Valentines Day ... Dedicated to love... A good time to remember ...

Not too many years ago Americans of Japanese descent were rounded up, deprived of homes, separated from families and put in prison camps. Fear deprives people of their individuality. Once a person is no longer an individual they can be treated like a thing, part of a dangerous thing. Our media seems intent on encouraging this mass fear. Nearly every culture at one time or another has suffered at the hands of fear. Ignorance feeds fear ... Be informed ... Love.

Posting Predicaments

June?  I haven't posted since June?  So, my muse had flown ... probably driven away by the dusty dry desert winds and an equally dry and dusty inspiration.  Am I inspired now?  Well, anything above zero is hopeful and so I am hopeful.  Since June, what?  A cruise to Alaska's glaciers, a full and then empty apartment still claiming attention and money, back and forth's to San Diego (I have too many there to not visit), then a broken elbow, surgery and a cruise to Jamaica, Cayman and Cozumel.

But the burning question ... retire or keep working.  Theoretically I will have time to do the things that I don't have time to do, like write, genealogy, travel, photography, spend time with my grand kids, garden, research, upgrade our home and volunteer.  In reality, I  don't know if I'll do any of that.  For the last month, admittedly laid up with a badly broken arm, surgery, splint, etc., I haven't done much.  But even before that, I only work 3 days a week, and I do little else in the list above.   I lie in bed for an hour pursuing facebook posts, news articles and more, grist for the creative mill.  Sometimes something clicks and I am driven to write ... I love it!  I seem only driven by writing and when I have a deadline appointment and realize that if I don't clean up the house, and myself, someone will report me to elder abuse, ha!  Abusing myself?  Hmm, that works.

I've promised I won't work past November, my next annual holiday bonus ... but, as my great grandson is fond of saying, 'but not yet.'

What happens after....

Thoughtful Thursday?  Frantic Friday?  but no, today is Tuesday, that might be, in this case, Tasty Tuesday.  It might just be that my debit card will be tabescent following dinner at the Samurai Steakhouse but our bodies will be sated.

Days of merit are becoming arduous as I get older.  I used to look forward to them, chatting with friends and family, sharing stories, life events that were new to me both theirs and mine.  The days seems interminable, unnumberable, but now each minute has become a mutinous pirate, here to steal my quickly dematerializing time.  It seems that the more I hoard my rapidly disintegrating days, life intrudes and demands that I donate them in increasing numbers. 

Don't get me wrong, I love these events, they just race through my declining years and, like Ms PacMan, I race through my maze of days, knowing that there are only just so many mazes until the end.  Do I osund glum, perhaps.  I am seeing the end of a tunnel and, unfortunately for me, it is not an oncoming train that I can avoid by leaping aside or outrunning.  If I make the mistake of running faster, then,  horrors, January becomes June with the months in between evaporating like the myths that they are. 

I have been able, trickster that I am, confuse those around me with eyes fixed on their own lives, into believing that I am eternal, but my desire to create that facade begins to fade, well about 8 o'clock at night when I tuck in with my gatorade and iPad. 

But Tasty Tuesday it is, and while my stomach can wamble for the pleasure that awaits, my spirit willingly anticipates the feast of sight and sound that time perhaps, in its mercy, will pause before Black Friday.

Back Again

In trying to decide whether to kill off my 'nearly dead' blogs I am taking another look here.  After looking, I have decided to resurrect this blog, if only for the purpose of introspection (thank you Miss X).

It's Thursday and my friend Neva, poetess and proserie (sic) extraordinaire, has posted her 'Thoughtful Thursday".  I am inspired to do the same.

Hot, it's hot.  Of course it's Las Vegas and that means desert and that means hot.  Unlike dessert, which can be hot and yummy, but I digress.  It's hot outside and, unfortunately, without a/c at work, it's hot inside as well.  I'm thinking, In this steamy environment I contemplate my life.

I have spent a great deal of my life worrying about others, which has done nothing of merit for them or for me.  It has never improved anything of significance either before, during or after any and all stressful events.  so on this Thoughtful Thursday I have decided to try and stop.  I will continue to love them, not without thought though.  I cannot lie, I cannot do it.  I can get close but that's about it. I don't mean to put conditions on my love for anyone they just pop into my mind and out of my mouth before I can stop them.  I tell them I love them and I will always love them, and that's true.  But how?

How do I love thee?
let me count the ways
I love you if you come home late
but I'll yell at you
I love you if you lie to me
but I'll want to lie back
I love you if you betray me
but I will never feel quite the same

How do I love thee?
I love you on sunny days
it's easier
I love you on sour dingy days
it's harder when I'm a grump
I love you when you smell like sweet straw
and want you close to me
I love you when your breath is not
I'll stay farther away

How do I love thee?
I love you when you're young and handsome
and climb into your arms and your bed
I love you when you're old and grey
as we share the same comfortable space
I love you long when we're young
and shorter when we're old

How do Ilove thee?
I love you as the flawed human being that I am
hesitantly
incessently
transparently
angrily
doubtfully
fully
partially
trembling
shaking
praying
pretending

you know
real.

Abused

in Las Vegas is like being abused anywhere else ... just wrong. Being a teenager while being abused is even worse ... not getting into a 'measuring' game by the way, just making an observation. It's bad enough having to deal with hormones, gender issues, emotional rollercoasters and all that, but adding trust issues is just awful. And the abused have trust issues; no doubt about it at all. My heart goes out to you ... and to you who love those who have been abused too! You are the brave ... my heart goes out to all of you!

"Fame is the first disgrace ...."

"Because God knows who you are." How is this relative to Las Vegas? Maybe because so many famous people are found in Las Vegas. I was given this quote, from "The Local Stigmatic" by a friend. I don't think he was using it in context when I read it on, of all things, a Christmas card. Sometimes I don't follow his thought processes at all, although he has his moments ... so do I. But I like this quote. I don't know if fame is a disgrace .... I think it's human to desire fame, although not everyone will admit that the want fame ... some have it beaten out of them early on. They think they want to be invisible ... they just think they have to be safe and being invisible is one way. So is fame a disgrace if no one else knows who you are? Are we being famous for God or famous in spite of God, because we want to have a face. I don't know but I'm intrigued and if you've gotten this far, so are you.

First Frost

Of course we live in Las Vegas ... the desert, duh. It's hot in the summer ... boiling in September ... planted lettuce in October .... beautiful, cool nights, warm days, October. November, still warm, won't the damn weather ever cool off. Yes, for 72 hours, every year, somewhere between November 1st and Thanksgiving and then .... yes .... yes .... yes .....
the frost killed all of my lettuce (sigh)