Sharing My World 75

Share Your World – November 27, 2017

Yes, it’s really me, back in this empty echoing wasteland of neglect.  I have had good intentions for almost three months but we all know what road is paved with those useless things.  It seems every time I wake up feeling like today is the day for writing something, some terrible thing happens somewhere in the world, and sometimes close to home, and then I just don’t feel like it anymore.  Because I might have to think and talk about it and be all serious for a minute.  Gah.  Who wants that.

We had a good trip east and a great visit with family and friends and I guess I got thoroughly into relax mode and have had a hard time getting out.  There are worse places to be.  Anyway, my world!  Sharing!  Ready or not!

Would you prefer a reading nook or an art, craft, photography studio?

I have an art and craft “space” but it’s beside my off white bed spread and surrounded by newly painted pelican grey walls, so messy splattering is not allowed.  Puts a bit of a damper on wildly reckless creativity.  So a studio would be nice.

A reading nook would also be super, but really you can throw one of those together anywhere there’s a comfy chair or something big enough to recline on.  I do most of my reading in bed to ensure that my dreams are totally bizarre.  If it’s a real book I read until it drops and hits me in the face, and if it’s my kindle, until my eyes burn and refuse to stay open.  So apparently in my world, reading also leads to losing consciousness.

Tell how you are feeling today in the form of a weather report. (For example, partly cloudy, sunny with a chance for showers, etc.)

Foggy with a chance of more fog, but watch for intermittent extremely sunny breaks.  They’ve been known to happen.  If there’s rain it will be gentle, warm and soothing. And it won’t freeze.  Freezing rain is also not allowed.  It should be banned everywhere actually.  Along with all other annoying dangerous shit.  Feel free to mention names if you want.  And add a bit of thunder.

If you could witness or physically attend any event past, present or future, what would it be?

The wedding (or alternatively the spectacular break up, although I’m certainly not predicting or anticipating that) of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.  Don’t want to physically be there for any of it,  but not being a witness to it all seems impossible.  Unless we’re all suddenly struck deaf and blind.  Might as well wish for something that’s likely to happen.  And if you ever complain about issues with your in-laws, just think of Meghan Markle and what she has to contend with and you’ll feel a lot better about your own comparatively boring situation.

What inspired you or what did you appreciate this past week? Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination.

Obviously I am very inspired by Savage Chickens. on a daily basis because I subscribed to get emails.  I highly recommend it.

Quiet Minds

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.

[Robert Louis Stevenson]

And here I thought January was going to be such a boring month.  Now I want it to end for a whole different myriad of reasons.

I really miss my complacent quiet mind that didn’t involve itself much in world politics and all the fussing and fighting my friend.  It’s been MIA for almost two weeks now, off somewhere being frightened and perplexed I guess.  The clock during a thunderstorm is beginning to feel like a ticking time bomb.  It seriously needs to yell and scream at somebody.  Reading the news is like watching a friend self destruct and having no idea what you could possibly say to them or do to make things better.  Worried that they’ll destroy you and everything around them in the process.

This is life, though, isn’t it?  Never meant to be easy.  There will always be ignorance and fear and hate right along side all the understanding, compassion and love.  I always thought I knew which one would win in the end.  And then a white Christian male murders people in a mosque.  And the victims are the ones he calls terrorists.  There’s a special place in hell for the perpetrators of such senseless violence, right next to the ones who incite it.

Amidst the shared grief and despair there’s always something we can be grateful for, right?  How long is your list?  I hope it’s longer than mine.

1. Humour.  Satire.  Political cartoons.  Protest signs.  Because if you don’t laugh you might start to cry and never stop.
2. People with functioning brains saying intelligent things.  They are a delightful contrast to the ones who believe thinking isn’t really all that important.
3. Protesters and reporters and journalists who refuse to sit down and shut up.
4. Social media, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.  The right to ask questions and get truthful answers.  All things that could be taken away from us.  In this day and age.  It boggles the mind. Do I believe everything I hear or read?  Of course not. There is progressively more bullshit to sift through these days, but there is also thoughtful, actually factually backed-up information.  There are insightful gems.  These are well worth the time it takes to find them, and have helped to restore my wavering faith in the basic goodness of humanity.
5. The love and compassion that’s out there and has always been out there despite all the misguided evil efforts to destroy it.  I am so very thankful that all the rampant stupidity and hate has not lured all of us into stupidly and rampantly hating back.  It is so very tempting to add to the chaos instead of the calm.

Here’s something we can all hang on to.  These mortal men (yes, take heart, one day they will die just like the rest of us) who have had power gifted to them can have that power taken away. They are not Gods. Some of them are not even that smart. Some of them are probably certifiably insane. They can be stopped.  And I know there are good people ceaselessly working on stopping them before going to hell is the least of their worries because they will have all of us living with them in some version of it right here.

Am I taking all this too seriously?  I don’t know.  But better to err on this side of the fence than to regret not getting it before it’s too late to change the downward spiral we’re all being sucked into.

So do not let them beat you down and wear you out and make you want to give up. Never doubt that therein lies the method to their madness in their gleeful rush to keep their so-called promises, one after another after another, so you can’t wrap your head around how little forethought or concern for legality or unhappy consequences has been taken into account before they’re slamming the next thing down on the table.  And the shit that happens after that is SO not their fault.  Wow.  They are counting on everyone to become overwhelmed to the point of weary acceptance, not knowing what is legal and what is truth or which way is up.  Too busy fighting with each other to notice or care any more what’s really going on.  And away they go.

Resist and keep resisting the things you know in your heart to be wrong.  Because to do otherwise is unthinkable.

Sorry I’m not my usual flippant frivolous self these days.  I’m just not ready yet for the world to end.

Randomness on a Weekday

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Normally I would be raising my hand for the not-leaving-the-house bit, but I was up before the alarm today.  Good thing, because I forgot to set it.  I’m getting rather good at driving to strange parts of the city  to see specialists but parking stresses me out.

Patient parking in the lot was full, so I parked a couple of rows over in what might have been a place where one needs a permit, but it wasn’t marked reserved so I decided to tempt fate and abandon my car there and walk around to the other side of the building where I would not be able to see it and then proceed to obsess over all the possible outcomes of this decision.  Towed away would be the worst.  Hefty fine, nasty note, slashed tires.  I hate my brain when it thinks up dumb things.

Incredible as it may sound to sane people, I was more worried about my car than about the results of my MRI.  So the doctor telling me everything was fine and it’s just a small fatty benign tumour about which nothing needs to be done, was almost anticlimactic.  I could not wait to get out of there.

And there my car was, just where I left it, unmolested and not the least bit traumatized.

Now I’m back home waiting for the dishwasher door repairman.  Yesterday I saw my MD (have I mentioned how much I like her, despite the fact that she keeps finding stuff wrong with me?) and she was almost as thrilled as I am by the fact that I have dropped my weight by 20 pounds.  Imagine what I could do if I actually put real effort in to this!  But I know me, so I will just continue to monitor my blood sugar readings and not eat stupid things.  If I make up more rules than that I know for sure I will break them.

Hope your week is going well and your car doesn’t get towed and you weren’t too offended by the F word up there.  I don’t know why it makes me laugh.  Maybe there’s a medical reason.

Sharing My World 39

My November Day Twenty Nine

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2015 WEEK #47

In your native language which letter or character describes you best? Why?

I closed my eyes and mentally recited the alphabet, calling on my spirit guides and muses for divine inspiration.  Or, you know, some such similar nonsense, because really, how else do you come up with an answer to this one?  My brain stopped on the letter “O”.  Some days my brain is very helpful, up to a point.

Just look at how versatile this letter is – it can be paired with any number of other words and things to convey the following:

1. Dismay (with crap, damn and hell, accompanied by mournful sighs or deep groans)
2. Surprise (with my gawd, really, and some high-pitched squealing)
3. Confusion or disbelief (said with a question mark implied)
4. Joy (with YES! ALRIGHT! HALLELUJAH! etc.)
5. Understanding (as in O yeah, I get it! even when you don’t.)

Why does this describe me?  O….I don’t know.  Oh oh.  Oh phooey.  I am skipping that part.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Well it sure isn’t clothes.  Since I stopped working I have been wearing mostly yoga pants and flip flops and comfy tops with holes in them.  And everything has paint or glue or ink on it somewhere.

So my answer is art supplies, which will not be surprising to anyone who sees what I’m wearing.

Do you prefer exercising your mind or your body? How frequently do you do either?

My mind wants to do mental gymnastics at night when my body would prefer to sleep, so I have learned lots of ways to discourage it from thinking so much.  It is certainly good at dreaming up excuses during the day for my body to relax.  I like to think there is a good balance of both kinds of exercise in my life.  Liking to think such a thing does not, however, make it true.

List at least 5 things that make you laugh.

1. Savage Chickens
2. Little kids saying random swear words with no clue what they mean.
3. John Cleese
4. Baby goats
5. Bridesmaids (the movie)

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful for our amazing weather this sunny warm November.  It’s almost unheard of to shovel snow here only once in this usually godforsaken winter month.  Our son bought a new snowblower this year, so that’s probably why.

This week coming up I should be hearing from medical offices wanting to set up appointments for me.  What a dumb thing to look forward to. But I certainly am grateful for our incredible health care coverage, without which I would probably be sick and penniless and maybe even dead.

And on that pleasant note, Happy Grey Cup Sunday!  Go Eskimos!  Oh no, I won’t be watching the game, just enjoying the peace and quiet while W is downstairs glued to the big screen.  Oh yeah.

 

T is for TA-DA!!

Way back at the end of December last year I set a 2012 goal for myself to complete a blog-a-day for a year.  On this glorious first day of July I am halfway there!  Just my crazy project 365  is now officially a half-assed success, day 183 and counting.

 
(Awesome art work (ta da by reiri sama) at http://www.deviantart.com/)

So when the fireworks go off tonight to celebrate Canada’s birthday, I’ll pretend some of them are for me.  The local Canada Day parade this morning got caught in a thunder-storm and pouring rain, but it takes a lot to dampen the spirits of Canadians in July.

The contenders for T-word in the alphabet soup category were totalizer, tallyman, trivet and tangelo.  I have them all on a list somewhere.  Along with trekker, which gets honorable mention for having two k’s in it.  A two k word is noteworthy but not weird enough to dwell on for long.  Although lesser oddities have ended up here depending on degree of deadline desperation.  Totally self-inflicted.  I’d go on at great length about all that, but the point of this paragraph is to show how much thought goes into blathering away about things no one in their right mind actually cares about, and I think I’ve made my point.  I’ve been doing it for six months. Six years if you want to get all technical about it, but the blitzing thing is a recent impulsive craze I’ve been going through.

So TA-DA for me, and for Canada, on birthday number 145.  Here’s to all things Canadian.  Including cartoonists.  And the people who think we’re funny.

www.savagechickens.com

Black

Ever since I wrote that Hurdy Gurdy blog I’ve had Donovan songs in my head.  Like Mellow Yellow.  And last night at four o’clock in the morning (seriously – insomniac-ac-ac…but that’s Billy Joel, so never mind) I got to wondering why there aren’t songs about every color.  Why should yellow get all the attention?   So here’s my ‘poem’ for black.  Please feel free to set it to music.

……………BLACK………………..

Ack!  Flack.

Mac says slack.

Lack the knack.

Hit the road, Jack.

Was that the sack?

FACK!

Pack.

Slip out the back.

Into the Black.

Freedom attack.

Well, that was simple enough.

Good thing I didn’t start with orange.