Rain, cold and Arthur

Rain, rain, go away
Come again some other day...

Rain didn't bother me when I was a kid. At best, it was a momentary joy to stomp in the puddles splashing less than pristine water on my sister's white socks and shiny Mary Jane's while my tongue lolled out of my mouth like a dogs to catch the rain drops in an attempt to gather them all.

At worst the rain meant that a planned outing was cancelled and that the traipsing in and out through the black screen door was halted to keep the muddy footprints from tainting the freshly mopped green and white flecked vinyl floor tiles that had so recently been mopped.

Now, rain comes and brings both an addition to the level of the water table and an addition to the level of pain.

I have to exercise because I made a pledge to myself to do so. I even promised the smiling countenance of Denise Austin, who doesn't even know me, that I would do 'just one more' of whatever unnatural position she is encouraging my beat up body to assume.

And, I have to exercise because, for whatever reason, my best friend Beth tells me that it's a good thing to do. I agree. It IS a good thing to do. On the days I am not dreaming of a big whopping smoothie made of Demerol and morphine…

But, then on the days that everything hurts and I'm spending my time with Arthur Itis and his aches and pains, I'm not too convinced that it is so much 'good for me' as it is a way to help my dog Gyspy inherit my earthly wealth. Won't she be surprised when the read the will only to discover it is actually a forgotten grocery list written on the back of the last direct mail envelope that I received last February!

Today was a rainy, cold day that made me question just why it was that Christmas is celebrated in the winter and why on earth we hadn't made better plans to live near the Equator.

I sympathize wholeheartedly with those who suffer the pains of life. And I empathize with those who require a steady diet of pain pills to get to sleep without moaning.

The sad realization came to me one day when I discovered that I hurt when I do my exercises and I hurt when I DON'T do my exercises. Who knew?

There could be new lyrics in there somewhere, but I'm not sure which country singer would sound better singing about Icy-Hot, Ben-Gay and ThermaCare wraps. I'll have to ponder that.

I think a shower that simply sprays a fine mist of pain relieving emollients would be nice. And a full time masseuse to make everything feel better or at least make the screaming stop...oh wait, that screaming was ME!

In the event that I become one of the Publisher's Clearinghouse winners, I pledge here and now to spend the money on a personal trainer and massage therapist. I'll keep them on retainer.

Right now, it's time to take my chilled body and find a blanket to slip under. At this point, I'd be willing to slip under the influence of a pain pill as well. So far, my will conscious dog Gypsy hasn't brought me anything for the aches and pains. I've been willing to overlook that shortcoming until now.

If she expects me to be lucid enough to create an acutal will naming her as the rightful heir to all of my dog treats, bones and liversnaps, then Gypsy needs to be more cooperative when I am praying that the tub will be filled with Icy-Hot so I can just marinate in it...

It wouldn't hurt her to bring around a few pain pills in a little barrel around her neck, or maybe use those cunning teeth to open up a few hundred tubes of Ben-Gay?

Instead, she is curled up in a tight ball oblivious to my battered body - unless the batter we are referring to has 11 herbs and spices. Then she is all mine with her undivided brown-eyed, dinner seeking attention.

Time to get a blanket. Arthur is making me ache.

The Thirtieth Day

When I was in elementary school, they taught us this little ditty to help us remember the various months' and the number of days:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November:
All the rest have thirty-one,

excepting February - a month alone,
to which we twenty-eight assign,
'til leap year gives it twenty-nine.

Why this particular little verse comes to mind is that we have just completed, as of today, the last of the 30-day months.

I don't know why the various months were assigned the particular number of days though I have heard all manner of theories from the well-educated and the not-so-well-educated as to how the decisions on subdivision occured.

One thing I do know is that reaching the 30th of November always fills me with a sense of completion. Within the month of December is an expectation that the shortened days and the crisply cinnamon scented air will be heralding the time when people are suppose to remember that they have fellow man inhabiting the planet with them.

Sometimes, that understanding is no more than a pious hope.

Witness the violence at several stores as people literally trampled and killed someone just to be 'first' to save a couple of bucks on something they were going to buy. No bargain is worth the life of another human being in the name of the almighty dollar!

What were these people thinking?

Obviously, they were not thinking much of anything because the 'herd mentality' had overshadowed all else.

Lemmings.

It reminds me of a disturbing movie I saw as a gradeschooler of the march of the lemmings toward their own demise. No one stopped to ask 'why are we doing this?' or 'where are we going?'.

Nope.

They just plunged off the cliff to their death like the hundreds before them who didn't manage to have a separate thought about personal responsibility and safety.

People are supposed to be different.

Why do we need to murder someone to save $5 on a sweater that Aunt Marge will NEVER wear?

Why do we need to literally tear the doors off of their hinges in order to pick up savings on a video game that means nothing when the power has been cut off because we didn't manage to pay the light bill?

I can't answer these questions.

But I know the end of November this year seems to herald the beginning of a most uncivil shopping season that will only end badly for all concerned if we don't turn our hearts back to what our days and nights are supposed to be filled with and concerned over.

I cannot imagine the humble followers of Christ trampling one another to get to the manger. Likewise, I can't see the end of the month coming and the wise men killing their camels in a mad jockey race for which one gets to be first to slop down a gift before the baby who means nothing more than a finish line to their ego.

It just doesn't seem right.

So today, I take this last day of the month to think about things ending and thing beginning.

I'd like to put an end to my personal selfishness.

I'd like to end my desires to do evil.

I'd like to be able to stop on the last day of this month and have the feeling that all of my pet vices will not have any control over me anymore.

And then, I'd like to start seeing my fellowman the way Father does.

I don't know them all personally, but He does. And He sees all of His children as the radiant points of light they CAN be and weeps over those who have willingly chosen to dim or extinguish their own heaven sent brilliance for the siren call of the world who will neither honor nor remember them when that poor choice is made.

I'd like to start the first day of December truly being the kind of person that has charity all year long instead of just while the Tabernacle Choir sings of love and brotherhood during the season of lights and presents and the infant Jesus.

Why is it so easy to get to the end of our days remembering the baby but not the Man?

Jesus didn't stay in the cradle.

I don't think we were intended to do that either - physically or emotionally. Most certainly, our spiritual growth should outstrip the confines of the manger and reach out to all men.

just thinking while the orchestra plays this Sabbath morning as I am home with a sick boy.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving – a wonderful time of family, food and fun. And a cheese ball.

It didn’t start out to be more than party food. But it morphed into something much larger than just a mere cheese ball. And to think some people don’t believe in evolution!

It was a nut studded port wine creation, which began the day as part of a cheese platter. It was well received, but at the end of the long day of feasting and merry making, it stood as a lonely sentinel of food not consumed.

After all, you can’t eat everything and still stay in training for 5k’s.

But then, what to do with the cheese ball?

We talked about slipping it into an envelope to send to the poor. But we can’t send it to the poor because the poor don’t want it. My one brother in law pointed out that the poor might squeeze the cheese in order to get at the port wine it contained.

And although it would be funny to see just how far it would travel from the swift stroke of a 3 wood, it might make for some off comments when the neighbors found the remnants perched in their tree or along their fence line. I swear we were aiming for the green but you see I have this bad habit of hooking . . .

Then again, the thoughts of tossing it carefully into mailboxes seemed amusing until we remembered that another brother in law is a police officer and would most assuredly shoot us for vandalizing the neighborhood with flying cheese. That, and the risk of offering a controlled substance to minors who might come in contact with the port wine flavored cheese might make for some interesting headlines in the local paper.

My niece and I discussed the possibility of sliding it under the passenger’s seat of my sister’s car with an open can of sardines, but we didn’t have the sardines. It sort of cast a pall on the plan.

Instead, the hapless cheese ball was unceremoniously dumped into an empty box from which Saran wrap had once dispensed. After more hilarity, the plot finally coalesced.

We opened the carry out cooler my sister had brought and stuffed the box containing the cheese ball into her cooler. To quote her words exactly when she discovered it: “I swear! I can’t leave you two alone for two minutes!!”

But she was laughing as hard as we were when we slipped it in her cooler. So now, I am waiting for the comeuppance. I know it is coming. It’s only a matter of time and the purchase of some disgusting food item away.

Isn’t fruitcake season about to come up…?

As a parting shot, my sister called and said, "Tell Devil and Devilish (meaning me and my other sister) I'm thinking of wrapping up the cheeseball and bringing it at Christmas..."

I think this may be worse than the fruitcake.

To Be or Not To Be

Blogging is such a strange habit.

Like an itch that crops up needing a good scratch from time to time, I find my writing to be a sporadic issue that tends to come and go dependent upon the other pressing matters in my life or sometimes BECAUSE of the pressing matters of my life.

I have noticed of late a tendency for lots of bloggers to vanish or to go private with their various offerings.

Unsure as to what to make of this, I continue along with this blog knowing that even if someone stumbles upon it, they will likely not stay. What few people who have read it are candid enough to let me know how they feel with sometimes unpleasant results.

Since this is, by extension, part of my journal, I don't necessarily feel too awful when someone doesn't like what they read. Some of my life is chaotic and not to pleasant. When those times crop up, I guess I haven't developed the spiritual maturity to take it all in stride and continue forward without being harsh or abrasive in my choice of words and/or actions.

What I think and feel are minor compared to the issues of the world. I get that.

But when emotions are intense, this little spot gives me a chance to vent unfiltered thoughts in a way that can help me sort them out. Perhaps I need to be better about posting the process so that anyone who might read can see that I have made some progress or learned something or even managed to just survive another day.

When Shakespeare penned his now immortal phrase of Hamlet's pondering "to be or not to be", I wonder if he thought it would change the world.

Somehow, I doubt that. I believe he was simply trying to make a living in the hopes that he could take care of his needs in this world. But the question asked is a good one.

Are we to be or not to be based on the comfort level of another person? Is the sum of who we are to become linked to the emotional stability and maturity of others? And if we are to be only as a shadowy reflection of someone else's understanding, is that 'being' anything at all?

I'm not sure of any of these things.

We can't dwell in a half life of partial truth according to the narrow view of another. But likewise, we don't live in a vacuum and our circumstances compel us to brush up against others from time to time. Where is that magical defining line of being without trampling on the being of another?

Perhaps the question isn't whether we are to be or not to be. Perhaps the meaning is deeper.

To be as another desires us to be or not to be at all.

Sometimes, we have to conform in order to be. Like in a marching band, you can't arbitrarily decide to take a solo passage when the rest of the band is playing something else, you can't "BE" just because that is how you are feeling.

But other times, we are free to loose the muse within and express who we are with the understanding that we have a contract with the accountability phase of life. We can choose our actions, our expressions and our level of involvement, but we aren't able to choose the outcome nor, in some cases, the aftermath.

So how do we determine which level of 'being' is the best for our lives and circumstances?

Asking that questions should let everyone know that I am still a work in progress.

Just the random thoughts of a pajama clad woman...