For awhile I was feeling as if I had lost my sense of humor. Everything seemed to be piling in on me and I could only spew my anger onto these blank pages called Post Editors. I'm not given much to self pity. I don't have it harder than millions of others, yet I found myself wallowing in a mood so dark I was beginning to feel isolated in some way. The more I looked around me, the less I liked what I saw and the angrier I became.
It started with the quarterly sales tax preparation for the filing date in September, on my 62nd birthday. We owed half of what we normally owe for the third quarter. To say business has been bad is putting it mildly. I've lost count of the number of bad checks we've had to chase people down for. We received more bad checks in the third quarter of this year than we've received since buying this business in 1986. You can't begin to understand what it feels like to have these checks and try to work things out with people who have no shame about writing them. For the first time in our business life, we had people arrested.
The day I had to go to court with our first case, I sat outside the courthouse and cried. After the ruling in our favor, I left the courthouse and sat in my car and cried some more. Even knowing that we aren't to blame for the problems these people got themselves into, doesn't make me feel any better. One woman couldn't understand why the charges against her included misdemeanor larceny. She simply couldn't grasp that paying for a service with a check she knew was bad is theft of services. In addition to the septic pumping she had some pipes replaced. Total was $600. She wrote a check on a closed account.
With the financial setbacks we've endured, all my healthy food purchase plans went down the drain. I've purchased and preserved as much as I could afford, which hasn't been much at all. The stress took a toll on my blood pressure. The bottom number stayed down but the top one went off the chart again so, I am now on a beta blocker to protect my heart. Which, of course, made me feel like a failure somehow. Doctor says she's positive it will only be temporary since I have made "great strides" forward since I began the program. I resolved the issue of our financial situation by not purchasing the supplements I need. That allowed me to buy the locally grown produce that sits in my freezer. Wasn't the smartest thing I've done, but I did it and as the doctor says, I need to forget it and move on.
I really didn't start the forget and move on process until Scratch got a job. Something about his good news was a lifeline that I am using to pull myself out of the rut I dug for myself. I'm not out yet, but I can see the top of the pile. Nothing financially has changed, I just have knuckled down and started using the stress relieving tools that have been at my disposal all along. I lost sight of the forest because of the trees and needed to find my chainsaw to thin those trees out some.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Remembering 9/11
Shortly after 9 am on the morning of September 11, 2001 my phone rang. For a decade now, the quavering voice of my Mother telling me to "turn on my TV, something terrible is happening" has been stuck in my head. When I did turn it on, I saw a scene that looked something like this.
I wasn't able to comprehend entirely what I was seeing and I asked her what happened, what was going on? She responded by saying she didn't know but she thought we were under attack by someone and then she began to cry. At that point the newscast switched back to Tom Brokaw and although I didn't understand a single word he was saying, I knew my world would change beyond anything I'd known up to that point. I was right.
We became a nation of angry, fearful people. We've made decision after decision since then based on the emotions that the knowledge we had become a target created. We've spent a decade since then waving our flags, shouting our patriotism to the world all the while sending our young men and women off to kill or be killed. Something about fighting so we can preserve our freedom. Freedom for what? To be selfish, greedy, hateful, small minded people?
We take little real interest in our neighborhoods unless someone isn't keeping their property up. No one thinks to ask if that person might need help, we just sit and criticize among ourselves about how they are destroying our property values. Then there's the other neighbor who should be shot for mowing their lawn early in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday. "Don't they know I want to sleep late? Who do they think they are to disturb MY rest?" Of course, the fact that may be the ONLY time they can mow their lawn never enters into the equation. It's always all about us, and what we want.
We teach our children to be bullies, to hate. We spend our time online trying to smear the reputations of people simply because they disagree with us over...well...anything. We accept no responsibility for our actions or our speech. It, after all, is a right guaranteed us by the Constitution so we can say anything we damn well please. No matter how malicious the content of our speech is, no matter whose reputation it damages, we have a guaranteed right to say it. Even when it leads to the death of another person. It's too bad, so sad, next victim!
We drive in a way that suggests we own the road. Speed as if there isn't a speed limit established by law. Yet, when someone else does it, why that is a whole different situation. That requires we chase them down and smash their vehicles or worse, we kill them. It's our right to defend ourselves, they tried to kill us by cutting us off.
We send money to disaster victims in other countries, but we won't volunteer to help people in our own communities. Our time is worth money, apparently those in need of assistance aren't worth much. Volunteer fire departments and emergency services all over America are closing because they can't get volunteers. The same thing is happening to volunteer police units who provide additional security for public gatherings like city parades. Then, of course, we swear about the increased taxes needed for municipal provision of these services. I wonder what will happen when a loved one has a heart attack and dies or a house burns to the ground while waiting for a response from a service that might be located 15 or 20 miles away.
We're a country with a chip on our shoulders daring someone, anyone to knock it off. The reality is the chip was knocked off 10 years ago exposing the fact that we are a bunch of blustering know nothings carefully educated by the GOP, Fox news and Rush Limbaugh. On the eve of the only attack by an enemy that we've ever suffered on our own soil, Eric Cantor is calling for a 40% reduction in payments to First Responders to disasters in 2012. I wonder what it will cost if you have to pay to have part of your house lifted off your body or that of a loved one. After all, without pay, there might not be anyone to help given how few volunteers there are in this America.
We've taken revenge upon the people who perpetrated this horrible disaster. It didn't give me my America back. All I can do while remembering that horrible day is wonder how the people who died then would feel about the America that exists today. An America where anger at a common enemy turned into hatred for each other simply because of differences of opinions. And I will spend tomorrow honoring the dead by remembering an event I wish had never happened and, given what has happened since, I wish we could forget.
I wasn't able to comprehend entirely what I was seeing and I asked her what happened, what was going on? She responded by saying she didn't know but she thought we were under attack by someone and then she began to cry. At that point the newscast switched back to Tom Brokaw and although I didn't understand a single word he was saying, I knew my world would change beyond anything I'd known up to that point. I was right.
We became a nation of angry, fearful people. We've made decision after decision since then based on the emotions that the knowledge we had become a target created. We've spent a decade since then waving our flags, shouting our patriotism to the world all the while sending our young men and women off to kill or be killed. Something about fighting so we can preserve our freedom. Freedom for what? To be selfish, greedy, hateful, small minded people?
We take little real interest in our neighborhoods unless someone isn't keeping their property up. No one thinks to ask if that person might need help, we just sit and criticize among ourselves about how they are destroying our property values. Then there's the other neighbor who should be shot for mowing their lawn early in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday. "Don't they know I want to sleep late? Who do they think they are to disturb MY rest?" Of course, the fact that may be the ONLY time they can mow their lawn never enters into the equation. It's always all about us, and what we want.
We teach our children to be bullies, to hate. We spend our time online trying to smear the reputations of people simply because they disagree with us over...well...anything. We accept no responsibility for our actions or our speech. It, after all, is a right guaranteed us by the Constitution so we can say anything we damn well please. No matter how malicious the content of our speech is, no matter whose reputation it damages, we have a guaranteed right to say it. Even when it leads to the death of another person. It's too bad, so sad, next victim!
We drive in a way that suggests we own the road. Speed as if there isn't a speed limit established by law. Yet, when someone else does it, why that is a whole different situation. That requires we chase them down and smash their vehicles or worse, we kill them. It's our right to defend ourselves, they tried to kill us by cutting us off.
We send money to disaster victims in other countries, but we won't volunteer to help people in our own communities. Our time is worth money, apparently those in need of assistance aren't worth much. Volunteer fire departments and emergency services all over America are closing because they can't get volunteers. The same thing is happening to volunteer police units who provide additional security for public gatherings like city parades. Then, of course, we swear about the increased taxes needed for municipal provision of these services. I wonder what will happen when a loved one has a heart attack and dies or a house burns to the ground while waiting for a response from a service that might be located 15 or 20 miles away.
We're a country with a chip on our shoulders daring someone, anyone to knock it off. The reality is the chip was knocked off 10 years ago exposing the fact that we are a bunch of blustering know nothings carefully educated by the GOP, Fox news and Rush Limbaugh. On the eve of the only attack by an enemy that we've ever suffered on our own soil, Eric Cantor is calling for a 40% reduction in payments to First Responders to disasters in 2012. I wonder what it will cost if you have to pay to have part of your house lifted off your body or that of a loved one. After all, without pay, there might not be anyone to help given how few volunteers there are in this America.
We've taken revenge upon the people who perpetrated this horrible disaster. It didn't give me my America back. All I can do while remembering that horrible day is wonder how the people who died then would feel about the America that exists today. An America where anger at a common enemy turned into hatred for each other simply because of differences of opinions. And I will spend tomorrow honoring the dead by remembering an event I wish had never happened and, given what has happened since, I wish we could forget.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
No Ten Cent Lovin', No Chicano and No Henna Either. Mondegreen!
According to Gavin Evans in a post he wrote about Mondegreens, the terminology came about thusly.
"The term "mondegreen" was coined by Sylvia Wright in a 1954 Atlantic article. As a child, young Sylvia had listened to a folk song that included the lines "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And Lady Mondegreen." As is customary with misheard lyrics, she didn't realize her mistake for years. The song was not about the tragic fate of Lady Mondegreen, but rather, the continuing plight of the good earl: "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And laid him on the green."
As with most misheard song lyrics, the mondegreen makes as much sense as the actual lyrics do. However, that doesn't really hold true in the song "Hard To Handle" written and recorded originally by Otis Redding. I can't ascertain whether or not the mondegreen in this case was born due to his singing or that of the Black Crowes cover from their first album. I suppose it could have occurred at any point in time since quite a few bands have actually covered the song.
I tend not to like covers. They disappoint me on some level. However, I must say that the Crowes did a bang up job on their cover of it.
Oh yes, the actual words from which the mondegreen originates can be found in the chorus of the song. The mondegreen itself is in the title of this post.
"Boys and things that come by the dozen
That ain't nothing but drugstore loving.
Hey little thing let me light your candle
Cause Mama I'm sure hard to handle now
Gets around."
"The term "mondegreen" was coined by Sylvia Wright in a 1954 Atlantic article. As a child, young Sylvia had listened to a folk song that included the lines "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And Lady Mondegreen." As is customary with misheard lyrics, she didn't realize her mistake for years. The song was not about the tragic fate of Lady Mondegreen, but rather, the continuing plight of the good earl: "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And laid him on the green."
As with most misheard song lyrics, the mondegreen makes as much sense as the actual lyrics do. However, that doesn't really hold true in the song "Hard To Handle" written and recorded originally by Otis Redding. I can't ascertain whether or not the mondegreen in this case was born due to his singing or that of the Black Crowes cover from their first album. I suppose it could have occurred at any point in time since quite a few bands have actually covered the song.
I tend not to like covers. They disappoint me on some level. However, I must say that the Crowes did a bang up job on their cover of it.
Oh yes, the actual words from which the mondegreen originates can be found in the chorus of the song. The mondegreen itself is in the title of this post.
"Boys and things that come by the dozen
That ain't nothing but drugstore loving.
Hey little thing let me light your candle
Cause Mama I'm sure hard to handle now
Gets around."
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
It's All A Matter Of Perspective
On Sunday, Irene didn't do very much by the way of damage to my area of Central New York. We were without power for a few hours, some roads, including the NYS thruway were flooded and closed. A tree fell in my yard, missing the house and the window I was standing in front of by a foot and my sunflowers looked as if someone had been dancing til dawn in their midst.
She arrived at 5 am here and when the sun came up I could see that she had brought the usual debris with her. I don't remember any wind of any strength happening at that hour. As a matter of fact, it just seemed to be a stiff breeze combing the trees and taking out all the snarls caused by dead branches. It was raining and I don't believe it stopped until just before bedtime that night. The ground was so saturated that the tree, and my sunflowers were blown over exposing their roots.
The tree was a white birch of some height, just not as tall as others, for which I am grateful. I was standing in the bedroom looking out the window when I became aware that it was falling. At me. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion and fear kept me rooted to the spot. I couldn't move, couldn't make a sound and wasn't sure what had happened when it was all over. All I knew was that the tree was down and both I and my home were undamaged. Then I fell apart. It was as if someone found my "On" switch, and pushed it.
Once my electricity came back on and my internet seemed to be working, I thought all was going to be fine. Then my internet went out leaving me with the TV as my only entertainment option other than reading a book. I'd done that while the power was out, so TV it was. That was when we found out that I didn't have connection to both satellites so we were limited in our choices. Hubby kept getting stuck on the channels that weren't available, so in disgust he handed me the remote. The chance of a lifetime and we didn't have a full selection of programs for me to play with.
ABC had a 20/20 Special Report on called the Sixth Sense. I wasn't going to watch it until Chris Cuomo said that "One out of five people you meet on the internet is not who they say they are". Ok, THAT got my attention. I knew that there are a lot of fakes online, just never thought about a specific number.
The first hour was about what happened to a young man who wasn't really looking for love in all the wrong places, he just happened to fall into it. He's the subject of the documentary movie "Catfish". You can read more about that movie here.
The second hour ended in the death of a young man in his 20's. The usual eternal triangle, with a twist. The female in question wasn't a young hot chick as she was advertising herself, she was the Mom of the girl whose picture she posted online. The DA's office in Buffalo, NY is trying to find a way to charge this person for her part in the crime. What she did is morally reprehensible, but sadly, it's legal. She didn't intend to harm anyone, she was just having fun.
The kind of things these women have done online would never have occurred to me. Even at my lowest point when Mom hadn't been gone for a year and I was losing my Dad, it never crossed my mind to amuse myself at the expense of others. One thing has been made understandable to me. I now know why so many people are always concerned with how many identities someone has online. If that 1 in 5 figure is even half way correct, that's a lot of fakers. I've come to the conclusion, and I may be wrong, that most of those fakers are doing nothing more than hiding their own identities because they don't want to wake up some morning and find that their bank accounts were emptied or that someone maxed out their credit cards.
The program was interesting. It also was designed to scare us into being fearful online. Had it not been for the reality of Irene, I would have been on the blog the very next day spreading my fear to the people that read me regularly. Somehow or other watching a tree falling towards me in a rainstorm, slightly changed my perspective on things. No matter how bad I think the internet can get, I can always turn away and shut it off. Then, when I have worked out my own feelings, my own emotions, I can turn it back on again. Falling trees have no shut off button. There's something so very final in that thought.
She arrived at 5 am here and when the sun came up I could see that she had brought the usual debris with her. I don't remember any wind of any strength happening at that hour. As a matter of fact, it just seemed to be a stiff breeze combing the trees and taking out all the snarls caused by dead branches. It was raining and I don't believe it stopped until just before bedtime that night. The ground was so saturated that the tree, and my sunflowers were blown over exposing their roots.
The tree was a white birch of some height, just not as tall as others, for which I am grateful. I was standing in the bedroom looking out the window when I became aware that it was falling. At me. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion and fear kept me rooted to the spot. I couldn't move, couldn't make a sound and wasn't sure what had happened when it was all over. All I knew was that the tree was down and both I and my home were undamaged. Then I fell apart. It was as if someone found my "On" switch, and pushed it.
Once my electricity came back on and my internet seemed to be working, I thought all was going to be fine. Then my internet went out leaving me with the TV as my only entertainment option other than reading a book. I'd done that while the power was out, so TV it was. That was when we found out that I didn't have connection to both satellites so we were limited in our choices. Hubby kept getting stuck on the channels that weren't available, so in disgust he handed me the remote. The chance of a lifetime and we didn't have a full selection of programs for me to play with.
ABC had a 20/20 Special Report on called the Sixth Sense. I wasn't going to watch it until Chris Cuomo said that "One out of five people you meet on the internet is not who they say they are". Ok, THAT got my attention. I knew that there are a lot of fakes online, just never thought about a specific number.
The first hour was about what happened to a young man who wasn't really looking for love in all the wrong places, he just happened to fall into it. He's the subject of the documentary movie "Catfish". You can read more about that movie here.
The second hour ended in the death of a young man in his 20's. The usual eternal triangle, with a twist. The female in question wasn't a young hot chick as she was advertising herself, she was the Mom of the girl whose picture she posted online. The DA's office in Buffalo, NY is trying to find a way to charge this person for her part in the crime. What she did is morally reprehensible, but sadly, it's legal. She didn't intend to harm anyone, she was just having fun.
The kind of things these women have done online would never have occurred to me. Even at my lowest point when Mom hadn't been gone for a year and I was losing my Dad, it never crossed my mind to amuse myself at the expense of others. One thing has been made understandable to me. I now know why so many people are always concerned with how many identities someone has online. If that 1 in 5 figure is even half way correct, that's a lot of fakers. I've come to the conclusion, and I may be wrong, that most of those fakers are doing nothing more than hiding their own identities because they don't want to wake up some morning and find that their bank accounts were emptied or that someone maxed out their credit cards.
The program was interesting. It also was designed to scare us into being fearful online. Had it not been for the reality of Irene, I would have been on the blog the very next day spreading my fear to the people that read me regularly. Somehow or other watching a tree falling towards me in a rainstorm, slightly changed my perspective on things. No matter how bad I think the internet can get, I can always turn away and shut it off. Then, when I have worked out my own feelings, my own emotions, I can turn it back on again. Falling trees have no shut off button. There's something so very final in that thought.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
One Brilliant Flash
My computer has an issue. Well, to be accurate, my monitor is the problem. It's losing the color red on me every so often. Funny thing, the emachine hunk of junk I've been using since Mom died has had just about every original accessory replaced. The original monitor croaked two days past the 90 day warranty period back in 2006. Had it not been for the Envision monitor from my first computer, my history as a blogger would have lasted all of 60 days. Might have been a good thing, come to think about that.
The next thing to leave me up the creek was the keyboard. That lasted a year. Actually died in the midst of a St Paddy's Day frenzy of appropriate comment graphic delivery to all 100 plus bloggers I was following. It was replaced, within an hour, with a Logitech board that I've been banging away on for 5 years now. Then the mouse died last year. Again, Logitech to the rescue. The Envision monitor was an IBM product, it's now been in use for the better part of 17 years. They just don't make things like they used to.
For some reason, the color red seems to be the important one. Everything becomes a sick color of green, or blue, or black without it. Even the color yellow looks...well...green. In my frustration, I did a Fonzie on it and that will restore the color...for awhile. It goes, I give it a tap on the side and it comes back. One of these times, I'm going to give it that tap and the whole display might leave me.
I'm considering a new computer. The problem is that things aren't financially great with Hubby's business, so I've been looking at the possibility of buying a laptop instead of a desktop. The ever popular Walmart has a Toshiba on sale right now for $278. Of course, I'd have to not pay the auto insurance in order to run right out and buy it. Since I need my car in order to make a living, that's not an option.
If I drop a hundred or so on a new monitor, who can say the tower won't go kaput? Decisions, decisions. About the only one I've been able to make is to wait until I actually have to do something before I decide what to do. Which, of course, means I may be absent from online activities for awhile. I don't know that for sure, but, the way life goes, you never know.
The next thing to leave me up the creek was the keyboard. That lasted a year. Actually died in the midst of a St Paddy's Day frenzy of appropriate comment graphic delivery to all 100 plus bloggers I was following. It was replaced, within an hour, with a Logitech board that I've been banging away on for 5 years now. Then the mouse died last year. Again, Logitech to the rescue. The Envision monitor was an IBM product, it's now been in use for the better part of 17 years. They just don't make things like they used to.
For some reason, the color red seems to be the important one. Everything becomes a sick color of green, or blue, or black without it. Even the color yellow looks...well...green. In my frustration, I did a Fonzie on it and that will restore the color...for awhile. It goes, I give it a tap on the side and it comes back. One of these times, I'm going to give it that tap and the whole display might leave me.
I'm considering a new computer. The problem is that things aren't financially great with Hubby's business, so I've been looking at the possibility of buying a laptop instead of a desktop. The ever popular Walmart has a Toshiba on sale right now for $278. Of course, I'd have to not pay the auto insurance in order to run right out and buy it. Since I need my car in order to make a living, that's not an option.
If I drop a hundred or so on a new monitor, who can say the tower won't go kaput? Decisions, decisions. About the only one I've been able to make is to wait until I actually have to do something before I decide what to do. Which, of course, means I may be absent from online activities for awhile. I don't know that for sure, but, the way life goes, you never know.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Please Cut the Crap!
Please Cut the Crap!
One of the people I follow in Twitter is the author of "The PCTC* Blog" or, "Please Cut The Crap" by Milt Shook.
He's a refreshing change from the whiny, finger pointing, blame Obama style of Progressive Blogger that seems to be popular today. While all blogging is essentially opinion based, Mr Shook provides us with the facts on which he bases his analysis. He very quickly has become a must read for me.
If you do click the link and take the time to read him, I suggest you take a good long look at the third post on the page, titled "More Politics 101: Obama Is Smarter Than Us!". It's a completely different look at what many see as a President who doesn't know how to lead.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Gone To Fill The Bowl
I don't have what one might call writer's block, I'm just in one of my moods where I'm not overly interested in communicating with people. Communication is a major part of the job I do. I spend my days informing the clients of every move I'm making while in their homes. It's like talking to yourself if they have dementia, since they won't remember what you said 5 minutes ago. We have to do that because there are times when their brains can't process what is happening unless you tell them. Even when helping them shower.
There's nothing much to challenge the intellect there. It's a matter of telling them I'm turning on the water, testing the temperature. Then it's soaping the medium by which I wash them if they need that kind of assistance. It's a running litany of chores, and I do so much of it, I'm beginning to do it when I try to type a blog post. I even caught myself informing the cat that I was going to sweep the floor when I went to get the broom.
Part of my mood is because my favorite client left today to spend 2 weeks in a nursing home respite program. The family member responsible for her care has bulging discs between every single cervical vertebrae. He can't keep caring for her right now. He needs to take care of himself so that they can get the discs back in place IF they aren't so far out now that it's permanent. She's there for a minimum of 2 weeks and there's the possibility that it will be a longer stay. If the county program she's in would have paid for more hours of care, this wouldn't be necessary, but they won't. I'm just going to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Until my emotions settle down, I'm not up to the political discourse, the trolls, or the smoke and mirror magic of the internet. I'm going to spend a few days reading good books, enjoying the weather we're having and maybe start a painting.
There's nothing much to challenge the intellect there. It's a matter of telling them I'm turning on the water, testing the temperature. Then it's soaping the medium by which I wash them if they need that kind of assistance. It's a running litany of chores, and I do so much of it, I'm beginning to do it when I try to type a blog post. I even caught myself informing the cat that I was going to sweep the floor when I went to get the broom.
Part of my mood is because my favorite client left today to spend 2 weeks in a nursing home respite program. The family member responsible for her care has bulging discs between every single cervical vertebrae. He can't keep caring for her right now. He needs to take care of himself so that they can get the discs back in place IF they aren't so far out now that it's permanent. She's there for a minimum of 2 weeks and there's the possibility that it will be a longer stay. If the county program she's in would have paid for more hours of care, this wouldn't be necessary, but they won't. I'm just going to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
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