“He woke up most days before dawn. Two sleeping dog faces near his head. The three bodies formed a breathing blanket that stretched over the mountains and the snow and up to the northern climes. The fire was down to coals and the room was icy. He could see the red glow reflect off the breath of the dogs. He could see his own face in the coals. It looked troubled, like most faces burning in a fire.
Usually, he felt good enough at the beginning of the day, but after a few hours the depression set in and the interconnections of life on Earth weighed down upon him. He would often think of his wife and daughter. Dead was not a very difficult word for him to say. It never had been. The two women had found pleasure in the small things of life, even as humanity had become…
There are many scenes in To Kill a Mockingbird that are disturbing but the first time I saw the movie (I was probably around fourteen) the scene that really upset me was when Atticus shoots the rabid dog. I didn’t understand why the dog couldn’t just be captured and nursed back to health. My father explained that there is no cure for rabies. That an animal with rabies cannot be controlled and will mostly likely die a horrible death and that if he bit or even scratched one of the townsfolk, they would most likely also die a horrible death. So even though the dog couldn’t help his illness and didn’t deserve to be shot, the community had to be protected.
When I hear people saying they are not getting vaccinated and they are not wearing a mask and they are not socially distancing, I remember that scene. The corona virus is like a mad dog roaming the streets. You can protect yourself from getting it and infecting other people … or:
You can go out in the street and tell that mad dog you don’t believe he’s really rabid.
You can say to the mad dog, “God gave you the rabies because you were a bad dog but God will protect me.”
You can tell the mad dog he’s infringing on your constitutional right to run free without a vaccination.
Either way I don’t think the mad dog will care.
And to those who say: “It hasn’t been tested enough.” Well that’s kind of like saying: “Even though the Titanic is sinking, those life boats haven’t been fully tested in ice water. I’m going to wait on the deck and listen to the band play until I’m sure.”
Now before you lambast me for being a nincompoop, let me tell you that I have had covid although at the time (January 2020), I thought it was just a killer flu. The first night I spiked such a high fever that the queen size bed I was sleeping on was soaked right through to the mattress. Despite anti-histamines and nose sprays and Vicks Vaporub, I struggled to breath. Then, when the newspapers started to list the symptoms, I began to wonder. Especially when, come summer, I had no feeling in my feet and had lost all sense of balance.
If this post sounds a little angry, it is. You can be like Atticus Finch and protect your community by getting vaccinated or you can try negotiating with the mad dog and put yourself and others at risk.
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
Holy Cow, it’s sizzling out here in the West, as in “fry an egg on the pavement” hot! The cat is curled up in a ball, the birds are hiding in the trees and nary a car passes our house. And so I’m reading and throwing out journals I kept from 1976 to 2003. I’ve seen what happens when you die. The kids come into your house and toss everything they deem of no value and I’m positive the thoughts of a mother they consider a boring drip with a meaningless life will have no value whatsoever.
For the most part, the journals are filled with the frustrations of an artsy-fartsy, hippie-dippie woman raising children in a status-hungry suburb. It’s sort of a Stranger in a Strange Land scenario. Eventually she starts to drink during the day, gets addicted to soap operas, takes up macrame and bitches and whines a lot. On top of all that, the journals are filled with the names of neighbors who came and went. If I don’t remember those people, my kids certainly aren’t going to.
I was apparently into calligraphy at one time.
Every now and then I do run into a keeper. This one from November 2, 1999:
Tonight Joel was into role playing as a way to spice up our love life. Our conversation went like this:
Joel: “I’m seventeen and my parents are out for the night and I don’t know when they’ll return. So we …”
Jan: “Wait a minute, when you were seventeen, I was ten. I didn’t have boobs when I was ten and no body hair to speak of. I don’t even think I knew what sex was.”
Joel: “Okay. I’m the pilot of a jumbo jet flying at thirty thousand feet and you’re a stewardess. So I put the plane on auto pilot and we do it in the bathroom.”
Jan: “Are you kidding me? You’re going to leave the plane on autopilot at 30 thousand feet when you know I’m scared to death of flying?”
The third one was the funniest: “I’m the Fire Marshall and the building is on fire and we get all hot (excuse the pun) and do it on the 16th floor as the building is burning down.”
Where do men come out with these fantasies? When I laughed off all three, he suggested a fourth: “I’m a doctor and I need to give you a shot on your bare bottom.”
I didn’t know what to expect from our small town Fourth of July parade as the decision to hold it was made only about a month ago. I thought maybe a couple of special interests groups would get it together. I certainly didn’t expect almost a dozen musical groups, some marching and the others on the back of flatbed trucks! I guess they all couldn’t wait to get out and celebrate. The town council requested everyone wear a mask and socially distance but guess what folks? That did not happen.
It began with the Fire Department.
Lights and sirens on!
And then came the Bagpipes
This shot makes it look like the little girl has a tail!
And the football team.
Generally they toss candy but today they just strutted their stuff. Gosh they look young, don’t they?This little guy (gal?) wasn’t in the parade although he should have been!
Here are a few other snaps. Wish I could post videos of the music but good old WordPress is giving me fits today.
The other day an aunt of mine posted a meme on Facebook that read:
You’re sixteen and it’s a Friday night.
What does it mean to you?
Her answer was: “Date Night!”
Apparently I was an ultra nerdy teenager because my immediate response was: “Babysitting.”
Not counting the many times I watched (for free) my ungrateful and obstinate siblings, I became a “professional” when I was just eleven years old. My first gig was for an older couple across the street who had a baby girl. I never knew if she was a late in life baby or a grandchild whose parents, for whatever reason, couldn’t raise her. I wasn’t permitted to ask about such things. Anyway, both of the parents worked at the casinos – one worked nights and the other days, meaning they didn’t need a babysitter most of the time. However sometimes they would both need to work a swing shift – generally during the busy hours of 8 PM to 1 AM, I would arrive after the baby had been put to sleep. All I needed to do was to be there. If the baby woke up and actually needed attention, I phoned my folks … HELP! If they weren’t home, I knew all the neighbors. Still … eleven years old!!! I can’t imagine anyone leaving an infant in the hands of an eleven year old these days. In fact, it’s illegal in most states.
What happens when you hire an older woman to be your babysitter!
Most of my jobs came from my mother. She had no problem pimping me out to anyone desperate for a cheap sitter. Today there are babysitting agencies. Before you hire a babysitter, you can check out her resume, her profile and even read her reviews. Back then it was Mrs. Brown asking Mrs. White for the number of a “girl.” Then Mr. Brown would be send to retrieve the girl while Mrs. Brown prepared the list of do’s and don’ts (no candy before bed, no television until homework’s complete, etc.) most of which would be ignored. After the children were in bed, the “girl” would get on the phone with her friends and eat every potato chip in the house. Woe to the Mrs. Browns of the world who failed to stock up on junk food before a sitter’s visit. Word spread quickly of no snack houses! As did word of lousy tippers, smelly houses or creepy husbands.
Besides babies waking up and needing real care, I only had a few frightening things happen while sitting. Once a hollow-faced man appeared in the window next to the front door. I screamed and he ran away. When I called the parents, they told me it was just Jim, the neighborhood crazy guy, and he was harmless. And then they laughed. Apparently they thought terrorized fourteen year old babysitters were a real riot!
Another time the telephone rang and I answered thinking it might be the parents. A male voice said “I’m in your basement and I’m going to come up and kill you!” I was about to run out of the house with the kids when the ten-year-old said. “There’s no phone in the basement.” Then he laughed and told me what a “stupidhead” I was.
However, for the most part it was boring and so I’ve never understood why so many movies have been made about babysitters. Take Adventures in Babysitting (1987), the sitter and her charges are chased up the side of a high-rise in Chicago by mafia thugs, save a runaway teen from a rat-infested bus terminal, and crash a fraternity party … to name just a few of their adventures. Then they had to race back to the suburbs before the parents arrived home. Of course, the parents were clueless and didn’t suspect a thing.
I imagine if I was a teenage babysitter today my review would read: Panics easily, eats you out of house and home, and bores the children to death.
I’ve been trying to resolve a very serious issue with WordPress for the past two weeks. It’s not as though I’m new to blogging or even HTML. I’ve been working with computers since the first personal desktops were sold and developing web pages since the mid ’90s. I may not be as on top of the technology as I once was, but I can tell when I’m getting the old “did you check to make sure your machine was plugged in?” treatment.
First they told me it was the theme I was using. It had been retired or some such nonsense. Retired? Does that mean there’s a retirement home for old WordPress themes down in Florida?
So I changed my theme which is always such a joy. You have to engage with them (kind of like a blind date) to find out if you’re compatible. And I don’t know if it’s a good idea to change your theme. What do you think? Does it irritate you when a blogger you like to frequent changes their theme?
Anyway … IT DID NOT WORK.
Next I was informed I’d eaten way too many cookies and caches and my computer was constipated. There are two issues I have with deleting cookies and caches on a regular basis:
This has been an issue since the first cookie was baked. Browser based applications should have figured out how to handle them without user intervention by now. You’d think, right?
Deleting all your cookies and caches means re-authenticating on most of the sites you frequent. Lovely if you’ve got a photographic memory and can recall all your many credentials. I do not.
Anyway … IT DID NOT WORK.
Next they suggested that I upgrade to the Business Plan at $250 a year. I’m glad I didn’t fall for that one!
Finally … after a few shitteries from yours truly, they admitted the issue was the browser I was using. I guess they rolled out a new version of WordPress without testing it on Safari. Okay, to give them the benefit of a doubt, without enough version testing on Safari.
Anyway … IT DID WORK. Although I sure hope Firefox and Safari play nice together on my machine.
After finally fixing the problem, I began to wonder if the WP help desk guys told me a little white lie about my dear old theme. But apparently they hadn’t. It’s nowhere to be found. Alas, whatever your name was Dear Old Theme, I wish you a happy retirement.
[Still figuring out how to add images in this new browser]
There are many things we don’t understand about others. The face and body are there, but we can’t see the invisible footsteps left behind, the old heartbeats that have made them alive, soft and warm, troubled and happy, and we seldom have the time to spend solving the mystery of who they are.
I’d taken a temporary job in the US to help settle Vietnamese boat people. Normally I didn’t work in the US, but I’d made an exception. My case load was about forty people. Some were couples, frail and slow moving; there were families with young children; and then there were a handful of single people.
My job was to get them placed in housing, set up bank accounts, enroll them in English classes, find them work, etc. They’d all received small sums of money from the US government and private charities to make a start. The…
I just took my first trip post vaccination and oh my, how the world has changed. From a safe distance I spotted my very first Spiky Thermoleggon! Luckily he, she or it did not see me!
Spiky Thermoleggon and pet (assumed to be dog)
.
Can you see the face?
The Flirty Palmgalour. Yikes she’s looking straight at me!
The bathroom in my hotel room was haunted by an Inkyglobbo which grew steadily by the minute until I ran out into the hall where radioactive Bubbleheads waited impatiently for another victim.
“Come into the light!”
I closed my eyes and clicked my heels three times and guess where I transported to? A world composed entirely of small plastic pieces.
No, that’s not graffiti. It’s the exit of the newest ride at kiddie friendly Legoland, San Diego. I know. I didn’t get it either.
Because the ride had just debuted, not all the kinks had been worked out. Thus, we ended up waiting in this dark hall for about thirty minutes while maintenance folks ran in and out the “Model Citizens” door until they figured out the problem. Oh dear, I thought. I’ve just escaped the Thermoleggon, the flirty Palmgalour and the Inkyglobbo only to spend the rest of my life trapped on Emmet’s Flying Adventure! But, years ago I’d survived being trapped on Disneyland’s It’s a Small World ride for twenty minutes and eventually regained my sanity. So I could do it.
Holy Cow! It’s a fast-paced rock and rolling ride meant to assault all the senses. Some of the kids wanted to immediately go again but my four year old grandson had had enough. He couldn’t wait to get over to the aquarium and watch the sharks and the seahorses and pet the starfish. Apparently they survived the pandemic.
Now that it’s time to get out in the world again, do so gingerly. Things have changed!
He was worried about his daughter in that way of doing what I say, not what I do, and she had a life of her own and it was dangerous by his standards, nothing like the risks he had taken. She was an alcoholic, hardly ever drugs, which was a good thing, but she was a binge drinker. A bottle of vodka or maybe four or five bottles of wine, sometimes a few bottles of sake and then she would pass out. When she would call him in the throes of a drunk, she would cry and tell him she was an outcast. She didn’t fit into normal society. She saw the world in a different light. Pain was part of her sexual experience and afterward she would feel guilty and it all related to the way she had grown up as a child. The secret things that had happened.
