I have been binge watching Vikings on Netflix.  Pretty violent and bloody but a good story and very interesting.

As I was trying to go to sleep last night I had something going through my head and I got up and wrote it down.  Here it is...

I fought in the war until remorse took over my soul.

So I refused to be a part of he slaughter of men as remorseful as myself.

I became a traitor to my friends, family and peers.

What was I to do?  I traveled the world and met people who were just like me.

We had different colored skin and different eyes.  Some were black, some brown, some an unnamable color.

But we were all the same.

We were trying to see the good all around us and trying to not see the bad.

For the bad is a disease and it spreads so rapidly.

I laughed with my brothers and sisters, and we danced and we sang.

For music is the fastest way to soothe the remorseful soul.

Peace be with you.

 I couldn't sleep last night and so many thoughts were running through my head:

Why is it that young men have decided that a two or three day old beard is attractive?  I personally like a full soft beard.  Clean shaved would look much better, in my opinion.

There is this show on tv called Moderrn Family.  I call it Modern Cleavage because most of the females in this show actually show lots of cleavage in their dressing.  The mother unfortunately, is very thin with no cleavage.  And the youngest is too young but I keep wondering when she is going to join the modern cleavage movement.

A lot of young women wear their hair long and in a mess.  Is there a method to getting your hair to look this bad.  I guess at least it is better than those untidy ponytails with a headband that I thought only volleyball players wore.

My next thoughts were of song dedicated to sports i.e Scuba Diving, Jethro Tulls, Aqualung.  And it is ackwolung like aflack not Ockwalung.

Runninng:  Manfred Mann's Runner (Olympic song) hard to find but its so worth it.

Running:  Tom Petty & HBs, Running down a dream

Running: Pink Floyd, On the run

Running:  Blues Travelers, Runaround

Running:  CSN, Take the money and run

Riding:  Riding the Storm Out, REO Speedwagon

Riding:  Allmann Brothers, Midnight Rider

Riding:  America, Horse with no Name

Jumping:  Van Halen's Jump

Skating:  Jethro Tull's Skating Away

Diving:  Arc of the Diver by Steve Winwood

Baseball:  Put me in Coach (Centerfield) by CCR

Surfing:  most of the Beach Boys songs

Basketball:  Basketball Jones by Cheech and Chong

Boxing:  Hurricane by Bob Dylan

Boxing:  Eye of the Tiger by Survivor

Dancing:  Billy Joel, All she wants to do is Dance

Dancing:  Bruce Springstein, Dancing in the Dark

Dancing:  Robert Plant, Dance on my own

Dancing:  Billy Idol, Dancing with myself

Dancing:  Breaking Benjamin, Dance with the Devil

Bungie Jumping:  Tom Petty & HBs Learning to Fly

Flying:  Pink Floyd Learning to Fly

Flying:  REO Speedwagon Time for me to Fly

Generic:  clap,clap,clap,clap,clap, clap,clap,clap  Let's Go

If you can think of any more, please let me know.

Peace be with you.

Just a few thoughts

While reading my most recent paperback novel (yes, a book!), I realized how much I hate the gutter in paperbacks.  To read the middle print I have to break the back of the book.  I do hate doing this when it is not even my own book.  Look at the pages.  On the left side and right side of the open book is a quarter of an inch of space.  Why can't the publishers give that space up and let us have a decent gutter?  It certainly would save a lot of books.

Also, when a lot of books change chapters they sometime use white space above and below the title.  This is entirely wasted space.  Get rid of that empty space and it would save on the publishing costs as it would cut down on how many pages were in the book.

* * * 

I have a case of terminal chapped lips.  I have tried so many different kinds of lip balm and nothing seems to help.  I guess it would help if I didn't bite the skin off my lips when they become flaky.  I have a lip balm in each bathroom, by the kitchen, by my bed and next to my reclining chair.  Does anyone ever use an entire lip balm?  No sooner had I thought of this that I used an entire Chapstick.  Thus the answer to the question above.

* * * 

As I was doing laundry the other day, I folded socks and discovered that I had an extra sock.  I checked the dryer and there was no sock.  I then checked the washer in case I had left it in there.  No sock was found.  I have a little basket in the laundry where I throw extra socks.  I go through them ever so often and occasionally find a matching pair of socks.  My thought is, "where do these lost socks go?"  Do they get eaten by our washing machine and are we clogging up the sewer system with a shitload of extra socks?  Is there a website called, "Find my lost socks?"  Maybe there should be...

* * *

Lying with the dog in my lap, I was wondering what do dogs think?  I think they are thinking of 

    1.  food

    2.  pooping and peeing

    3.  toys

    4.  car ride with windows down

    5.  walk

But when my dog is asleep and she starts sort of barking and moving her legs and ears, is she dreaming of chasing an animal?  Or  possibly running away from something scary?  And do dogs think in sentences or just one or two word thoughts?  I often wonder if my dog could talk, what would she say to me?

* * *

Now some aggravations of mine.

People do you know what a thesaurus is?  Look up "awesome" and find some other word instead.  This is awesome, that is awesome.  Is it really awesome?  The Grand Canyon is awesome, Niagara Falls is awesome, but are you really thinking that the inane trivial  happenings in your life are really "awesome"?

I am also getting sick of "high fives".  They are fastly becoming "high tens".  In this day and age of confinement or wearing masks everywhere, shouldn't we find a more hygienic way of telling those around you that "yea, rah, rah, and toot toot, we did it."  How about a "low toe"?  Or elbows are pretty hygienic?  Even butts are hygienic but only if they are covered.

And finally, one of my most aggravating pet peeves -- idiot drivers who don't use their turn signals, and those morons who turn the blinker on right as they are turning.

On a positive note, Peace be with you.

 One of my Facebook friends wrote about tomorrow is never happening.  I thought it was a pretty deep thought.

I used to meditate on being here now.  I got so irritated because I kept thinking that now had just gone and I was not here now.  I now meditate using beads and use it like a rosary.  Each bead is a prayer for patience, contentment, serenity, peace, peace on Earth, peace in Ukraine, peace of mind.  I then pray for each of my friends' health and serenity, then i pray for their dogs' health and happiness.

I have been diagnosed with critical anemia.  I have had a blood transfusion and now have to have another colonoscopy (the one true dread of people over 50).  I am tired of being tired.

In my younger days I was almost hyperactive.  I had such energy that I think I scared some folks.  I would get up each morning and make a list of things I wished to accomplish.  At the end of the day I had checked everything off and then some.  I guess at 71 I should be able to relax and accept my fatigue, but in my mind I still wish I could accomplish things.  Any things...just accomplish something.  Most days I accomplish making my bed, washing up, brushing my teeth and changing clothes.  And then there are other days when I stay in my gown and don't make the bed because I remain in it.

My main accomplishment these days is reading a good book.  Or just reading a book.  I haven't read too many good books lately.  I am on a couple of book club sites to get ideas for good books.  If anyone has read a really good book, please let me know about it.

As for now, I remain being here now.

Peace be with you.

 I woke up this morning feeling pretty good.  Very little pain and a positive attitude.  I did my stretches and exercised, then did my physical therapy exercises.  I then put my legs up the wall and afterwards meditated.  I cannot still my mind so I pray beads.  I pray for serenity, contentment, peace, peace on Earth and for the health and serenity for my family and friends.

I checked my email and Facebook as usual and got a little disgusted with what I was reading.  There is a lot of negativity and hate out there and I, for one, am getting very tired of it.  I have decided that from Nov. 25 to Dec. 25 not to read any of this negativity or hate.  In this month of Peace, Joy and Love, I am going to block anyone who posts anything of this nature.

And I also would like everyone to keep their religion, racist views to themselves.  I am perfectly content with my own religion and unracist views.

I have been going through a rough year.  Moving to a new state, packing and unpacking has been very stressful.  I have had a lot of pain in my back, neck and shoulders.  This morning I am feeling fine.  It might be because I got myself a mouth guard and didn't clench my teeth all night long.  If I did I had cushion.  It might also be because I had a nice positive dream just before I woke up.

I was finally referred to a Pain Management group in Madison yesterday.  My appointment is in the last week of February.  I was pretty p o'd with this.  I decided that if I couldn't see someone to help my pain be relieved, I must do so myself.  I am dedicated to doing my exercises,etc each morning.  I am also dedicated to doing away with any negativity and hate for the next while.

My friends and family, I wish you Peace, Health and Serenity in this holiday period.

Namaste.

“Are we really happy here with this lonely game we play?  Looking for words to say.  Searching but not finding understanding anyway.”  We’re lost in this Mask Parade.

I was singing this song the other day and inserted the Mask Parade part. It is supposed to be Masquerade.   But isn’t this just so apropos?

I find that as I got out the door each day, I have to remind myself of the mask I am wearing.

The other day I found myself without my mask and was just running into the store for a simple item.  I did the Bazooka Joe thing and pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose

In this horrible day and age, I find that I am not embarrassed by much of anything.  I wear clothes for days; my hair stands up all over the place and I’m sure I have bad breath.  I noticed that more because of the mask.  I haven’t worn makeup in I don’t know how long, even if I bathe and dress up to go out.

I am looking forward to the day when I get up, take a shower, put on a little eye liner, do my eyebrows and swathe on some lip gloss.  We shall go back to the living and the time of personal hygiene pride.

I have been reading some really strange stuff lately.  I read the three Little Women series.  I read Anne of Green Gables.  Of course, these are all freebies on-line.

I just picked up Lost Horizon from my library upstairs and read that.  If you haven’t read this book, I highly suggest it.  In it a monk tells the protagonist, “Exhaustions of the passions is the beginning of wisdom.”  I asked myself, “what am I passionate about?”

The dictionary explains “passion” as a feeling of love or lust.  It is an amorous feeling of desire.  I looked around the room I was in and asked myself, “is there anything in the room that if I lost, I would be very sad?”  I couldn’t find anything in that room except for my dog that I would feel lost without.

I am to the point in my life that I want rid of my possessions.  I have accumulated forty-eight years of possessions.  And now I am stuck with my husband’s possessions as well.  And there is not one thing except the dog that I would just die without.

Later that evening, lost in thought, I wrote down, “There once was a man who took my breath away, and then there was a man who gave my breath back to me.”  Which was more valuable to my life?

Have you noticed that sometimes it is hard to breath with a mask on?  I have been watching “Grey’s Anatomy” on Netflix.  The masks that the doctors wear are so familiar to me.  Are we getting used to this Mask Parade?

https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tFP1zcsNjDNLjIoSjJg9BLPSc3PUygqLS5OzclRyE0sLixNLUpMSQUA-HUNeA&q=leon+russell+masquerade&oq=Leon&aqs=chrome.1.69i59j46j69i57j0l2j46l3.2506j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Lonely is:

Not cleaning your house because no one visits to see it, and you don’t care.

Wanting someone to visit but you’d have to bathe.

The quiet of the house is driving you bonkers.

You’re tired of doing puzzles.

Letting the laundry back up because you wear the same thing for a week or more and you don’t really care.

Wanting to call someone but you haven’t done anything to talk to them about and you feel guilty if they have news and it reminds you that you have no life.

Understanding about that guy in the movie who yelled out the window, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”, but realizing it wouldn’t make any difference because everyone else is in the same boat as you are.

Talking to the dog because she needs to know that you are doing things like brushing your teeth or going to pee.

Thinking “F it” and having a glass of wine and taking a nap at 11:00 am.

Being elated over visiting the mailbox and waving to your neighbor.

Your refrigerator is clean because you’re not shopping for groceries because you’re not cooking and eating.

Eating a sandwich over the sink so not to dirty dishes or use a napkin.

Having time to paint your toenails, brush the dog and trim her toenails.

Wanting to go bike riding but you’re old and scared of falling.

Wanting to take a walk but it is too hot, and the mosquitoes are killer.

Lonely is the pits.

Peace be with us all.

Some thoughts on Corona Virus and others

Last night as usual I was up and awake at 2 in the morning.  I kept having these thoughts and I got up and wrote them down.  I haven’t written anything in a very long time.

This virus is killing the lower and middle class, which I think the 1% is so in favor of.

Why should you limit boating to two people:  if five people in the same family who have been together through the whole cluster fuck of stupidity, why can’t they cannot go boating in their own boat?

Try going through this pandemic when your husband of 34 years has just died, and you are alone but for one or two days a week!  Thank God, sweet baby Jesus, Buddha, Shiva, Mohammed and all the other gods for my daughter and her husband.  They have been visiting one day a week helping me out with chores I can’t do and making dinner for us in the evening.  And I have been going to their place for a night of dinner and board games.

I am very thankful for my family and friends who have been checking up on me.  Never a day goes by that I don’t get a call or text from someone special to me just to check up on how I am doing that day.  A true friend is a gift from God.

Some of my friends and neighbors have started having Social Distance Parties.  We gather on someone’s driveway, bring our own chair and a beer.  We laugh and talk about various topics.  Someone brings a favorite joke to share.  It is such a relief to me to be around folks that I care about, and it refreshes my soul to be out of my house and in the open air with loving friends.  Humans need social interaction, but we have gone several years not socializing remaining on our phone, computer or notebook and not interacting in person.

In the past week I have seen families outside playing together in their yard, going on long walks and taking the dog.  (I believe dogs have Cabin Fever as well as we humans do.) 

Families are rediscovering old board games and jigsaw puzzles.  And I love it.

I’ve heard in Illinois that there is a large fine for being out without a mask.  Aren’t there just some creative masks out there?  I just hope they are safe enough so we can eventually kick this Mother’s butt!

Protesters are out there in the streets, some with masks and some without.  They will probably cause a mass growth of this virus and we will have to suffer further because of their stupidity.

I’m not one to be a sheep and follow the crowd, but this is a serious illness.  I’m 69 years old and I sure don’t want to get it.

I, personally, am climbing the walls.  I can’t pack up stuff because the Goodwill stores are closed.  And so, after packing at least 10 boxes and sent them before this began, I have lost my desire to pack up my junk.  My plan at the present time is to get rid of all my junk, try and sell as much stuff as I can and hopefully sell my house to downsize.

I’ve never been alone in my life.  I always had family or a roommate.  I am so thankful for my dog, Emily, whom the hubster picked but she became my dog.

Desperately trying to keep to my routine of making a list in the morning of what I want to accomplish.   That list is not getting crossed off.  Some days I just stay in my jammies and read or do puzzles that are scattered all over my house.  Some days I forget to eat.

My garden, what’s left of it, is going to suffer this year but I only have raspberries, strawberries and asparagus (which I am cutting every day).  If anyone would like a handful of asparagus, let me know.

I fear that the flower beds will not be flowering this year.  But come to think of it, maybe we should all plant a million flower seeds everywhere just to remind ourselves that there is a future ahead.

How long will this continue?  Just when we felt we got it in hand, “they”” extend the “Stay at Home” isolation order.

I am so very lucky that I have friends and family who check up on me.  Thank you all so much.  It means the world to me.

I encourage you all to have a Social Distancing Party.  Bring your chair and sit six feet apart and wear your masks.  Bring a funny joke or story to tell and be safe.  Laughter will get us through this.

After this is over, I think when we meet others on the street or in stores, instead of saying, “hi”, put your fist to your heart.  Remember, we are all in this together.

I haven't blogged in quite some time because I've had a constant neck and back ache.  However, I was cleaning my computer today and came across this I wrote several years ago.  Hope there no offense.  It was written tongue in cheek.  I love this face on Jess.

           I hate kids.  There, I’ve said it.  Now deal with it!  I can’t stand being around them.  I don’t really want to look at their new pictures.  You have them.  So keep them to yourselves.  Mine are in college and almost no trouble at all, and I don’t look forward to being a Grandmother, thank you.

            When I go to a restaurant and they ask me, “Smoking or non-smoking?” I just say, “As long as there are no children, I don’t care.  Please excuse me but I get to go out to a restaurant maybe once a month and I don’t want to listen to some snotty nosed kid whine about wanting pop not milk or needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of your Porterhouse.

I especially don’t want to listen to you try to get the kid to eat what is in front of him when I had to watch you feed him crackers and cookies while waiting for your food.  I actually watched a mother feed her kid those little plastic tubs of jelly while waiting for breakfast one morning and then she couldn’t understand why he was bouncing off the walls instead of eating his eggs when they arrived.

Sure, when my girls were little I thought they were God’s gift to humanity.  I still think they have a lot of potential.  When they were babies, I nursed them and I didn’t get too far from them until they were weaned.    When they were toddlers I did not drag them to adult parties where people might have been drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes or telling jokes they didn’t need to hear.  They went to bed at 8:00 which is when I had my time to my husband and myself.  They sure as heck didn’t sleep in my bed.

I suppose I am from the old school.  I do believe kids should be seen and not heard at least until they have practiced their manners with their peers.  I have always felt that we were just renting our kids for a few years.  They are little people in training to become adults, on their own, away from me.  They go and have their lives and I get mine back.

Sure I miss my girls quite frequently but that does not mean I want to be entertained by your rugrats.  I have to admit that I do know several kids who are pretty well house broken.  They have good manners, don’t whine or pick their nose in public.  They are pretty fun to talk to and to kid around with.

On second thought, maybe I don’t hate kids.  Maybe I just hate bad parents.

“Out of the strain of the doing, into the peace of done” – Julia Louise Woodruff.

A few years ago, I was attending a seminar.  I don’t remember what it was about or anything except we were asked by the moderator to list five things that described who we were.  I recall that my number one answer was “human being”.  I was totally shocked that of all the people in the room, I was the only one who thought of myself first, as a human being.

I remember pondering the situation later and decided that this was one of things wrong with society today—the fact that we don’t look into the face of each person we meet and see them as a human being first.  The fact that we don’t think of ourselves first as a human being still baffles me.

If we did think of ourselves in this manner, all bigotry could end.  There would be no racial problems, no religious problems, no gender problems.

I think we should start a new movement and it be a movement to become human beings.

Asked what my favorite possessions are, I have to admit that my living room furniture is one of my beloved possessions.  It took me months to talk the hubster into purchasing furniture.  Our living room had stood empty for over a year before I got him to go shopping.  All that was there were Boris’ dog toys and bones.  We called it Borrie, borrie land.

We made our way to the Ethan Allen furniture store in Dayton, Ohio.  I wanted to look around and determine what our style was.

I knew I wanted an oriental rug and he wanted Queen Anne style chairs and furniture.  We got a pretty good idea of what we wanted and ventured to a store that specialized in making furniture to your requests.

We settled on the chairs and couch.  The couch is low and a lovely green shade.  My favorite color is green.  The chairs were covered in this oriental style pattern that the woman I was working with warned me that the material “wouldn’t last.”

Next we got a rug in my next favorite color—teal blue.  I found a couple of oriental prints that had bamboo and birds and a bamboo frame.  I also found a couch table with glass in the top and the legs were bamboo style.

I went back to that Ethan Allen store and found this most wonderful metal dragon.  I got it for the hubster’s birthday because he was born in the year of the dragon.  That began his collection of dragon figurines.

About twenty-two years later I talked the hubster into recovering our beautiful chairs as the front was becoming bare.  They were covered in a strong celery material.  I was pleased.  I purchased three maroon oriental rugs and changed the look of the room.

My girls have kidded me over the years about my furniture staying things like, “we sold your green couch on E-bay.”  This while we were away on vacation.

And so, this furniture will have to make it until I die.  I just hope my girls can get good money out of the beautiful set of furniture.

My other favorite possession is my wok.  I purchased it one year when I decided I needed to learn to cook some oriental dishes.  Fried rice is a specialty of mine and helped us make it through some not too wealthy years.  I also had Mu Shu Pork at a restaurant and do make it well, if I say so myself.  I even fixed Mu Shu Pork for the school administration and teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week.  In fact, I made it two years in a row.

That wok has had as many miles as my furniture and I am grateful that I spent the money on it.

Another favorite possession of mine is my garden and houseplants.  However, turning 68, I seem to be falling apart.  I may have my garden tilled up and grass planted this fall.  I just can’t seem to keep up with it anymore.  And my houseplants have suffered also.

Now my favorite possession is my health.

What is my ideal of perfect happiness?

One of my favorite cartoons as a child was Peanuts.  I felt so sorry for poor pathetic Charlie Brown.  My favorite cartoon of him was when he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he answered, “Outrageously happy.”  I answered with that for years.  Now that I am older, I realize that happiness, outrageous or perfect, either one is not attainable.  Contentment and serenity are much more reasonable attainments.

My closest I ever come to perfect happiness is when I am in my garden and listening to my music.  The world travels very far away from me.  I am in my thoughts or singing along to a favorite song.  My hands are dirty, my body is sweating bullets and I am so very content.

Another time when I am very happy, or content is when I am at a gathering of my friends, family or my book club.  Just the closeness of those that I love the best around me gives me peace of mind.  I’m smiling now just thinking about it.

My most recent bout of happiness has come through a grandson.  Seeing my baby with her baby gives me an ecstatic feeling of joy and peace.  I never thought I would become a grandmother and am still just flabbergasted each time I see them together.

Meditation also gives me a lot of peace.  Just sitting and being quiet with my thoughts of breathing in the positive and breathing out the negative in my life.  My newest meditation is to breathe in health and breathe out pain and sickness.  I’m working on myself since medicine and physical therapy isn’t seeming to be working well for me.

I guess I have learned in my old age that perfect happiness is not a realistic endeavor.  Realistic is being content with what you have in the here and now.

Peace be with you.

Favorite Books

My very favorite book is Catcher in the Rye.  We studied it in my first year of college.  I laughed so hard reading this book the first time.  The second time I read it, after we had dissected it class, I cried my eyes out.  I have read this book so many times and have gone through three different copies.  I can pick this book up and turn to any page and enjoy the memory of reading this book the first time.

I have also read the Clan of the Cave Bear series several times.  I just love Ayla living in nature and discovering new things.  I watched the movie once, but it didn’t do it for me.  A book is so much more in-depth than a movie.  The last one in the series wasn’t a favorite for me.  Valley of the Horses is my very favorite in the series.

Janet Evanovich is another writer that I enjoy and can read over.  Stephanie Plum is a scream and her grandmother is a double scream.

I have a collection of thirty-eight Rex Stout novels.  Detective, Nero Wolfe, is an eccentric who has a boy Friday named, Archie Goodwin.  Archie writes the story from his perspective and he is a joy!  Some of these books have 35 cents as their price-tag.  That is how old these books are.  I have read them numerous times also.

I read one of the best books ever recently.  It is A Dangerous Road by Kris Nelscott.  It is about the Civil Rights movement, MLK Jr.’s death, and the Kennedy deaths.  Beautifully written, wonderful characters and such interesting history.

I highly recommend all of the above.

Peace of Mind

I have been asked what gives me peace of mind.  I used to find it daily when I was practicing my yoga every morning.  I had to give that up because I was waking the hubster and he would be so irritable. I need to move my yoga room downstairs, but I have been lazy.

When I meditate, I always pray for peace of mind, peace within and peace on Earth.

As I was in the garden yesterday, planting potatoes and onions, I realized that this is where I find peace of mind.  My back wasn’t hurting, and I was listening to my favorite Pandora station, a Steely Dan station.  I hummed along and even sang some of the songs as I gently placed each piece of potato seed---and onion into the soil.

Writing this, I had to check out Loggins and Messina’s song “Peace of Mind.”  If you haven’t seen the video check it out here.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LTVr31Rkc

The dolphins swimming and the clouds and the ocean are very peace giving.  He also mentions taking off your shoes.  That can really bring peace of mind as well as peace of the dawgs!

I believe the best peace of mind I have ever had was at the beach.  Any beach.  Shoes off, water lapping, refreshing beverage in hand.  I’ll take that any day.

One thing that really gives me peace of mind is knowing that my girls and their families are healthy, happy, working and have insurance.  My greatest pleasure in life was raising my girls.  They are responsible adults and I am so very proud of both of them.

Peace be with you.

What is one of the most beautiful places you have seen?

Being a pantheist, almost every place I have been is beautiful to me.  I love the mountains, the desert, the oceans and my home.

I have to admit that when I first stepped into the Grand Canyon, I cried like a baby.  It was so overwhelmingly beautiful that I was beside myself.  I finally quit crying and took a good look through clear eyes. We went to a special meeting at night in a niche overlooking the canyon.  The tour guide had us sit in a circle and be quiet for quite some time.  It was almost like hearing the canyon breathing.  He told us a lot of history of the canyon and it was very interesting.

The first time I went to Jamaica I fell in love.  The water is so beautiful, the people are so lovely, the food is wonderful, and you can drink the water.  The land is not so lovely but the beaches are stupendous.

Niagara Falls is another place that is stunningly beautiful.  The sound of the water rushing over the cliffs is so enticing.  If you stand close enough you can feel the spray from the water.

I also love a Japanese garden.  Anderson Gardens in Rockford is so beautiful.  Just every corner you turn is another lovely scene.  I also enjoyed the Japanese garden that I visited in Arizona.

I had hoped to visit Japan sometime in my life, but I don’t think I could stand being on a plane for that long.  I also want to see Stonehenge someday and I think I could do that flight.  I would really love to visit the Netherlands and see the island where my ancestors came from.

The desert is a mystery to me.  I don’t understand why anyone would want to live where there is a lack of water.  It is very pretty and I love the cacti.

The most beautiful place I have ever seen is my home.  I love the view of the lake.  I love my garden and my herb garden.  There is no place like home.

Photo is Washington Island, Wisconsin.

Peace be with you.

Who have been my best friends throughout the years?

My first best friend was Emma.  We met in Kindergarten and were very best friends until Junior High.  Emma was a beautiful little girl.  Blonde with Shirley Temple curls.  She was an only child and her momma spoiled her to death.  She was very sweet though.  We had a lot of fabulous times together.  I especially loved going roller skating and to the library with her.  Her mom always took us.

In my freshman year at high school a new girl came to Carlisle.  Her name was Barb and we became fast friends.  She loved to dance as much as I did, and we went to all the dances.  She embarrassed me the worst in my life.  As I was singing a solo in choir, she snuck behind me and pulled my half slip to my ankles.  I could have died.  She moved away the next year.

Jeanie became my next best friend throughout high school.  She was a red head and very popular.  We witnessed a UFO together one evening when we were driving home from a football game.  She was my matron of honor and I was her maid of honor.

When I got to college, I met Pat in my speech class.  We were supposed to pick a partner and we looked at each other and just laughed.  We had so many adventures, it was unbelievable.  Still to this day when we meet, it is like we were never apart.

Dave, Dave and Fuzzer were our best friends for many years.  Dave and Fuzzer (brothers) even lived with us for a while.  Dave and Dave and Ferb and I played cards almost every weekend.  I swore that Dave L and Ferb cheated but they swore they never did.

When we moved to Illinois, I became friends with Ellie.  The hubsters got along as well.  I just wish the children had gotten along better but they grew up to act like brother and sisters.  Ellie and I walked a lot together.  A group of us would get together and boat out on the lake.  We’d tie up the boats and the kids would jump and play in the water as we adults had refreshing beverages and snacks.  Ellie and her hubster were travel agents and they talked us into a Jamaican vacation for our anniversary.  We took the kids and had one of many happy Jamaican vacations.  We also got together for Summerfest and put together a lunch stand called, Da Grille.  We made Italian beef and Italian sausage sandwiches.  We made enough money to take all the workers to Florida for a three-day weekend.  One of the saddest days of my life was the day I bid Ellie farewell as they moved to Arizona.

Nancy, across the street, became a best friend.  We had many walks when we would “solve the many problems of the world.”  We eventually became the “Women who bake and drink, and the men who love them.”  And on occasion we were, “Women who can and drink, etc…”

Naomi and I were friends for many years.  She played guitar and sang, and I sang harmony.  We had many walks also.  I adopted her dog, Dot, and if Naomi wasn’t available to walk, I walked Dot.  We were in Front Porch Jam together and it was a long strange trip but one I will never forget.  I still enjoy going to see her live band, Decades.

My friend, Lauri, asked me if I’d be interested in helping her paint.  She painted and wallpapered for folks in the area.  I joined in and we had so much fun working together.  We once painted a tavern and I remember standing on the bar to get the ceiling.  Lauri and I enjoy trips to the Goodwill store in Delavan (if you haven’t been, you need to go), outlet stores around Madison, and lunch at Daddy Maxwell’s in Williams Bay, WI.  Go on Friday and have the fish tacos.  Lauri and I plan to take a trip to Texas someday.  That is where she originated, and she wants me to see it.

Suzy was my housekeeper for a couple of years.  She cleaned my house like I cleaned my house.  She became a reflexologist and wrote a textbook on the subject.  Suzy and I did several girl trips.  We went to Chicago once when she was speaking at a book store.  I was kind of her secretary.  We also took a long journey to Washington Island in northern Wisconsin.  We laughed so hard we hurt.  I was sad to see her retire to Arizona but was happy for her to retire.

My neighbor, Garnett, was my friend off and on for several years.  She was kind of a hermit and a homebody.  She never wanted to do anything but sit at home and watch soap operas and drink beer.  She was diagnosed with cancer five years ago and I was determined to get her up and moving.  I just wanted to spend time with her and make her do things she had never thought of doing.  I got her to eat Chinese, Indian, Thai, Greek and Italian.  She was part Mexican and only ate Mexican food all her life.  After radiation and chemo the first time, she lost her sense of taste and couldn’t eat meat which she had been a big meat eater all her life.

She and I went on garden tours, went kayaking, went on a tour of the Rock River as well as our culinary adventures.  We also tried out for Rock Valley College movie department and acted in three short movies together.  We went to see live bands perform and even got in a few dances.

The hubster, me and Charyl (Garnett’s best friend for life) took Garnett to Colorado as she had never seen the mountains before.  When we left, she called them “her mountains”.

Garnett passed last year, and I am just so empty.  Since then I have been attacked by this stupid pinched nerve in my neck.  And now my best friend is Pain.

Photo is Suzy, Nancy, me and Lauri.

Peace be with us all.

This morning I read an article on line that my daughter, Jess, had recommended to me.  It was entitled, “I don’t give a fuck.”  It had the word “fuck” in it at least 137 times as the author included that information in his article.  He is a very good writer and the article was not only very funny but very insightful.

I thanked Jess for the recommendation and proceeded to tell her that it brought back memories of my old best friend, Dirty Dave, and how depressed he was during his divorce.  He had married this little bit of a bitch girl who had no forehead and talked in decibels that made your face reverberate.  I was under that impression that no one was good enough to marry my best friend.  Well, maybe except Becky, of the luminous breasts.  Becky was so cool in the 70’s she wore a white dress to a wedding of a friend and you could see her dark nipples through the material.  The guys were all made of wood that day, I’m sure.

But Becky would have nothing to do with Dave because he was, of course, Dirty.  He did not take kindly to bathing.  He was a carpenter by trade and his hands were coarse from working in the weather.  He had drastically bad sinuses and probably couldn’t smell himself.  In his last years he took to wearing this most ungodly smelling deodorant that was almost as bad as smelling his b.o.

Anyhow back to the divorce.  His little fairy bitch of a wife with no forehead decided that she wanted more out of life and decided to ditch Dave.  He was so sad.  I couldn’t believe my buddy who I couldn’t spend 10 minutes with without laughing my ass off.  (Oh dear, LMAO in the honest sense.)  But truly, he was so funny and had the greatest sense of humor.  On the day of his divorce he headed to a bar and happened upon one called “Fuck Off And Die”.  He bought a baseball hat and wore it to our house where he crashed for the night.

Ferb was so impressed with the hat that he bought it from Dave.  Dave needed money at the time.  (We have lots of photos with different people wearing the FOAD hat.)  Dave came around a lot during this divorce time.  You’d try to talk to him about something and he’d just say, “I don’t give a shit.”  So I got into a foul mood one evening and barked back that “I don’t give a shit either.”  It was presidential election time about then and Dave suggests that we run for President and Vice President on the “I Don’t Give A Shit”, party’s ticket.  We laughed so hard we cried.

He was a wonderful friend and I am so sorry that we lost him early. 

What books had an effect on your life?

The first book that I read that I truly enjoyed for its entertainment factor was Catcher in the Rye.  Of course, Holden Caufield didn’t really change my life, but I did discover that there were books out there that I could investigate and would give me some enjoyment.

I remember reading The Ugly American in Civics class in high school and being totally blown away by the realization that America was not the kind, giving land of the free, home of the brave that I took it for.

Before I get into books that changed my life, I need to thank someone whose impact regarding libraries changed my life.  My best friend, Emma, had the greatest mom.  Her name was Mabel and I adored her.  She took Emma and me to the library about every weekend that we weren’t in school.  I don’t remember Mabel reading anything but trash magazines but her caring enough to give us the chance to love reading is still within me.

I remember reading the Beany Malone series of mysteries for young adults.  I couldn’t wait to get to the library and get the next in the series.  That probably started me on my way of reading various series of books in the future.  After that I sauntered over to gothic novels starting with Jane Eyre and Withering Heights.

I think I took several years off reading novels because I was in school and had to read what I HAD to read.

After school I became obsessed with Irving Wallace novels.  He wrote a familiar pattern.  Introduce several characters, entwine a mystery into the mix and then connect all the characters with the mystery.  Some of my favorites were The Man, The Prize, and The Word.

Later in my life I became fascinated with Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear series.  I loved Ayla and her adventures.  I was enamored that she lived alone in the world and could survive, no not just survive, discover all these wonders around her.  The herbs, the weapons, and survival skills on acid. I myself, am a jellyfish and would not survive for twenty minutes alone in the wilderness.  I’d drive myself stupid with my mind racing about all the possibilities of things that could eat me, trip me and I’d break something and be even worse off, or just being alone and not knowing a single thing about survival.

One of the books that really knocked me for a loop was Atlas Shrugged.  I loved Dagney just because she was a kick-ass woman during this very difficult time in history.  But John Galt was my hero.  He wanted all the great minds in the world to go on strike and let the world know what it would be without them.

I know the book was written to enlighten people to try harder and to strive to make the world a better place, but at the time I first read it I was disillusioned with the world and thought John Galt was right and the world should get a re-boot.

These days I read what I want to read, and I believe I over-read my allotted estimation on Good Reads last year by several books.  I ended up reading over seventy.

In my thirties I had decided that I wanted to write a book to thank all those authors out there who had written the books I had read in my life.  I didn’t realize the task that I had taken on.  I wrote the beginning and I intended my hero to be a guardian angel of the heroine of the book.  I wrote the end of the book and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to tie the two sections together.  Then one night I had a dream, and in the dream I came up with the connection between the beginning and the end.

My first reader was a professor of English at a local college.  She was a dental patient of ours and I asked if she would read my book and give me a critique.  She did and she loved the book and the characters.  But she told me to get rid of the guardian angel bit and make his character a real person.  She also suggested that I not start my novel with a flash-back as she said this is a real no-no in literature.

I have now revised and rewritten this book over six times.  I keep telling myself to rewrite it again and bring it up to date.  It is a good story as I have been told by several people who have read the book, including the hubster.  Time will tell.

Go read a good book and enjoy yourself.  Life is short and there are so many good books still to read.

PS  Photo is of my first publication, a poem about gardening.

Peace be with you.