The Surmise

    
     I watched the fog roll in this morning, like smoke from a smoldering pile of autumn leaves.  As it rolled in, the fog in my brain began to roll out.

     The red cape is hanging limp on a hook.  Its golden shield, with the S trimmed in red, lies hidden among the folds.  I beckon to it, to come to me, to drape across my shoulders, but it pays me no heed. Silently, it keeps its back to me.

     I notice the Voice.  It's sitting half way up the spiral staircase, gazing out the window, watching the construction workers next door.  It lets out a heavy sigh, followed by the words, "I told you so."  That phrase is one of the Voice's favorite.

     As usual, the Voice was right.  I knew something was not quite right.  But, when faced with the decision to pay bills or add to the current bills, the former won.  

     It's nothing too serious, but will take a while for me to get back up to speed.  I'm running in low gear, with a low blood count that will take four to six weeks to replenish itself.  I really need to feel better before that, but jumping prematurely on the "Feel Better Band Wagon" last night proved to be an eye opener to the fact that this process is going to take some time.  

     I have to take an iron supplement.  One of the common side effects associated with iron supplements is constipation.  I may not be able to contain my excitement waiting for that symptom to raise its ugly head.   

     I am chuckling to myself as I think how we would poke fun at the old folks of the family.  We always said they didn't have anything to talk about except bodily functions.  The Voice is picking its teeth with a feather of Crow.

     The uterus is the incubator for the human race.  Without it we would not exist.  Throughout history, many a male member of our species have rivaled for a shot, no pun intended, at the mystery this magical organ contains.  But, there is no better way to watch the blood drain from a man's face, after they have asked a barrage of questions as to why you are not feeling well, than to answer them with "female problems".  

    

     

Blurrrrred

     The last few days have been a blur.  I seem to be swimming in a sea of confusion.

     Having been prescribed a medication to correct a problem, I now have to take another to off set the side effects of the first.  Sigh.......Being on hold, listening to the endless recorded messages of what "special" the hospital is running made me think elevator music was more desirable.  I really don't have anyone to refer for a complimentary botox injection and no, I do not want to try your new "food in a box" diet program.

     An article I read about schools being under scrutiny as to the rights of their students privacy gave me reason to ponder.  The students were given handheld computers, ipads or the like, from the school and the question was could the school look into their social media contacts, e-mails, etc.  The answer seemed obvious to me.....If said students did not pay for such a device with their own money, then why should they get to use it for personal entertainment? And, if they decide to use it for personal things, then yes, by all means, the school should be able to monitor the content.   It seemed some students were even shopping online during class.  Hmmm.....whose fault is that?

     It is such a beautiful day.  I'd like to go jump on my bicycle and ride up the street, feel the sun on my face, let the breeze blow away the cobwebs in my mind.  Since the mere act of getting to the bike would take what energy I have left, that probably isn't a wise thing to do.

     I think I will just continue to dog paddle in this foamy sea.  Perhaps the waters will clear on the morrow.



      

Mixed Emotions

     No ideas.  No inspiration from higher places.  My proof reader is charging up the cattle prod, threatening to make a road trip.

     No thoughts.  Except the ones that look much like a bowl full of scrambled eggs, waiting to be poured into a hot skillet.  Thoughts that have been simmering on the back burners to the point the pans have boiled dry.  I ignore them, but the popping and cracking of the dry pans will not go away.

     A song has been playing in my head, the one from the old comedy show Hee Haw.  "Doom despair and agony on me.  Deep dark depression, excessive misery.  If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.  Doom despair and agony on me."  I've tried to be positive, have positive thoughts, but when the Voice is sitting, staring out the window, and tosses me a "yeah, right" every now and then,  I know my inner self is out of whack.

     When this malady strikes, I've yet to learn to pay attention to it. Every time I feel this way, I get the phone call.  Someone passed away, someone I know.  They don't have to be family or a close friend, but it seems I pick up the vibes.  Just call me AOD, Angel of Death.......isn't that special.

     This person was a friend of my husband.  They were not the kind of friends that spent a lot of time together, but they both shared a love of hot rod muscle cars and were never at a loss for a topic of discussion.  My husband was getting ready to go see his friend, unfortunately, he was about 30 minutes too late.

     I cannot stress this simple fact enough.  Life is short compared to the eons of time itself.  A blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things.  Don't spend it being pissed at someone.

     

Fried Mators

     Having a small vegetable garden has taught me a valuable lesson.  That lesson would be, if starting all plants from seed, it is a good idea to start some of them inside, a few weeks before planting season.

     This has proven to be most true with my tomato plants.  I have two tomato plants, a regular, or super beefsteak tomato, why they are called that is beyond my comprehension, and a roma tomato.
Roma tomatoes are those wonderful small firm pear shaped tomatoes that are good for salsa or just plain eating.

     Both plants are loaded with green tomatoes that will never ripen before the first frost.  Unless, of course, all the people marching in the streets about global warming and climate change are right, then I may have fresh vine ripened tomatoes for Thanksgiving dinner....but I rather doubt that.

     I asked my husband if he had ever eaten fried green tomatoes.  He could not recall ever having any and neither had I.  So, why not put some of these lovely green tomatoes to good use?  

     That thought alone should have been a warning to take notice of the Voice, who lives in my head, standing off to the side waving a red flag.

     I Googled a few recipes on how to fix fried green tomatoes and decided it should not be much different than frying up a few tasty morels in springtime.

     Having sliced up four roma tomatoes into little rounds and thinking I was quite clever, I put the eggs in a small plastic bag and smushed them.  Then I put my flour mixture in another small bag. This strategic plan was to keep me from making a huge mess.

     When the oil was hot, I placed a few slices of tomatoes into the egg bag and gently smushed them around until I was sure they were well coated.  Then, with a small pair of tongs, I placed the egged tomatoes into the flour bag, sealed the bag and shook it.

     Using the same small tongs, I reached into the bag of flour to retrieve the first slice.  I dropped it on top of the stove and watched it roll to the other side, leaving a floury trail behind it.

     Without boring you with the rest of my cooking abilities, it is safe to say that, when I was finished, the stove and surrounding counter top looked as if I had been in a fight with the Pillsbury Dough Boy.........and he won.

     Fried green tomatoes must have been the predecessor to fried pickles because that is how they tasted.  I think I will just pick the rest and see if they will sun ripen.  Ms. Sassafrass enjoys this type of harvesting.  She can drop a tomato and step on it in one fluid motion.  Such tomato-y fun.

Breaking My Own

     Its been said that a child knows everything they need to know about how to get along in life by age 5.  To that I will add something I learned while I was a foster parent.  If a child cannot be taken out of a 'bad' situation before age 5, the odds of erasing what they have learned are a lot harder to overcome.

     This year is almost three quarters past.  I've tried really hard to follow the resolutions I proclaimed at the years' beginning, but now I'm going to break one.

     I do not like politics.  Mostly because as soon as an election is over, within a week or two, there is already talk about the next election.  It becomes very tiresome.

     This country, the United States of America, was founded on freedom or freedoms, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Of course, there were several 'freedoms' that were not accepted or even thought of at its conception.  Things like slavery, women being able to do more than just kitchen, kids and bedroom stuff, acceptance of things we do not consider normal and the list goes on and on. 

     Many things fall under the heading of liberty, one of those being religious freedom.  It seems to be working well here, since there are hundreds of congregations with different beliefs from sea to shining sea.  That is not to say there have not been battles over religions, nor is it to say that people have not lost their lives on this soil due to religious beliefs, but for the most part, it works....a few of us have learned from our mistakes.

     The worst part about religion is that the different congregations all feel that their way of believing is right......and every other doctrine that others follow is wrong.  

     This thing in the Middle East perplexes me.  First, I will not, nor have any desire, to watch the gruesome videos that a certain group is using to instill fear and terror upon anyone they deem to be infidels.  Once that image is burned into your gray matter, it doesn't go away and there are things better left unseen, just as there are things better left unsaid.

     But how do you reason with someone who is completely unreasonable?  How are you to be diplomatic with a group that has no diplomacy or respect of human life?  How do you think things will get better when it is clear, that if you do not believe the way they want you to believe, they will eliminate you?  The recent choice of elimination seems to be the lopping off of someone's head while the executioner hides behind a mask and some other coward videos the mess.  THAT is suppose to get my attention?  Well yes, yes it does and it brings to mind a couple of things. 

     If I find that I have a mouse, or mice, in my cupboard and choose to do nothing about it, I accept the fact that my food supply is going to be covered with many an excrement of small rodents and will be of no healthy value to me.  If I choose to get rid of the mice, I also know that said dead mouse may have had a litter of small mice waiting for its return.

     If I plant a garden and let the weeds take over, then I accept the fact that the good produce I wanted is all for naught.  If I choose to pull the weeds, then yes, I know the weeds will perish.

     It is totally against my nature to be combative.  I've always been the peace maker, but enough is enough.  Reasoning with unreasonable is never going to work.  It's time to set the traps and weed the garden.

    
     

     

     

     

     
     

Idle Times Ahead

     One week ago today it was so hot and humid outside that breathing was a chore.  Last night as I stood outdoors, surveying my domain, I was wearing earmuffs.

     This cold snap is a little premature and the weather app on my phone assures me that more seasonal temps are on the way for next week.  Despite this information, one thing is perfectly clear......the days of summer are in the past.

     The passage of the seasons could probably fall under the heading of 'there is nothing new under the sun' but, this ending summer season seems like it only began a couple of weeks ago.  Mother always said, "The older you get, the faster the time goes by."

     The approaching autumn brings with it one thing I am not looking forward to.  The Fall Line Up of new TV shows or new episodes of the old ones.  I'd be lying if I said I did not watch TV during the cooler, colder, darker months of the year, but it would be a safe bet for me to say that our television has not been on more than 40 hours during the warmer, hotter and more daylight months.
This calculation does not include weekends of NASCAR or endless repeat episodes of 'something caught on camera' but since I don't watch any of that, I don't count it.

     It is odd, we have over 100 channels to choose from and all the shows we watch are on one network......that could be accessed with an old fashioned aluminum antenna.......or a coat hanger.  I justify having the other 99 plus channels because this one network does not carry any shows about UFO's, extraterrestrials, conspiracy theories or other weird stuff that I like to watch.

     Watching endless hours of TV makes me feel guilty.  I guess that is because there is something I'm supposed to be doing and I keep putting it on the back burner.  It reminds me of a recent comic strip.  Each frame of the strip showed the husband and wife sitting on the sofa.  In the last frame she turns to him and says, "Why is it that none of the shows we watch show people sitting watching TV?"  

     True that.

     

Did Not Need It, But Maybe We Did

     It's raining, it's pouring.  Nearly six inches in the last two days, with a bit more on the way.

     This is not the time for rain in the great Mid West.  This is the time for harvest and the rain will undoubtedly put many a combine in idle mode.  At least many a world problem will be solved at the local coffee shop.

     I drove around our small community this morning.  All the low lying areas look like lakes.  Lakes with islands of homes in the middle.  

     I can hear a large pump running.  The neighbors are pumping out their basement.  I could hear our sump pump kick on.  Slowly, I descended the basement steps.  The piles of laundry on the basement floor now look much like the Hawaiian Islands.  I have other things to do today, will deal with that mess later on.  Since all the clothes are soaked, maybe I could just sprinkle some laundry detergent on top and jump up and down on the piles.  Exercise, clean laundry and a clean floor, all in one easy step.

     All things are supposed to happen for a reason, whether or not we understand.  Perhaps all this rain has washed away some unnecessary evil.  

     

Message To The Man

     If you are the person standing behind the pulpit and your congregation leaves the premises with the idea that they are right and everybody else is wrong, somewhere along the line, you have missed the point.

     If your members are spending a great deal of time pointing fingers at others, pointing out their flaws, again, somewhere along the line, you missed the point.

     If you have a huge congregation, practically more than the building can hold, and you feel called to another place and when you leave, half of the congregation leaves too, who were they following?

     If your message to your people is full of fear and hate, how are they supposed to show unconditional love towards others?

     If you can not hug the little child whose head is crawling with lice, where is your faith?

     The Book of Revelation lists seven churches  Out of all the denominations there are today, how do you know yours is on the list?  

     Anger, fear, violence and judgmental attitudes do not get the human race very close to the Kingdom.