already
behind them.

HEY!! How about recruiting

Women over 50...in

menopause!!! You think

MEN have attitudes??
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my God!!!

If nothing else, put them
 on border patrol. They'll have 
it secured the first night!
Send this to all of your

senior friends... it's in

big type so they can
 read it.