Hands up

Hands are more than just useful or pretty. Hands with their opposable thumbs are what gave us the ability to pick up tools, but it was the brain guiding the action and where creativity was born and took us from the trees to the skies. In Thailand hands are considered beneath the head and patting the child on the head is taboo. The hands are for work and the head is the seat of divinity. Hands are under rated.

Hands are erotic and exotic and magical. The story in the hula isn't in the swing of the hips or placing the feet just so but in the sinuous and expressive movements of the hands. Hands are full of nerve endings and textures. Hands are seductive.

The way hands hold a glass or slip along the moistened rim or trace the trail of condensation down the side stirs thoughts of delicate and lingering touches. "Hand to hand is holy Palmer's kiss," and is the first kiss Romeo and Juliet share. A touch can ignite a small spark that warms or starts a fire. The soft caress of a woman's fingers against the slight roughness of a man's fingers as they brush by accident, slipping slowly along each other and then pulling back quickly, burned by the unexpected contact. Fingers creating friction, tickling the senses, teasing thoughts and emotions to the surface. There is comfort in holding hands, a thumb stroking and caressing little circles on the sensitive skin between thumb and forefinger.

So many textures and surfaces and differences between a man's hands and a woman's hands, worlds waiting to be explored, memorized, known and enjoyed. Intimate, memorable and erotic thoughts spring to mind from the sight of a shapely hands and graceful movements. Memories of fleeting caresses, long languid trails of cool skin warming with contact. Soft, searching, lingering, desiring, hungering for closeness, intimacy and so much more.

The kindness of strangers

I sent out a call for ham radio operators to help me with material for an article on creative and innovative home brewed radio rigs. They answered generously and quickly, offering me free access to their photos. They also answered all my questions quickly and with lots of detail. I am going to have a great article for the newsletter, and all on short notice. The guys have been wonderful and a few new friendships have been struck. I look forward to chewing the rag with them online when I get my ATS-3 built and running. (chewing the rag is ham speak for a communication, or QSO)

The projects they have put together are basically from the same group of kits, the AT Sprint, designed by Steve KD1JV Weber, the soldering iron and low power (QRP) rig king. What makes these projects different is the ingenuity in taking a little motherboard and enclosing it in different materials. The enclosure is necessary in order to keep the motherboard and circuits clean and free of dust and static electricity that can degrade the parts and damage the circuit board. One guy built a graphite enclosure which would have been a dull and uninspiring matte black, but he took an old tie and glued it to the outside. The tie was really ugly, from what I have seen of it, but it makes a nice little design for the enclosure. There are the ubiquitous Altoids tins but even those have been changed by adding paintings and graphic designs and lettering on the outside. One guy even enclosed his rig in clear sheet plastic because it is light and durable and because his wife said the surface mounted parts on the board that is the heart and brains of the rig looks like jewelry and should be showcased. In a way, she's right and the picture doesn't really do the reality justice, but it comes close.

In all the years I've been interviewing and writing about people the one thing I have learned is that strangers tend to be more open and generous with their time and resources than friends and acquaintances. I don't know if it is because they are just open-hearted and eager to help or because they are flattered that someone is interested in hearing their story and learning about them. Every time I have asked someone if I could interview them they invariably tell me they aren't special and don't do anything worthy of note. By the end of the first awkward moments as I begin to ask my questions and listen they open up and talk, realizing they are interesting and have something worth talking about. It's hard to get them to shut up sometimes but I have learned how to turn off the faucet as easily as I turn it on.

One of the best parts of being a writer, especially a journalist, is the opportunity to meet and learn new things about ordinary people. I have met many extraordinary people in my life, especially since I became a journalist, and each one of them has enriched my life and taught me something I still carry with me. No matter where I have been or where I will go in the future I am sure interesting people will cross my path. There are many I wish I could have spent more time getting to know and become friends and friends I have known who have taken a different path. I wish them all well, even those who have chosen not to be friends or remain friends. For them, I keep a light in the window and a special place in my heart. The place in my heart may never be filled but my heart will never be empty. There are always people to fill those empty spaces, and even one person who fills all the empty spaces in my heart long after he has walked away. Some things can never be taken away or retrieved. The objects may be gone but the meaning and the feeling behind the objects remain.

Like those strangers who helped me with my article for the newsletter by giving so freely of their time and experience their gifts remain and will be remembered, and the words are a monument to their generosity, ingenuity and creativity. They make life interesting.

Movie heat

I couldn't resist watching more John Wayne last night. It was a feast I fully enjoyed, watching some of my favorite Wayne movies: McClintock! and Hatari. I remember having such a crush on Patrick Wayne who I now find out is 16 years old than I am. Doesn't matter, McClintock! is a wonderful funny film and I have to admit I rooted for John Wayne when he spanked Maureen O'Hara with a fireplace shovel on her corseted and bloomered backside. She deserved it. The spanking, despite her death threats, howling and curses, didn't stop her from running after John Wayne when he and Chill Wills drove off in the carriage. She caught up with them and jumped onto the back of the carriage, hanging on with all her strength as they drove off in a cloud of dust.

Sitting here now I realize I just advocated abuse, which is very strange considering I have been the victim of abuse in the past. John Wayne's rough handling of women and his grab them and kiss them style when they need kissing is a relic of the past, gone from all but the fringe of sadomasochistic relationships and movies, or at least that is the way it seems.

I read another LJ member's blog who ranted about the return of the 1960s style romance where the hero and heroine hate each other, fight every single time they're together and then fall into each other's arms at the end. She bemoaned the lack of sexual tension and the kind of rude, crude and socially unacceptable hero more misogynistic than romantic. He is silent, insensitive and emotionally unavailable. Contrasting Wayne with that kind of hero, I see what she means. 

Wayne's rough ways illustrate abuse or something more elemental, something earthier? Wayne is passionate, although he can be silent. His silences are deafening with barely restrained anger and frustration.

Oftentimes his sidekick mumbles disapproval and discontent sotto voce, but not Wayne. He is not passive-aggressive nor does he send mixed messages. He is silent as he struggles to rein in his temper. He drowns his emotions in whiskey or a game of chess, but he is easy to read. His women, especially Maureen O'Hara, run roughshod over him for a while, but eventually his passion boils over and he stings from the sharp spurs and he gives them what they've been asking for -- attention, and lots of it.

Wayne's characters are not incapable of talking or introspection, but there is a time for words and a time for action. In The Quiet Man Wayne portrayed a professional boxer whose last bout ended with his opponent dead. He refuses to fight when he moves to Ireland and buys his family home. Though Maureen O'Hara's brother, a big brute of a man who is a bully and a blowhard, digs his spurs into the Yank, Wayne refuses to fight. The bully makes fun of Wayne and he takes it out on his horse, riding the big black hunter over hill and dale chasing the devil and his seething rage. Wayne's friends manage to trick O'Hara's brother into agreeing to allow her to marry Wayne, but the bully opens his mouth and puts his big booted foot into it, ruining the wedding gathering and refusing to pay his sister's promised dowry. She is devastated and Wayne is simply irritated -- mostly at O'Hara because she cares more for the money than for him . . . at least until they get home and she explains her dowry is her own and she's been dreaming of her things about her and not being married as if she were ashamed and living like a boarder instead of the woman of the house.

Wayne understands yet he will not humble himself and beg for her dowry. O'Hara loves him and cannot live with a man she is ashamed of, a man who won't fight for her -- or for her dowry. She leaves him in the morning while he's still asleep. When Wayne wakes up and finds her gone, he rides his big black hunter to the railroad station 5 miles away and drags her back -- the long way -- by her hand the whole 5 miles, just a stretch of the legs, he reminds her as she has told him, dragging her when she falls to the ground. A well meaning old lady offers a stick to beat the pretty lady and Wayne keeps dragging O'Hara right up to the bully brother working in his field.

He demands O'Hara's dowry. The bully refuses. Wayne throws O'Hara back at him. The marriage is off. "No dowry. No deal." The bully takes the money from his wallet and throws it at Wayne. O'Hara opens the door on the furnace and Wayne tosses the money inside. And the fight is on at last. The bully sucker punches Wayne and Wayne shakes it off, jumps up, and lands a big right hand. The men fight for hours . . . and Wayne fights, no longer afraid he can't fight unless he's intent on killing the bully. After all, he can't kill his brother-in-law. It might not look good and it will hurt his wife. But he's not holding back either and the fight is a real Donnybrook that lasts for hours -- minutes on the screen with a lot of traveling, much like Wayne chasing O'Hara through the streets of town only to catch her in her shift, put her over his knee, and spank her -- with a small shovel to make sure he gets through all the petticoats and unmentionables so she feels it.

We would be outraged were a man to treat us that way -- and be secretly pleased cared so much for us.

When Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady walks out of Professor Higgins's house and Freddy Ainsfor-Hill meets her outside on the street, she tells Freddy, who has been writing her every day, "sheets and sheets," that she is sick of words. She doesn't want any more talk, she knows lots of words, she wants Freddy to show her how he feels. "Talk, talk, talk...is that all you blighters can do?"

I would add, "Think, think, think...is that all you can do?" Time to stop living in your head, figuring out all the angles and do something.

Sometimes a woman wants a man to go crazy over her, stop her from making a fool of herself, or simply let the inner caveman out to take her in his arms and let her known in no uncertain terms he is not fooled by her temper tantrums or her passionate protests. She craves his strong arms and his commanding presence. She no longer wants the lines between man and woman blurred or obscured. She wants his passion, his jealousy and his love without reservation or restraint. There is a time for romance and a time for unbridled, uncivilized and unabashed love. Mel Brooks illustrated that point quite amply in Young Frankenstein when Frankenstein's fiancée, Elizabeth, chose to marry the monster. He curled and streaked her hair when he ravaged her and she loved it. I guess the oh-so-proper doctor didn't have that caveman magnetism Elizabeth needed to make her want to quit digging in her spurs and let go.

A strong woman needs a strong man. That doesn't mean she wants someone to beat her, although a little spanking can be quite a turn-on in foreplay, but someone she can't control or dig her spurs into for long. She craves and needs limits because she cannot respect a man she can control. Basically, a woman can only feel like a woman when she's in the arms of a strong man. I know the feeling.

Sometimes I want to be with a man who will stop making excuses, take me in his arms and kiss me senseless. A little romance is nice, but I want him to forget the months of teasing and foreplay and get down to business. Leave me breathless. Let me see the fire of jealousy in your eyes. Brand me with your fingers. I can take it. Don't worry about buttons and zippers. I know how to sew and I need to buy new clothes anyway. Ignore propriety and don't leave me in doubt of your feelings. We don't need words. We need action and lots of it. I'll light the candles and heat up dinner; we can be romantic later.

There is a time for romance and sexual tension and then there's a time for heat. Give me heat . . . even when it hurts. At heart, there's a little cavewoman in us all that melts a little when the caveman grabs us by the hair and drags us off to his cave.

That is all.  Disperse. 

A real man is hard to find

Hondo is on TCM and I immediately thought of Al Bundy. In one show Peggy forced Al to take her to the store on the one day Hondo was on television. In Al's world, Hondo only came on television once every ten years.

Al was a down trodden man married to a harridan whose children did not respect him. Al probably saw something in John Wayne's character, Hondo Lane, he wished for himself, a strong, independent man for whom women would cook and clean and invite into their homes. I'm sure lots of men feel the same way.

John Wayne, despite his politics in later years, is the mold from which women wish most men were made. A strong man who knows how to be gentle and romantic at times in his own rough and silent way and on whom a woman can depend no matter what. Wayne was a real man who knew how to step back and allow a woman the space to be independent and self reliant.

One of my cousins emailed me a couple weeks ago because she saw a John Wayne movie. She reminded me of when we had gone to the drive-in movies and sat outside in beach chairs to watch John Wayne. I remember the evening, clear and warm and dark and full of the fantasy that the world was populated with men like the Duke and they were just over the future's horizon. Watching Hondo now and, indeed, all of John Wayne's movies reminds me of those days and the dreams of a strong, intelligent man just like him.

In many ways, my father is just like him and one more reason why I still believe such men exist, men who haven't been cowed by rampant feminism or softened by reading too many books about how to be sensitive. Sensitivity and caring have nothing to do with being able to cry but about gentleness and gentlemanly behavior. A sensitive man knows when to be strong and take command and when to handle a situation or a woman with care. I have seen my father cry twice, both times when he lost a family member, and he was the most sensitive man I know.

When my grandfather was bed ridden and had soiled himself, my father stripped himself and my grandfather and carried my grandfather into the shower, Grandpa's arms draped over his shoulders, and bathed him. When he was done, my father dressed Grandpa and put him back into bed after he changed the sheets and cleaned the bed. He even washed the sheets. I went with him that night.

Grandpa was 6 foot 4 inches tall and weighed about 240. My father was 5 foot 10 inches tall and about 155 pounds, but in my eyes he is a colossus.

My father has taken care of many of Mom's relatives, even Great Aunt Anne who was 6 foot 2 inches tall in her stocking feet and weighed about 180 or thereabouts before she got Alzheimer's and could no longer take care of herself. Mom and Dad moved Anne into their own home, got a hospital bed for her and every day my father fed and dressed and bathed her, even coming home from work at noon during the week to change and feed her. Anne smiled at my father the way a baby smiles at the scent and sound of a loving parent, her smile all innocent happiness whenever Dad was around. Anne was only one of the relatives he inherited when he married my mother. Dad took care of my grandmother and his sister-in-law, Joan, when they needed help. Gram had had several strokes that left her partially paralyzed and unable to take care of herself and Joan had epilepsy and terminal emphysema. Even though Dad was cranky and short tempered with us sometimes, he had a vast reservoir of patience, compassion and generosity for his in-laws.

He is the one who curled my hair when I was little and danced with me whenever there was music. He and John Wayne share that quiet strength that makes real men like them hard to find. It doesn't take tears and sensitivity learned from a book to be a real man; it just takes being like John Wayne or my father. I still hope to find a man just like him. Now that I live in the West maybe he'll walk in from the desert coated head to foot in dust and sand with a feral dog at his side to sharpen the axe, shoe the horses and take me in his arms for a no-nonsense kiss that lets me know he could find me in the dark from the scent of baking, soap and woman.

Why aren't you submitting?

I was responding to a comment about why writers don't submit their work to writing websites, specifically Winston-Salem Writers. My first idea is that the site does not pay anything, and they do not, but as I continued to write and think I thought there should be more of an answer. First, I need to ask more of a question. Why don't writers submit their work more?

Considering how many editors write and talk about the thousands of manuscripts that pass through their offices daily, I wonder that anyone doesn't send their work to publishers, magazines, newspapers, web sites, everywhere. I know I did when I started writing again. I wanted to be published more than anything else. I printed out five or ten copies of every article, essay and story, placed them in manila envelopes with another manila envelope for returns I prayed I wouldn't get and the right amount of postage. I kept track of my manuscripts and kept writing, doing everything I thought I should to be successful. In return I got lots of manila envelopes and form rejections back. Then the long personal rejections started coming, telling me how good my writing was and how wrong it was for their publication. Many times the editor and I would begin corresponding as I continued writing and submitting and they kept sending long informative and helpful rejections, but rejections nonetheless. Friendship was easy; getting published was hard.

There were times I wondered why I wasn't being published when the editors obviously liked my writing and said it was good. There were times they told me I was gifted, but not gifted with payment and publication. I kept all the rejections, form and personal, and vowed the editors wouldn't get me down as I read their publications and ranted about the horrible work being published in the quiet safety of my home office. I wasn't going to give up, and yet there were times when I wrote and didn't send the manuscript out. I ran out of steam, or maybe just out of hope.

I continued subscribing to Writers Digest and buying every book on writing I could find, reading everything over and over in hopes of figuring out what I was doing wrong. I signed up for writing courses and plugged away, filling megabytes of computer space with outlines, stories, character backgrounds, everything and anything to work out whatever problems I could find with my writing, and still I filled my filing cabinet with long, friendly rejection letters from my favorite editors.

Then one day I read an article about writing articles for publications in my own backyard: newspapers, magazines, supermarket fliers. I had a couple ideas and was rewarded with publication, national syndication and a relationship with a local newspaper. Magazines found me next and I turned interviews and profiles into multiple articles for local, regional and national publications. I had my success. It wasn't success in fiction but even nonfiction has its place, and yet I wanted fiction publication.

I finally broke through, or so I thought, by winning second place in a fiction contest. It was a one-shot wonder for a very long time. It seemed I was stuck with nonfiction and fiction would continue to elude me. I wrote a couple of books and began cleaning up other writers' and nonwriters' prose and ideas, helping them find a focus and tell their stories. I gave up on fiction until someone broke my heart. I began writing fiction, giving my broken romance a happy ending and finding for the very first time characters do talk back. I sent sample chapters to a writing contest and took third place. Then I found out what had happened to another story I had written for a contest when speaking with a friend.

She had been on the judging panel and remembered the story. She didn't know it was mine but as I described the plot she smiled and told me she knew the story and explained how. I knew the contest panel had kept the story a long time but what I didn't know was that I nearly won. I was nudged out at the end by a majority vote. Two years and a chance conversation and I finally knew what had happened to one of my stories. I envisioned similar situations every time a manuscript didn't come right back and I kept writing, and editing other people's stories, and I learned.

Going back over those first stories I see the promise and the mistakes. I know why the editors sent the stories back. However, I don't write fiction very much any more. I have a job and responsibilities and I'm still writing nonfiction and being published. The fiction bug bit me as a child and I am still infected, but I don't submit what few stories I write any more. I don't have the time to polish them and there is still a bit of fear inside that in the last round my writing will be nudged out by a majority vote. I know my nonfiction sells but I am less certain about the fiction. I still see and review books I consider less good than my own writing. I probably always will. Until I am writing and submitting my writing I don't really have a right to complain. I am no longer competing on a level playing field as long as I refuse to suit up and step onto the field.

Why do those writers not submit their writing to WSW and other websites? Maybe they're afraid of rejection or criticism or maybe they prefer playing on a field that isn't level. It's so much easier than jumping into the game and getting knocked about or sidelined over and over.

No words

I'm sitting here when I should be getting ready to leave for Lake George. It's a gray, cold morning and I am stuck without words. I feel like no one cares and no one is willing to step up to the plate to do anything but talk, talk, talk and talk is cheap when there is another issue of the ham radio club newsletter to get out. I have the usual content: club and board meeting minutes, the president's column and a couple of little pieces about club activities, but no real meat and no words for columns. At a board meeting I told the members the club was nothing but a social club and one board member, nearly in tears, said it was because some older members took the people with them when they left. My unasked question, because he was clearly on the edge of breaking down, is what made them leave?

The club has initiated some fun activities for the members, but the same people keep winning all the time because the same people keep showing up. Fun activities and prizes are nice and they get their picture in the newsletter but that's not what this should be about. No, I don't have a problem with people socializing. Yes, I do have a problem with a club that is nothing but socializing and doesn't do anything to bring in new members or go out and do something in the community to familiarize people with ham radio and get them excited about the possibilities. The board members talk a good line but that's all they do -- talk.

I see so much potential and so little activity. Granted, many of the members are older and getting older as I write this, and so many members, the really active ones, have died. It isn't as if there aren't lots of younger, virile and active ham radio operators out there but they're either focusing on their own projects and unwilling to get involved or simply do nothing at all outside their own small circle of ham radio friends. These people gravitate to online groups and share their knowledge and experience among people who appreciate their input but it's like preaching to the choir. Those people are already convinced and involved in ham radio.

I am new to all of this and I have had little help from experienced hams, not because I don't ask (you know me better than that) but because they don't have the time or the interest to help me out. If this is the level of after the sale support other new hams have received, it's no wonder they either give up and let their licenses expire or go somewhere else for help. I wonder if that's the case with this club. Is that why the members left, because the spark and support left?

I do not understand why people are so unwilling to share their experience and knowledge with others, even when asked, and why they are so unwilling to extend themselves to letting people in on the fun, the excitement and the possibilities of what they love the most. It doesn't make sense to keep your light under cover when other people need to see, too.

I have asked for help from one of ham radio yahoo groups. I asked for pictures and a little email time for questions and answers so I'll have something new to offer the club members in the next issue of the newsletter. Since no one else has stepped up to the plate and offered articles or jokes or news items, I'll write them all myself -- as if I have a choice -- in hopes that someone will see the possibilities. I doubt I will be able to motivate the entrenched and calcified members but I have to believe someone I interview will read what I've written and offer some help. Who knows? Maybe someone sitting in the shadows hiding their light from the rest of us will decide to open up and share the light and the warmth. I can only hope.

Have camera will shoot

The sky was clear and blue in spots and the mountains outside my office window were fast disappearing behind a thickening gauzy veil of white, charcoal grey around the edges. It was going to storm and storm hard. I had to go to the store to get some food (apples, lemons, walnuts, celery, raisins, a few Marie Callender's) and decided to chance it. At the last minute as I was tying up the garbage sack I decided to take the camera, too. I didn't know what I'd find to shoot but it was worth taking anyway. I'm glad I did.

When I came out of the store with my two canvas bags full of food the sky was full of clouds, the air full of muttering and rumbling. I stashed my bags on a handy pylon and took out the camera. I started shooting, ignoring the people walking in front of me and running for shelter or calling for help on their cell phones. I just kept shooting. I didn't get a picture of lightning but I did get a lot of other pictures. I braved the rain with my broken wiper blade and when I got home I sat in the car until it was over. Looking through the rainy windshield I couldn't resist take pictures of Nel's peas in a pod hanging from the roof. The whole thing looked like it was melting in the pictures and I was curious about how it would turn out.

Today isn't the only day I played with the camera. Last night while I was working I took out the camera and shot some dusk shots out the window in my office while I was waiting for work to download. I admit I'm getting addicted to taking pictures I can crop and resize and edit in some way so they look better than if I had just shot them with a 35mm camera. I do have to keep from moving the camera until the shot shows up on the screen, but I'm learning. My favorite shot is a dusk silhouette of the mountain and the mountain through the windows.

Playing around with effects though can be a lot of fun and I think this may be the one I enjoyed playing with the most. The storm shows up so much better.

Hope you enjoyed the show.

That is all. Disperse.

Dawn's early light

I was still working on dictations at 5 AM and for the first time in a while I watched the dawn. There wasn't so much green and there weren't so many leaves and branches last year because the tree-hating orc wench still lived in the Lon Chaney house next door, but this year the view is enclosed in a leafy frame. Some of the leaves are turning yellow and beginning their fluttering trip to the ground, but right now everything is still a beautiful green that is darker and more vibrant in the rising bloody light of the dawn.

Last night the view out my window was a black hole centered on the orange-yellow sodium vapor street lamp at the corner. Everything, including my eyes, were drawn to that one spot of brilliance in the total black of night. The windows reflected back the monitor and the little Victorian stained glass lamp that sits on top of the CPU tower next to my desk. It was a lonely night full of silence and the faint whisperings of moths fluttering against the screen drawn to the faint glow of the monitor. Off in the distance a train whistle sounded a strangled drawn out moan as I sat above the neighborhood in my office aerie.

Working away the long silent hours of night it took me a while to realize the sky was lighter, a faint blush of pink barely visible through the trees, washed out by the orange-yellow street light, and still it drew my gaze as I yearned for the dawn. Each moment brought a new color, a little more light and the harsh blaze from the street lamp gave up its power to the rising sun. Unable to give up a single moment of the miracle, I got my camera and recorded this August dawn as the awakening wind teased the branches and leaves to stretch forth their green fingers toward the morning sun and dawn's early light.

Not just for women

Thanks to radiantsun for pointing me in the direction of this article about emotional abuse. Even though the essay is written with the man as the abuser I have found that women can be abusers as often as men and the signs are still the same.

"Emotional abusers are very insidious - some of them are much harder to spot than others, because they mingle their abuse in between acts of generosity, and often employ emotionally manipulative tactics, and passive-aggressive behavior. Not all emotional abusers overtly belittle and verbally harangue their partners - some are much more perfidious and as such, their partners may not realize that the source of their distress and an unease over the relationship has been coming from abuse for quite some time. The longer a [man] remains under the grip of an emotional abuser, the more [he] will start to question [himself], [his] actions and [his] beliefs. It is the abuser's goal to make [him] believe that [he] deserves [her] cruelty and that only through [his] actions can [he] make it stop. It is [her] intent to get [him] to feel that [he] is the cause of any relationship problems, and that [her] (abusive) behavior is simply a response to [his actions], and therefore acceptable. It is true, that only through [his] actions can [he] make it stop - [he] must have the courage to leave the relationship and avoid further contact with the abuser.

Abusers, physical or emotional, are abusive because of their own self-hate and internal issues - not because of anything their partner did. No amount of work or attempting to please will stop an abuser from abusing. They have to be willing to recognize and actually work on their own issues before they can stop inflicting cruelty on the people who love them. In many cases, they don't even love their partners, because they can't even love themselves, and don't feel that they deserve love, even though they crave it. Abusers may genuinely feel bad that they committed another act of abuse, not because they have any real compassion for the person they hurt, but because they get angry at themselves for "screwing up" again. This drives them further into self-loathing, and further into a cycle of abusive behavior."

The rest of the article is well worth the time. Check it out.

Around the house

Unlike my usual week, I drove the car twice yesterday, one to Mountain Mama's and the second time to take the maid home. I put new lithium batteries in the camera and took it along to show a bit of the journey. As I walked through the back gate to the parking lot I noticed the roses were in bloom with lots of blossoms and one really beautiful yellow bloom. The bush grows at the base of Nel's deck where her peas in a pod hang. I'll have to get a close up on the deck and get a picture of Nel's iguana, Iggy.

On the other side of the deck is the Lon Chaney house where the blooming in the back yard. The spectacular this year. In the car, turn left at the end of the alley and up the street to one of the parks close to home. I can't resist the beauty and tranquility of the spot every time I drive past it. Down at Mountain Mama's the the ladies are always busy serving and making their healthy and delicious desserts. I couldn't resist the organic vegan carrot cake while I watched them making sandwiches.

Outside the sky was full of cotton candy clouds and the mountains were crowned with fluffy islands pregnant with rain. Back home the maid was out on the deck cleaning the table with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. I went upstairs to fix and eat lunch and get back to work until five.

When it was time to take Bear home, I passed the knight who guards the hallway outside my door and walked down the stairs past the stained glass window and down the stairs. The drive to the west side of town was full of laughter and conversation, but the drive back was a kaleidoscope of clouds hiding the Colorado blue with pink and gray and obscuring Pikes Peak. Even the prices at the gas stations look good against the dusk clouds of the gathering storm. Everywhere I looked there were beautiful and ominous sights presaging another summer storm. The closer I got to home the more charcoal shaded out the sunset colors until I arrived safely home before the rain began to fall. Kittysocks was curled up on Nel's deck and the sun was nearly gone behind the trees. I was glad to be home even if it meant more work after a quick dinner.

And I am not the only one who has taken up photography. My sister Carol has decided to spend her retirement taking pictures of her babies. When she comes to visit with Mom and Beanie in October maybe we can compare cameras and subjects. You never know.

Maybe yes, maybe no

A really good friend sent me this and I thought I'd share it with you. If you've read it before, read on by.

Interesting Reading!!
LIFE IN THE 1500s

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water
temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.
Here are some facts about the 1500's:


Most people got married in June, because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men,then the women and finally the children! Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.Hence the saying,
"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath.
It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed areal problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hungover the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor."The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing.As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway.
Hence the saying a "thresh hold."

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot.
They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat.They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there
for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a
little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat ."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up.Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

Englandis old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a"bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found tohave scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

And that's the truth... Now, whoever said that History was boring ! ! !

Shorts in brief

Since I started my new political column gig I've been reading lots more news, which means I also get up earlier to get through my usual morning rituals. I'd go to bed earlier but I still need to put in overtime at work. Anyway, while cruising the news this morning I noticed some shorts I found interesting and disturbing.

Travel writers have a hard time getting published these days if an agency or mode of transportation (cruise, train, airline, etc.) pays for their travel. Their writing is considered tainted by association, and yet it is standard operating procedure (SOP) for journalists to get into concerts and baseball games, among other places. I think even food writers have to pay for their meal or their reviews are called into question. I remember a time when I went to bat against a theater critic for The Columbus Dispatch who would give good reviews when he got laid and was wined and dined. I nearly cost him his job, but it wasn't about his personal habits or his quid pro quo. It was because he gave a bad review to a play he hadn't seen opening night. He saw a technical rehearsal, which is not a good way to see any show since most of the time is spent starting and stopping to get all the technical elements in a play right, and he clipped coupons during the entire rehearsal. Rehearsal is just that, a rehearsal, not the play. Opening night he came, stayed for five minutes and left then wrote a scathing review. I called him on it.

But back to Ryan Leli. Okay, the kid got into Shea stadium for free and he watched a game, but seven years for impersonating a journalist? That's a bit much when you have people who are recognized to be journalists and do nothing to earn the title or the position, other than feeding the public what they're told. Talk about impersonations.

Religion is always in the forefront of the news and so is Madonna but what else is new? She lives to shock and flaunt and her latest stunt has the Vatican in an uproar. I wonder if it is just because she uses sacred icons and beliefs to keep her name and concerts in the news or if they, like some because she's a woman. Okay, so a female Sunday school teacher won't be able to keep teaching men in church as she has for 11 years, but at least she wasn't fired from her day job. She's allowed to do anything she wants, even to being a man's boss, just not in church. According to Rev. Timothy LaBouf when quoting Paul of Tarsus in Timothy: I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. That's one way to maintain control when a woman questions your opinion or the direction of the church to which she belongs, and it only took Rev. LaBouf 11 years to find that passage in the New Testament. Guess he was too busy learning from the city manager when he's serving on the Watertown City Council. The city manager is a woman.

That is all. Disperse.

People say the darndest things

People I know continue to surprise me -- and not in a good way.

I talked with my mother last night about her visit in October. She told me she is giving me a diamond bracelet I gave her for Xmas about 20 years ago. She is parceling out her jewelry and possessions. She planning to have it all done before she dies because she's certain she's not going to be around next year. I teased her asking if she was going to give me the diamond earrings I gave her for her her birthday when I first started working. She said she couldn't because she gave them to Beanie. Even my brother's youngest daughter, Alexandria, keeps asking if she is still going to get the jewelry Mom promised her.

Listening to Mom talk about who gets what disturbs me. It isn't as if I don't understand my parents aren't going to be around forever, but it's still difficult listening to her talking about all this. This isn't just Mom's way of getting another vacation the way she has so many times over the past few years, wheedling Dad with seeing New Orleans or Montana or wherever "one more time".

I remember my grandfather talking about dying all the time, saying he wouldn't be around for long. He did this throughout my childhood and didn't die until I was in my twenties. I still miss him but learned to discount his talk of dying. Mom started doing the same thing about three or four years ago. I'd chalk it up to following in her father's mental footsteps, but Grandpa never gave up his prized possessions. Mom loves her jewelry like I love certain books I own and she's giving them all away in such a matter-of-fact way. She wants to make sure what she intends is carried out. I told her not to worry. After dealing with my ex-husband's family, the vulture clan, and the feeding frenzy when Andre Norton was in the hospital a couple of years before she died, my sisters and brother know that I won't stand for them acting in the same way. I have told them all I would kill them, go to prison for the rest of my life and let the state have everything if they even acted like they wanted to fight over Mom and Dad's possessions like a pack of wild hyenas. I am a very pacific person who flees in the face of violence, but this I will do. I won't allow my parents' wishes to be ignored in the name of selfish greed. Things aren't worth that much.

Mom's not the only person who has surprised me lately.

One of my more pleasant tasks is talking people into allowing me to publish their adventures in radio. One friend, whose pictures I have posted here, has a marvelous project he built in a pair of Batman pencil tins. I emailed him asking if I could publish the pictures and narrative in the next issue of the ham radio club's newsletter. A couple hours later he emailed back to "respectfully decline". I was stunned.

It took me a while to figure out he doesn't believe his project good enough to be published. He's wrong. I won't publish anything that doesn't interest me or doesn't show a high level of expertise, functionality and creativity. His project has all three and so much more. I even offered to use the information on the ATS-3 bulletin board to write the article if he didn't have the time but no deal. I see so few really creative and functional home brewed projects and his are always fascinating. It's such a delight to see him take materials that have no relationship or bearing on ham radio and turn them into multi-use equipment to take when he's backpacking and playing radio.

I can understand being humble and even being shy of the limelight but he posts his projects at online bulletin boards for like-minded ham operators but continues to elude my best efforts to publish him in the newsletter. Ordinarily I would hound him the way I hound others until they get tired and give in, but I prize our friendship too much to subject him to my hard sell, wheedling approach. He seems to have little tolerance these days for levity or coercion, digs in his heels like a bull and refuses to budge. He has enough difficulties to face without me making it worse because I want to showcase his project.

One of my hopes is to inspire young people to get involved in ham radio with creative projects like this, showing them that radio can be fun as well as challenging and the only limits are those imposed on us. Every time I see that excited grin on experienced hams when they talk about their projects or the first time they were exposed to radio I want to spread the news and infect more people. The newsletter is how I spread the creative seeds and projects like this one are perfect for helping the seed take root and grow. Projects like this show that with a little ingenuity and thinking outside the box amateur radio is not an expensive hobby or avocation. It's fairly easy to put together an expensive kit or buy a ready made radio but thinking outside the box and building a radio and antenna with inexpensive materials puts radio within the reach of younger radio enthusiasts. What better way to show them than in a newsletter like this one?

The older I get the less I understand people. I wonder if I will ever understand as long as people keep throwing me curves when I'm not wearing my baseball glove.

Snow globes without the snow

It's one of those snow globe days when the sky is a grayish white and seems liked a wall surrounding everything. The slow slip and patter of rain on the leaves and the cars have that slick, shiny look as though encased in new plastic. The air is chill even with the ceiling fan off and damp. Through the wet gloss of the leaves the alligator skin of the tree trunks darkens with rain sucked down through channels like fine capillaries, changing the way the trees look. One minute they look like headless women stretching their arms to the sky, then serpents slithering down the trunk, and the next someone standing on his head with his legs touching the lowering sky.

The street is awake. Cars start and drive away, park and the doors open and close. The farmer's market is open for business rain or shine and the people find their way here to touch the colors, vibrant even in this white globed world, and breathe the lingering scents of sunshine and earth. They take their purchases home, taking summer with them.

It is on a day like today fall seems so close and winter not far behind. The blazing, breathless dog days are sweet memories of warmth and golden light in the face of impending cold and quiet. Soon I will be able to see the whole face of my mountains when the trees lose their lush green canopies and only the bare branches remain. The days will be less golden and the Colorado blue will be cooler and farther away, stepping back from the slumbering earth. Dawn will break later with a fiery display of reds above the shivering coins of golden aspens before they drift to the ground and carpet the earth. The air will be redolent with the scent of spicy smoke, the breezes tinged with ice and snow. Soon day and night will stand in equal partnership before day gives way so night may rule in its stead. Sun, the color of lemonade, will beam like a benevolent and indulgent grampus ready for quiet after vibrant and boisterous grandchildren have gone home. As the sun winds down, so does the year as the pendulum swings slower and slower, never stopping, but waiting patiently for the sun to come close enough to warm the earth and set it swinging strongly once again, cold, white winter days giving way to the warm scented breezes of spring and, inevitably, the brazen heat and breathlessness of summer once again.

I long for fall colors and winter cold as I longed for the fresh growing scent of spring and the warmth of summer, as predictable in my desires as the seasons in their turn, savoring the scent, sight and sound of each season, preserving the harvest of memories here in pictures and in words.

Them's workin' words

Pastor, my landlady's dog, has been restless this morning. He won't eat his breakfast but that's probably because he's sulking. I made him take his meds this morning. I opened the capsules and put the powder in his food, but I have to give him his pills, which requires opening his mouth and holding it closed once I have the pills on the back of his tongue. It's like force feeding geese to make their livers fat and succulent, except that I don't don't do it for longer than it takes for him to swallow his pills.

When I was a kid and Dad was stationed at Fort Monroe in Virginia, we lived in Hampton Roads, a small town off Chesapeake Bay. Dad kept pigeons and when he had babies he would hand feed them dried corn. That meant prying open their little beaks with a fingernail and and putting the corn down their throats -- force feeding. They were too young, so Dad said, to be able to eat the food by themselves and were used to having their mothers regurgitate food from their crops into the babies mouths. Of course the babies expected mama to feed them so they squeaked and cheeped with their beaks wide open, jostling their siblings to get first in line, or at least first beak up since they were packed so tightly in the nest. I don't think the baby pigeons saw Dad as mama. They didn't fight him or wriggle to get away; they sat patiently on his lap while he hand fed them. I don't think it's a good idea for me to hand feed Pastor; he's spoiled enough as it is.

I'm getting spoiled, too. For the first time since I was a kid, and I mean a very young child who didn't pay attention to these things, I am looking at a weekend where I don't have to clean the apartment, which is a good thing since I ache all over, but especially at my knees and hips. Could be the fall I took last night on the landlady's hardwood floors. The landlady has rugs scattered artfully over the floors with some of Pastor's folded blankets on top of the big rug in the dining room. The blankets are his outside bed when he's lounging on the deck. Anyway, I was walking through the dining room in the dark on my way to the laundry room to check on the dryer when my big bare toe caught a fold or hole or something, nearly jerked my toe out of the socket, throwing me to the floor. I hit hard, flustering Pastor not the least bit. As I sat on the floor, knees hurting so badly my eyes watered, I bit back the last few curses on my lips and sat there deciding whether or not I should stay there and avoid tripping and falling again or get back up and try to walk again. I got up.

Needless to say, my knees and hips feel out of place and ache like a mouth full of bad teeth right now. Even sitting here on the sofa with one bare foot on the floor and the other leg stretched out on the couch is uncomfortable. All I can think is that I'm glad I don't have to clean this weekend even though I'm dreading doing the rest of the laundry tomorrow morning. I think I'll avoid going to the Farmer's Market, too, since walking hurts. I probably should be stoic and bite down on a piece of leather or a silver bullet, and walk over there and wander through the stalls, but I'm just not feeling it. I don't think I'll feel it tomorrow either. Walking is an exercise in agony and anything but being curled up in a fetal ball hurts like the dickens. Time for a side trip.

According to The Answer Bank the phrase, "hurts like the dickens" has an interesting history. Dickens is another word for devil, and came to be used as an oath in the same way as God, Hell, Holy Mary, etc. Brewer (dictionary of phrase and fable 1870) explains that the 'dickens' oath, is a perversion of, and derived from 'Nick' and 'Old Nick'. The dickens expression appeared first probably during the 1600's. The etymology of 'nick' can be traced back a lot further - 'nicor' was Anglo-Saxon for monster. The devil-association is derived from ancient Scandinavian folklore: a Nick was mythological water-wraith or kelpie, found in the sea, rivers, lakes, even waterfalls - half-child or man, half-horse - that took delight when travellers drowned. Beginning several hundred years ago both protestant and catholic clergy commonly referred to these creatures, presumably because the image offered another scary device to persuade simple people to be ever god-fearing (".....or Old Nick will surely get you when you next go to the river...") which no doubt reinforced the Nick imagery and its devil association. So too did the notoriety of Italian statesman and theorist, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) - (who also gave rise to the expression 'machiavellian', meaning deviously wicked). 'Nick' Machiavelli became an image of devilment in the Elizabethan theatre because his ideas were thought to be so heinous. Shakespeare has Mistress Page using the 'what the dickens' expression in the Merry Wives of Windsor, c.1600, so the expression certainly didn't originate as a reference to Charles Dickens as many believe, who wasn't born until 1812. Charles Dickens' fame however would certainly have further reinforced the popularity of the 'dickens' expression.

I have to go think up good reasons why I shouldn't just crawl back into bed instead of showering, putting on clothes and working this morning.

Oh, yes, I have it. Poverty. Can't afford maid. No maid means I have to clean the apartment. Right. All good reasons why I should get up and get moving even though I'm just not feeling it today. Today I feel like bed and lots of books. Too bad I had to stop and think about it.

That is all. Disperse.

Crime, technology and stuff

Another beautiful Colorado morning. The birds are singing, the air is cool and fresh and I am still half asleep. That is, I was still half asleep until I read this morning's news.

Ten years of suspicion and doubt and finally a killer is on his way to justice, if he can get through airport security.

The Ramseys told the truth. They did not have a hand in killing JonBenet. I cannot imagine how difficult it was for the Ramseys being suspected of murdering their daughter and being hounded constantly in the tabloids and because of people's evil minds. Finally, after Patsy's death from ovarian cancer, the truth is coming out but who will compensate the Ramsay family for everything they have lost?

It seems what's inside of us, no matter how it shows on the outside, can be taken against us. those moments of doubt, a little fear of flying, angry at a spouse or loved one or just the government requiring invasive and extensive physical checks before flying can be taken against us with the new technology. The system, measuring pulse, blood pressure, and sweat levels, can detect potential terrorists -- or just people fed up with security that curtails their freedoms and private thoughts even further. Big Brother is here and he's smiling because we didn't see him coming.

But it's not just our freedom to fly that is being curtailed but the freedom to have children and buy groceries. The country may need to go back to the horse and buggy (I'm sure the Amish will teach us how it works), the even older mode of walking or the high tech method of riding a bicycle that doesn't use gasoline when planning to go to the store because all that fits in this car are two people. On the up side, the egg-shaped car does get 330 miles to the gallon so $3 will go back and forth to work for a month or on a long weekend as long as you don't plan to bring luggage or your briefcase and laptop. With all the money you save on gas you can guy clothes when you get there and dispose of them when you leave. They won't fit in the car. As for the data you need, you can always back it up on the Time Machine, Apple's new MAC technology and carry it with you on a removable external hard drive. I'm sure the Aptera can handle at least that much, especially when driving solo.

At least the Aptera would take up less space at the long term parking lot at the airport and wouldn't be a target for carjackers since it's not a luxury car or even sporty, but it will be a plus when arriving at the airport terminal 18 hours ahead of time to go through security before boarding the plane. It takes time to go through strip and body cavity searches to make sure you're not carrying a bomb. However, if there is a bomb nearby you might trigger it with your new ePassport with the RFID chip. Of course that doesn't matter to Big Brother who will be watching you even in the restroom or wherever you sneak off to enjoy a quiet smoke or in the air when you join the Mile High Club. Nothing is secret and nothing is sacred any more. Freedom is a fluid concept right now and travel is a fast fading dream -- unless you want to stay on the ground.

I think I'll take my old fashioned passport with me when I go to Alaska next year. I know Alaska is part of the U.S., but I've almost decided to take the train and do a little Canadian rail sight seeing along the way. I'll see a lot more that way and I won't have to worry about innovative terrorists with liqui-gel bombs masquerading as cold and sinus relief. I still might take a cruise to Alaska, but either way I've decided to take the train to the debarkation point if I don't do the Al-Can train trip.

I got the idea from reading about 's numerous trips and because I found out last night that my mother, Beanie and Carol are coming to visit for a week by train. Other than a short train ride in Panama as a child that put me off water for a month, I have not been on a train. After checking Amtrak's web site and looking at the accommodations, I decided it would be fun to sit in a room and have my meals while I watch the world rush by the window as I sketch, read or tap away on my laptop. That's not possible on a plane and certainly not on a bus with my limited life laptop battery. There are outlets and electricity on a train and even though it will be somewhat cramped and the facilities compact, I won't be sharing it with anyone so I can stretch out and enjoy the view.

I still have to get through the visit in October. Carol is complaining about the cost of staying in a hotel for a week (the time Beanie and I had planned for her to visit) and Mom told me last night they plan to camp out on my floor for the entire week. I mentioned the hotels and motels within a six blocks of here, but Mom countered with, "So you don't want us to stay with you?" The guilt bomb ticked loudly.

Okay, I have a sofa and chaise and a love seat in the bedroom. I also have a queen sized bed, but there is not room enough for all of us here, especially not on the floor. I'm not stepping over sleepy snoring bodies when I trek to the bathroom in the middle of the night and I'm not going to worry about waking someone up when I decide to get up and watch a movie or write on my laptop. Then there's the question of window treatments. There are none and this isn't the cabin where there's no one around for miles and only the pine martins, birds and elk to see whether or not you're naked when you walk past the window, and I don't have a huge painting to put in the window to keep prying animal eyes from seeing in. I'm also not planning to put up window treatments between now and October because I like the open minimalist look and plan to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

The guilt bomb keeps ticking.

It isn't that I don't want to see my family. Beanie and I have been planning her visit for a year. I do want to see them, but sleeping on my floor is not an option. Mom assured me they would buy food while they're here so I don't have to feed them all from my meager budget, which is a good thing, and they will rent a car so Mom and Carol can go shopping while Beanie and I go wherever we want. Suddenly this is beginning to sound more like the real reason Mom and Carol are coming is to have an inexpensive vacation to Colorado and not to see me. I wonder if I should be hurt. Hmmm.

Well, I'm sure Mom is putting me on and she and Carol will get a motel room (I'm sure can suggest a place that would put them amidst one-stop necessities) close to the antique malls in Old Colorado City, rent their car and shop to their hearts' content, but that guilt bomb is still ticking.

No sale

The sun is shining and my front door isn't sticking so much. The door has a tendency to stick when it's wet and rainy. Makes burglars -- and friends -- think the door is bolted and locked. A little push, or pull, and it opens fine, but they don't know that.

I was busy last night posting markets and contests, answering emails and keeping up to date on my friends before I climbed into bed with a thriller and promptly fell asleep. I blame it on too much excitement since B&B were over yesterday and last night watching movies and talking until nine or so. The good thing is that I didn't wake up until seven this morning instead of getting up and going to the bathroom every hour or two. That's two nights in a row I have had more than two hours of sleep at any one time. My body has decided to take control and keep me under wraps for seven hours straight. I like when it takes control. Means I don't have to get up in the middle of the night and stumble to the bathroom or suffer through reruns of running to the bathroom in my dreams to wake me up so I can run to the bathroom in the dark. Not so this morning with the sun shining and the birds chirping and calling while the ravens and crows soar and dip in the sky cawing raucously. I can hear everything since the fans are off; it's still cool outside and inside.

I'm finishing up the rest of my email and I received a notice from Bed, Bath & Beyond that if I purchase something from Lenox I will get a $50 gift certificate. I looked through the Lenox offerings thinking I could get away with something inexpensive like a porcelain colander decorated with little butterflies (I need a colander) that costs a mere $29.99, which would still leave me with $20 in my pocket and a free colander. I decided to check the small print to be sure. I'm glad I did. I have to spend $200 in order to get $50 back. I don't like Lenox that much. I don't need a silver pizza tray for $99.99 or a silver cheese grater and tray for $99.99, still leaving me with at least another dollar to spend to get the gift certificate that I can use to spend at BB&B. Lenox doesn't make anything for a dollar. Even picture frames, silver of course, cost nearly $50. I could get one 5-piece place setting of fine china for $159 and buy enough to make up four or six or eight place settings and then the gift certificate would be a welcome bit of mad money, but I'd have to be mad to do that.

I have never been able to figure out how buying a lot of things you didn't want before the gift certificate or gift offer came your way saves any money. You still have to buy things you weren't planning to get to get the gift certificate that will not begin to defray the cost of what you have to spend to get it. I can hear the discussions between husbands and wives now.

"Honey, I just saved you $50," wifey says as he unloads the boxes and bags from the trunk of wifey's car.

"Then what's all this?" husband asks. "You were going to buy a new strainer for the kitchen sink."

"Oh, but, honey, the store had a sale and they gave me a gift certificate for $50." Wifey beams waiting for husband to understand as she unpacks the boxes and bags, covering the table and kitchen counters and finally the floor.

Husband, stunned as he bangs his head on the corner of the kitchen counter when he trips over a brand new cheese fryer, picks up the brand new cheese fryer and holds it in a white knuckled grip. "Dearest, we already have a cheese fryer."

Wifey takes the cheese fryer and places it next to the three-month-old cheese fryer next to the stove. "It was 50% off."

It's no wonder there is so much domestic violence. And it's no different with men than it is with women. Send hubby to the store for cat food and he will inevitably come back from Sam's club with a car load of restaurant sized containers of mayo, mustard and ketchup, bulk corn fritters, which neither of them eat, and bulk containers, boxes and bags of frozen okra and T-bone tails to save money. If it's the home improvement store, he will come back with tools and projects that will soon reside next to the tools and projects gathering dust and cobwebs and provide homes for mice and other neighborhood vermin and strays.

Given the right products and flashing signs guaranteeing savings and the rush is on. It seems no one realizes that if you don't need something and wouldn't have bought it otherwise, getting 50%, or even 10%, off or getting a gift certificate for purchasing at least $200, you haven't saved a dime. In gambling it's called losing money. It's like sitting down at the poker table with $500 and getting up owing the house another $1200, but you leave with a plastic chip you can cash in for $25. Somewhere along the way people either flunked math or forgot how to use it.

I have watched friends' and family's faces when they get the credit card bill at the end of the month and pick up the Sunday or Wednesday paper and turn to the part time help wanted ads. The warm glow of having saved money just hit them with John Brown's sledgehammer. You'd think they would learn, but they don't. Let them see a sale ad or run across the blue light special in K-Mart and the look of impending savings glazes their eyes and paints a zealot's smile on their faces. They're gone. Nobody's home. The sale fever has caught them as surely as the fever mobilized a scattered nation when the cry of "Gold!" went up at Sutter's Mill in California in 1848. It was the cry heard around the world and people from around the world responded in ravening hordes.

It's a good thing common sense keeps me from falling too far from grace when the sale or gift certificate offer comes my way. Common sense and poverty, that is. Poverty keeps what little money I have in my pocket since it wouldn't stretch to $200 worth of Lenox. Now that's saving money.

Winter's coming early

It's a cold gray morning and the rain washed air feels like an introduction to winter at the ragged end of autumn. It is supposed to be warmer later this week and some part of me wishes it were warmer now, not Sahara hot, just late spring hot. I'm a little wistful that summer is nearly at an end and fall is closing in fast. I'm always a little wistful as the season turn and the year moves toward its end. Time moves so quickly, much quicker than when I was a child when summers seemed endless and the school year plodded forever from the day after Labor Day to June. It's no wonder most of the holidays are in the bottom of the year and not at the top. After all, what do we need with holidays in the summer when we're already on holiday? Adults can make their own holidays and children need help.

Children are without jobs and money and vacation time, except for what the government allows, and cannot take off on a long weekend or one- or two-week hiatuses anywhere in the world. Children look forward to Columbus Day for their first glimpse of parole from their studies, followed by Thanksgiving's four-day weekend, the week long excitement of Christmas, followed closely by New Year's, Martin Luther King day, Presidents' day, and Good Friday before Easter. Memorial Day is the crowning glory because it means summer is nearly here with the intoxicating extravagance of three months of freedom and sunshine. Children live for the holidays, the days when they don't have to rise with the sun and stumble sleepily through breakfast and dressing and are thrust into the rushing swirls and eddies of school days. School has compensations, like going to the library, recess and lunch, and let's not forget field trips, but it is work and no doubt about that. Even those who shirk the work don't get off so easily as they are more than likely going to spend time after school cooling their heels in detention, their parole delayed.

I am looking forward to the week between Christmas and New Year's when I will take another week's vacation, this time actually being paid for the time. But before that I will see Beanie and spend some time with her. It has been a long time since we could sit and talk or go somewhere together and I am looking forward to it. I'm sure we can find something to do and see. I will definitely have to take her up to Winslow Pass to see the panoramic views and to the blackened matchstick trees of the Hayman fire. Maybe we'll even go to see the cabin where I spent idyllic days close to nature in my secluded hideaway. I don't know.

After Beanie's visit I'm planning to go to Missouri for Thanksgiving and I have four whole days of vacation for that, two vacation days and two weekend days. Then after my Christmas/Yule break I have another week, and maybe two, of summer vacation. I've decided to go to Alaska next year on parole from my work. I also plan to take the certification exams so that I will have a third week of vacation to plan and take next year.

I no longer have that three-month stretch of summer sun and freedom to look forward to, but in addition to the government planned holidays I get to take, I have my own little holidays. I do miss school days and having nothing to do but learn and look at boys. Still, I have a much better reason for taking a vacation -- work. It's all relative. Neither children nor adults get off Scot free. We all have to earn our freedom and holidays however we can. Adults earn holidays with work and children with learning, which they consider work. Each envies the other's freedom and easy life never realizing what they have in their grasp.

Promotion time again

Since Bruce mentioned he wanted to read some of my writing and because these reviews are hot off the keyboard and new with The Celebrity Cafe I thought you might like my take on two new and very different thrillers.

The first one is Red Flash by Kiva Wolfe who places her mystery in the dark heart of the mile high city of Denver, Colorado. The second book is about sex and the Internet, one of M. J. Rose's favorite topics when she writes about the Butterfield Institute in New York City, The Venus Fix.

With each book and each review I learn more about writing and about myself. One thing I've learned is that just because I don't like a book does not mean someone else might like it. I am very picky about things like grammar, characterization and dialogue, the latter because I have had my struggles with it over the years. Whenever you read a review on anything, except for safety reviews in Consumer Reports, take it with a grain of salt. Check out the book, movie, CD or whatever for yourself. I always do.

That is all. Disperse.

Books, books, books, food

One of these days I will have floor to ceiling book cases in a room with a comfy overstuffed chair and lots of light. In the meantime, there are books everywhere: under the coffee table, on the coffee table, on the shelves in the bedroom, on the floor in the bedroom, on the bed, probably under the bed, in the bathroom, and even in my office. The difference of opinion I had with the postman was over books, and one movie, but mostly over delivering books. We have that sorted out -- sort of. He now leaves my packages on the bench on the front porch but he writes out a delivery slip and puts it in my mailbox, obviously unable to see that I will see the packages before I even open my mailbox to retrieve his delivery slip.

Okay, back to the books.

After much procrastination and idling of time playing Spider Solitaire and searching markets on Writer's Market, I finally got down to business, skimmed through two books I read several weeks ago and wrote my reviews. I just sent them off to Dominick and will get back to work reading more books. I also have one from Author Link that I started and need to finish in the next two days before I finish the other five books I've promised to read and review. I have a feeling that the number of authors contacting me to review their books is about to go up considerably. I hope the postman owns a truss and has lots of those little delivery slips, since he writes one delivery slip telling me my package is on the bench for every package he leaves on the bench. I no longer believe that he is meticulous, just anal and difficult. I don't think he realizes you only have to dot the "i" and cross the "T" once.

It has been a cool and calm day with rain off and on and a lovely breeze coming through the window that made me so cold I had to put on clothes and turn off the ceiling fan. Maybe fall will come early this year with its scent of smoke and impending rain and snow, or maybe not. The leaves on the trees are still a brilliant green so unlike the limp sun-bleached green of last year.

BBQ chicken is bubbling in the oven scenting the air with caramelized sugar and warm spices, one more reason for me to take a break and enjoy myself before I plunge headlong back into work. I want a few more dictations on my tally sheet before I begin organizing the books and transferring them from the living room to the bedroom floor until I can clear the shelves, reset them and stack the books according to subject and place in line for reviewing. I didn't get any painting done, but I did win quite a few games of Spider Solitaire, a nasty habit I must give up -- soon -- but not too soon.