31st March Another Month Down and Other Rampant Thoughts

There are those moment through life where most of us realize time is flying by, today is one of those days. It’s March 31st, I am itching to get in to the garden, I’m half way through my latest critique, and Rhody Festival starts next week and I’m no where ready. The reality is Rhody Festival isn’t until May 15th, but crap with how time flies it will seem like I was thinking these same thoughts just last week when Rhody rolls around.

What I have realized is that we have taken down the Christmas tree (in a timely manner for once.) Rung in a new year that is almost gone. Celebrated a trio or more of birthdays, visited the Vet numerous times, warded off uncountable nameless colds, and are not farther progressed in our accomplishments, it appears, than I had hoped to be. Not that I know where I should be accomplishment wise or what I’d hoped to accomplish, but some how I am behind. Clueless in 2009 and voted most likely to be clueless in 2010.

What I have decided so far is that we will be vacationing this year in Las Vegas… probably October, because I am working on a neighborhood reunion. In my developing years (ideals, morals, and Id) I lived in La Mirada. Tanfield is a small double cul-de-sac neighborhood of approximately sixty houses, houses full of the people who make up a large chunk of my childhood memories. This autumn we shall meet and find out if we like the people we turned into. I’m excited.

Last April I traveled to San Francisco for Sid’s birthday and was treated to not just a week with an awesome couple (Sid and Scott,) but with their extended family. I also got to meet JulieAnn (whom I love dearly) and her wonderful Wanker, but also Julz & her Bill, Lyn Blossom and Jenniphur, Eddie, and Steve. This April I will get to meet the wonderfully talented Pompy, who moving north of me. Life offers up the most splendid opportunity and I am eager to meet each and everyone of them. Last year I got to meet Jazzy, this year I get to meet Fii. It is a wonderful life.

Over a year ago, hmm about 18 months, Sacred Sister started Talk Thursday. Yes, the group is still alive… barely, but we are. This week it’s Jenniphur’s turn to pick the topic. Sadly I’ve been having problems writing on the topics, I’m not sure why, I just seem to be losing inspiration. If you’re reading this and interested in Talk Thursday let me know… you’re in and your topic will be next week. Just warning you – Jenn’s the turn-around.

Hmm, well now I am off to close out March for the FCC… argh the hoops you must jump through. Until April.

Sith,
Cele

I have been a bad blogger. And you my friend have come here looking for words from me. The words are too quiet. No inspiration. I think about a topic and it dies a withered death in the dark space of my little writing heart. My word womb is barren.

The rains have kept me from taking flower pictures in my garden...that is running rampant with weeds. I could try to weed, but the clinging tendrils of root refuses to give up the ground they have burrowed into. Therefore I remove more of the precious soil from my garden than the nasty little rooting greens that run amok of their own accord. Is that redundant? All this might be a plot of Mother Nature hatched to take back the tilled ground of my flower garden and return it to a savage forested state.

My hoe and I shall prevail. I will have new gloves and sharpen my blade (okay that was just poetic license, the blade to my trowel is quite dull actually) and I shall over come winter's devastation of my garden... and the lawn next to it.

And then I will hot tub. There.
Sith,
Cele

Surprises

Thursday afternoon I went to the post office. For most this is a normal everyday occurrence, for me it happens once in a blue moon – and yes I have a post office box. My rarity in picking up our post drives some people crazy. My husband because he misses his flyers from the men’s toy store, Sears; people who live and die over their junk mail; and probably those people who send me things that require either a phone call or a thank you note (I’m really bad at thank you notes.)

Thursday’s mail held three weeks of junk mail, credit card aps, a few bills, a book I ordered from Amazon, and a box – a big box that came all the way from Georgia. My birthday had come and gone and this box sat as a reminder of my 53rd milestone. My sister in law had packed it with a kewl partridge, earrings, cocoa, s’mores, a table runner, two Christmas ornaments that will hold pictures of Burp, and one of these kewl little tablets that I love to carry in my purse (ha, ha I hate carrying my purse, but if I am the tablet is a must have.)

The surprising birthday box required a thank you phone call and it had been a while since I’d touched bases with the Kiwi and Buddy. Sometimes, when I actually think about calling, the time difference keeps me from dialing. But I was well within my time limits. The first 45 minutes I chatted with the Kiwi, her accent is so cute but once in a while I can’t wrap my head around a word she says and the sentence is lost. Then I chatted with Buddy. Our lives are so different, but I miss them, I don’t think they will be returning to Oregon when he retires.

After hanging up I started thinking about my sister. Pinecone had left me a birthday message on my cell and I’d not called her back. Yes, folks the mail gets picked up more often than I call my siblings. The really sad part of this is I enjoy talking with my sister, she’s a hoot, and while our lives are very different she always feels like home to me. We discussed all sorts of things for over an hour… oh she called me. That happens often I will think about calling her and the phone rings. We’re connected that way.

Being raised independent has its features we were and are encouraged to make our own paths, our own families, our own traditions. But it also means that when you marry you hopefully meld your independence into your spouse’s family beliefs and traditions. My husband has a hard time understanding that Pinecone (or my daughter) and I don’t talk to each other at least twice a day or even twice a week. His family must get together every holiday, he chose Thanksgiving to do with his siblings and aunt (we are almost always the ones that travel,) and we spend Christmas at home, they are all welcomed but we do not travel. I don’t have to live in my sister’s pocket, I am comfortable with who I am, with who she is. I feel my sister with me all the time, and we are both happy in our lives.

But yes there are times when I miss my sister. This is funny considering I made her life holy hell growing up. But there were the times that we were a cohesive unit too. She has been there for me during my very dark hours and shared her brightest moments with me. Isn’t that what sisters are all about?

Sith,
Cele

Weekend Tidbits

I love Oregon, I love Florence, darnmit I just love life. This past weekend was the 13th annual Florence Home & Garden Show. It’s an event that my boss started, duh, 13 years ago. A small to-do that draws vendors from across the state and always offers the inspiration to kick start my gardening season. This year I bought pots from down under – way kewl, one for me, my mom, and my sister-in-law’s birthday next week.

You know my dear, dumb dog is a retaliatory pisser. There is no other way to say it. So I always worry about odors between carpet shampooing every four to six months. I bought an Eco egg. That’s my name for it at least, so far so good. It’s a little oval plug in thingie that whirls quietly purifying my living room air. I smell something I can’t put my finger on, but it’s not my dog or vacuum cleaner. Possibly $50 well spent, time will tell.

One of my clients for the Home and Garden show is a little nursery south of town that specializes in Rhododendrons (the city’s blossom of choice,) Azaleas, and their companion plants – that includes Camilla bushes. My mom bought me one years ago, which I promptly killed in ignorance. I’ve no clue why it died but I’ve always wanted one since. So I spent $20 and bought this beauty. One of my few warm memories of my grand mother was the water bowls of floating Camillas she had all over her house.

Florence has a few claims to fame: the movies Sometimes A Great Notion, Four Seasons, and portions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Five Easy Pieces we filmed here; we are home to one of the most photographed lighthouse in America, Heceta Head – a haunted one at that n(really it’s the Keeper’s House that is haunted.) And whales decide to beach themselves here on occasion, 41 in 1979 and of course the infamous exploding whale of 1970. So it was no surprise Friday night to find that a undersized, juvenile Fin whale was caught in the surf just north of Florence. My heart always breaks for whales. My love of cetaceans made me erroneously believe I would grow up to be a Marine Biologist (no one told me it would take eight years of zoology – and a boat load of money and ambition.)It was the dream that died right before the I’m going to be a professional dancer dream bit the big one.

Jonah (as he was named prior to his impromptu burial) Sunday morning was interned in an eleven foot deep trench on the beach below that haunted lighthouse, the third and final place the ocean brought him on his three day death trek. Marine Biologist from OSU took their tissue and organ samples to determine what killed him. Backhoes and bulldozers dug the trench and then rolled Jonah in. A wife of one of the crew created a make shift cross and quietly wished Jonah a happier afterlife.

And then it snowed.

Sith,
Cele

Controversial Meme

Care of Sid who got it from Erik -

1. Would you do meth if it was legalized?
Been there done that. No, I would not, but I have and I did for a long while. What the heck was I thinking? Thank heavens a brain cell or three survived. Now to keep it from having been a futile experience in my existance, I survived to tell my kids about it – they are smarter than their mom.

2. Abortion: for or against?
I believe in a woman’s right to choose. Not the state, not the next door neighbor, not a political party, and not the friggin’ pope.

3. Would our country fall with a woman president?
It’s barely survived warmongering and greedy men. Hell yes it will survive, thrive, and prosper.

4. Do you believe in the death penalty?
I am on the fence. I don’t believe in revenge, but I do believe in community rule and we have a death penalty. Enforce it.

5. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
Allegeric, so my answer has no personal use bearing. Yes, I do.

6. Do you believe in God?
Yes, I do.

7. Do you think same-sex marriage should be legalized?
Sid gave a though provoking answer here and I’ve been mulling it over. Who am I to say you can’t do something I can? Who? Therefore, yes I do. Gracious this world is so screwed up .

8. Do you think it’s wrong that so many Hispanics are moving to the USA?
Hispanics, no. And while we’re at it, give the illegal aliens green cards, tax them and let them work. Gracious this world is screwed up.

9. A 12 year old girl has a baby… should she keep it?
Again Sid gave a great answer. Personally, no I don’t think she should. She’s a baby herself who has no right rearing a child, most people don’t even consider a 12 year old of a reasonable age to baby sit.

10. The alcohol age be lowered to 18?
Maybe if we took the taboos off alcohol we’d have less partying teens, less binge drinking teens. Less alcoholics. Maybe. Wisdom begins at home, just like alcohol abuse. And while we're at it, lets make drinking and driving a death penalty crime.

11. Should the war in Iraq be called off?
Called off, funny phrase. "Let's call the whole thing off." Should it end, yes, years ago. Give Iraq back their country, let them rule themselves, and let’s fix our own problems. Instead of having a (crap how big is the deficit these days?) deficit that is eating up our resources, let’s put our people to work, our dollars to work, lives back together….right here at home.

12. Assisted suicide is illegal… do you agree?
It legal where I live. I’ve voted several times for it to be made legal. Who am I to say you have to live in extended, fatal agony thanks to the “benefits” of modern medicine. Let there be death with dignity.

13. Do you believe in spanking your children?
Yes. My government says I can’t spank my child as disappline, but they can send them off to die (as a reward for surviving childhood) to liberate people who have no desire to be liberated our way and hate us. WTF?

14. Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
No, out of respect. But in the same breath I admit it is your right to do so.

15. A mother is declared innocent after murdering her 5 children in a temporary insanity case… what do you think?
Will she survive the treatment she doled out to her children… five times? Tit for Tat.

16. It’s between you and a person who is being kept alive by life support machines… one has to die? Who?
I’m not afraid of dying, but pull the plug. And let me say this here…again… I do not want to be on life support. EVER! Pull the fucking plug.

17. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
No. If I cared what people think I wouldn't have answered the questions... and then published them on my blog for others to see. I would have instead thought my thoughts, judged everyone else, and lived my pitiful little life holding grudges against others for their beliefs, opinions and audacity to think different than me. Oh wow, that would make me a rabid, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Dick Cheney loving, Republican. Argh, if that had been the case, shoot me and put the world out of my misery. Never mind Cheney's in the group, he'd shoot me.

Sith,
Cele

Green Green

Two weeks one day until the official start to spring…according to the sun and the calendar; Mother Nature may have other thoughts, but only time will tell. Living in western Oregon I know I can expect – rain, snow, rain, wind, wind, snow, and sun.

Last week my crocus opened their cheery faces in my flower beds.

My daffodils have begun shining bright in my new garden beds,
while tulips are barely showing their sleepy heads.

My new golden chain tree is waiting at the nursery and I’ve yet to order my solar fountain.

Not worry my fingers are itching to get into the loam… that is hidden by the sod still not dug out. Yes, I’ve got a project on my hand. My last garden took the better part of a year to get in, and then this past summer and winter to establish. Okay, the weeds are well established, next year I definitely have to lay down hemlock before winter sets in.

This new garden is as bit larger and will mirror the other. I’m planning on planting herbs to accompany the cutting flowers. I also plan to create a berm to show my nasturtiums in all their glory and back it by winter blooming Hellebores. I’m getting excited just thinking about.

This weekend is the Florence Home and Garden show. My ideas may change. This too time will tell.

Sith
Cele

Talk Thursday: My Message

If you had the ear of the world for one moment (and they were actually listening,) what message would you give them? The power to deliver one message. Think about it, many have tried, tried, and tried in vain. Have you noticed that tried becomes tired far too easily?

Be happy in diversity. That would be my message, evolve in happiness to accept all that is different around you – all the things that make you unique. Instead of seeing all that is not what you are see all that makes others the people they are, all the things that make the world go round. Evolve, embrace, rejoice in diversity, for in diversity is happiness.

As you accept your happiness, accept the happiness of others. Be happy, breathe happy, sleep happy. Live happily ever after, and yes die happy. Give happily; receive happily. Life is far too long to be miserable, far too short to not be happy – is one of my many mottos.

If you are happy in who you are, what you have, and where you are in your life, embrace that it is because of others that you are. While no man is an island, remember that no one man is king to dictate (although many have tried and failed) to be the one man who dictates the lives of others. I heed several passages from the Bible as a basis for my belief and treatment of and in others.

Matthew 7.1 Judge not least ye be so judged. In other words who am I to judge you? Really who am I? And what gives me the right to say my way is the only way? Nada. No one. Zip. Zilch.

John 8.7 Let he who is without sin be the first to cast the first stone. I think the modern day version of that passage, is “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Again, am I so perfect that you can’t pick out five things you despise about me? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

So you don’t believe in the Bible (personally I don’t believe in it as divinely inspired in the way most do. I believe it was divinely inspired by the love of God, not by the edict of God.) Take away from the passages as messages to follow based on their merit of good will.

Do unto one as you would have done unto you. Yes, the Golden Rule or the Ethic of Reciprocity. While not specifically from the Bible, versions of the Golden rule exist in a majority of ancient text and tenets from Buddism, the ancient philosophers, the context of Karma, Islam, Hinduism, from the Torah, the Qur’an, Taoism, even yes the Bible.

If so many people believed in the Ethic of Reciprocity, why do so many people not practice its intent? Why are we so blind in our ways to think our belief is the only belief? That our being so right allows us to treat others so wrong? That we are an island unto ourselves and have no need to heed diversity?

Yesterday I was sitting at a rest stop north of Roseburg on I-5. The morning was gray (well come on it was February 28th in Oregon) clouds were spitting on the ground and a couple were cleaning up their breakfast and cooking gear at a picnic table near by. The man had gone off to the restroom as the woman loaded one more box into their van, then she turned and began walking to the facilities herself. From inside the warm truck I smiled out at her. No specific reason, but why not smile I smile at people all the time. She looked up and saw my smile, walked close to the truck and motioned for me to roll down my window, which I did.

“What a beautiful smile, you must be a happy person.”

“I think I am, what is there to not be joyous about?”

She replied, “We just moved to Oregon and no one here smiles.”

I thought this a strange, because most people I know smile and are welcoming, but then I live in a tourist town, our livelihoods depend on being welcoming and courteous (unless you work at the local DQ. “Well I hope you meet nicer people, try smiling first it works wonders.” She wished me a blessed and good day and went on to the bathroom. Yes she really wished me a blessed and good day. I liked that.

I am still smiling and I think she is too. Despite our differences.

Sith,
Cele