Days I need wine and roses

"The days of wine and roses...laugh and run away like a child at play..." That song is stuck in my head right now as the lights flicker on and off and another thunderstorm moves through this usually arid area where rain falls everywhere but here. It's been like for over a month, and believe me I'm not complaining. I love the rain and I adore thunderstorms, just not when I need my Internet connection to stay stable and actually on. Had to give up watching another episode of Babylon 5, but I wasn't really able to get into it because of administrative duties that ended in me firing someone. I hate when that happens. Suffice it to say, he deserved it and I did what I had to do. And the day started out so nice -- for a few minutes, and then an email I should have immediately deleted instead of reading hit me wrong.

What is it about some people they feel the need to rip at someone who disagrees with them, usually with some form of snide comment that looks like a compliment but isn't? The world, and this country, offer a widely diverse range of experiences and it takes all of us to be able to experience everything. However, one person can rack up quite a list of experiences if they spend any time traveling other than the safe and guided highways and byways. I've had the good fortune to live in interesting times and even more interesting places and I've never been afraid of new experiences. I have mingled with people from all strata of society and learned things, some of which I wished at the time I hadn't. I have had lots of experience in business, television, medicine, publishing and security, to name a few industries, and my resume covers maybe one-third of my background. I am, as I have told many people, a Jackie-of-all-trades and have mastered quite a few. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to master a few more, and believe me when I saw I shall. Life's too short to waste it waiting on the sidelines for life to happen. I'm not the shrinking violet or wallflower type.

At any rate, I sent a shot across the bow of the correspondent who sent her snide comment. I'm sure it hit its mark since no response has returned. That's the thing about secrets, and I've said this before. They never stay buried if more than one person knows. When the secret is part of public record that is available for a few cents a copied page and an afternoon digging through civil and probate court records, it is so much easier to find and paper keeps for a long time.

It reminds me of the saying on a wall in a graphic novel. "Who watches the Watchmen?" In this case, all it took was a request for information and I took the time to watch the guardian. Some people feel so safe bilking the government and attempting to hide in reams of bureaucratic paperwork, but there's always someone willing to wade through the red tape, pay the fees and get the information, especially when there is a loved one's health and well being at stake. Even the guardians need to be guarded. The only reason the information didn't come out before this was because one of the parties afraid of the repercussions and what would be lost. I do not share the fears, but I respected the request. Sounds so mysterious and cloak-and-dagger, but I've no doubt the information, if it merely grazed the mark before, will be received and noted in due course. If nothing else, it will make a great story about families, fraud, malfeasance and greed. I'm sure it will quickly find a following.

I guess some people never read the sign that says, "Don't poke the bear," and take it to heart when they should. There is only one thing more dangerous and ferocious than a pissed off bear and that's a pissed off writer. Think I'm kidding. You've obviously never read the famous feuds and poison pens employed by pissed off writers that rival the Hatfields and the McCoys. There are enemies turned into villainous characters in novels and public and written sniping, as when Gore Vidal quipped that Truman Capote's horrendous end was "...a good career move."

Writers, as in a recent post by a friend, are more than capable of rendering life into art and finding new and inventive ways to murder those who raise the writer's ire to Mount St. Helen's or Krakatoa's proportions that can darken the horizon for years. I've always wondered who Dickens loathed so much as to immortalize him in the greedy, grasping and obsequious person of Uriah Heep? Probably someone who was given guardianship over a loved one.

Yes, this day would have been better for wine and roses, but I guess I'll have to settle for a glass of wine. The roses aren't in bloom yet.