31 December 2005

I think I am numb to the fact that 2005 is very nearly up. Yet...

I opened the "Resolutions 200_" word.doc I have stored in my computer, and had no trouble at all listing what I want to do with myself this coming year.

I look back at the plans for myself that I made 20th Dec 2004; I've done well by me ain self this year, I think. I slipped on a couple of things, but for the most part, I've followed through on the thoughts I had that night last year.

So, another set of plans, extensions and expansions, in natural progression of the set from last year.

Still, it gets a bit tougher, doesn't it?

Last night I read on the News.Telegraph that a kinsman of mine has gone and died. It hurt to read about it that way, from an on-line newspaper.

Did I hear him say, "Don't take on so, after all, I was 86, and it isn't as if your branch was especially good about keeping up..." He's right, you know.

Still, he was named for my great-grandfather, and it took my breath away to read that he had passed.

"Now is the winter of our discontent..."

If only you knew, as I did, and do. More than you could ever possibly believe, because it is ever so much easier not to know. Eliminates the responsibility, doesn't it? Inconvenience? No problem-disbelieve it; deny it; discredit it; ridicule it; scorn it.

Even unto God himself.

I read a blog from Israel. One of the commenters mentioned that it was a 'first-night-of-Hanukkah-miracle' that the bombs didn't kill any of the children in the kindergarten where the bombs fell. The next to comment scorned the miracle, and additionally complained that he was sick of everyone claiming this that or the other as yet another miracle.

I wanted to comment to these fine young people that when a person stops seeing/believing in miracles, miracles cease to happen for that person. And that is awful, because miracles inspire such hope!

Who wants to be hopeless? I understand being realistic, pragmatic, even, but hopeless? By choice? HUH? GadZooks what a dry life that would be-eesh!

I wanted to go on, that to try to deride another's belief in the miraculous nature of an event is to try to crush their faith in miracles, and that is a great wrongness, to spread your discontent by ripping the wings off of butterflies.

I wanted to conclude that the nation that feeds on itself (by stripping all the hope from the citizen's lives-a wicked sort of vampirism really) eventually starves to death-look at Russia and Germany.

But I didn't. I wish I had, but I felt that I had stumbled into a private conversation, and shouldn't be too forward with my comments. These are young people, I told myself, and they will be like young people every where-very little patience with (what I hope is) elder wisdom.

What do you think?

27 December 2005

I enjoyed an amazing Christmas Day! Quietly awesome; it has taken me until now to be able to begin to articulate how wonderous...

I spent the day doing my laundry, tidying my room, and exploring the blogosphere.

I came across several blogs that strengthened my hope in the survival of basic decency; I checked in on the ones I'd found previously, these too bolstered my flagging hope for my fellow man.

I came across one in particular that truly awed me for several reasons.

I have a friend, an Israeli man named Ilan, who sadly was taken from his beloved wife and family a few years ago.

How gracious of God to lead me to the blog of a young Israeli man named Ilan on Christmas Day!

My entire day was filled with graces like this.

Just as I was getting ready for bed my roommate came in from his Christmas visit with Fiancee.

She sent me a package. Long after the lovely thermos and mug she sent me are gone, the beautiful note she enclosed will be a cherished and treasured article tucked up where I tuck those sorts of articles.

She wrote from her heart, and thus pumped a good bit of interest in living back into mine.

Thank-you Fiancee, you made me a very Happy Christmas indeed!

From the first to the last, a day of the best gifts-faith, hope, love!

It truly seems to me that He was trying to say to me that although I grieve, although I have lost the unloseable, His comfort, will I but accept it, is mine for the receiving...

26 December 2005

The second candle is lit, and two lights burn in the sliding glass door overlooking the car park.

Tonight as I lit the candles, and said the prayers-traditional and private-I was struck by two simultaneous thoughts.

I thought, in the exact same moment, of a story I heard years ago and also of the reason the U.S. was populated by Europeans back in the 1600's.

The story I was told was of the rabbi fleeing Nazi Poland with his family, and the Torah, on the eighth night of Hanukkah.

Nazis were everywhere, but the young rabbi knew he must light the candles. The menorah had been left behind in the rush to escape on the false papers the family had been blessed with but somehow the rabbi had the candles in his coat pocket. With trembling hands-his surviving child relates the story as a years older adult, so the details are to be relied upon as accurate-the papa uses the shimash to drip a bit of wax in eight spots along the train window rail and affixes the eight candles in a line. He begins the prayers quietly, and the children hold their breaths as Nazi soldiers board the train and begin inspecting the compartments...

Then the electricity all over the depot and on the train shuts off, and the only light anywhere is from the Jewish family's makeshift menorah on the window rail. (Personally, here I think God was speaking!)

The family has just finished the prayers and songs when the SS officer in charge enters the compartment, quietly asks the rabbi to move to the next seat, and then sits down in Papa's former seat next to the glowing candles. He takes some papers out of his valise and uses the candle light to do his paperwork.

The family waits in an agony of fear to be ordered to show their papers; the children look at the floor, Mama clutches her husband's coat so hard that her son tells us that her hand was sore for days after.

But Papa sits as calmly as the paper-working SS officer, his face placid and serene, his eyes steady out the window just above the lit candles.

The officer stays in the compartment with the Jewish family until the required half hour is up (the menorah is to remain lit for one half an hour beginning just after sundown); within a heartbeat of the time expiring the German rises to his feet, nods to Mama and Papa, waves off his underling who has begun to ask for the family's papers, and leaves the compartment.

No sooner do his boots carry him into the corridor but the electricity is restored and Papa hurriedly blows out the candles and puts them back into his coat pocket.


The country I live in was colonized back in the 1600's by people fleeing religious persecution. They came here hoping to find freedom-religious freedom.

The people of Israel, the Jews, after a winning a wonderful victory against religious persecution, went to the Temple to reconsecrate it after the pollution inflicted by the Greco-Syrians. When the one small measure of oil, ordinarily only enough to light the lamp for one day, lasted a miraculous eight, the Lord commanded that Israel always remember when they were delivered into religious freedom and burn lights in public commemoration every year on the anniversary.

'Nuff said?

25 December 2005

I forgot to buy candles yesterday. But as the sun went down here in Metro Atlanta, I recalled I'd had to buy two full boxes of pink and purple votive ones to make up the Advent wreath this year.

I hurried to the closet, and took out the boxes-a miracle! I had just eight! With the one for the fourth Sunday of Advent as a shimash, I had the makings of this year's menorah!

I lined a shoe box lid with tin foil, and set the eight candles on the foil, then lit the shimash, and then the first candle. I set the box lid on a rolling hassock I found in the clearance bin at Wal-Mart three weeks ago, and rolled my makeshift menorah to the sliding glass door overlooking the car park.

Then I stepped out on the balcony to pray for the people who taught me what Hanukkah is about.

For Barbara, my father's third wife, may she rest always in His peace. A sweet, kind, yet fully capable of fierceness if needed, gentle Jewess, who reached out her heart to a tired, bitter, lonely Christian man in a time of his great need, and re-taught him the meaning of love, and freedom.

For, and in deepest gratitude for his all too brief friendship, Ilan, a brave man, who loved his God, his wife and children, and his country. A righteous man who would be embarrassed to see these words; who asked me to wear the Star of David on a black leather cord around my wrist; who died for freedom.

Oh Lord, I pray for Benjamin, who died in hospital of cancer, still hoping he would grow up to be a rabbi; who died un-knowing that he was already a rabbi, because he taught me so much about the real freedom acceptance of God's love brings.

For little Rachel, who also died of cancer, 3000 miles from Benjamin, but still had a crush on him, and would have been the perfect rabbi's wife.

For Rebecca, yet another child lost to cancer, older than Benjamin and Rachel, a girl in her late teens, who wanted to live so badly she was furious that she would die, yet with her last angry breath, was still trying to mother all the younger children on her ward.

And for Deborah, the prostitute, who hid her Jewishness in a small American town where the KKK burned crosses on the lawns of Jews nearly as often as on the lawns of African-Americans. Deborah, who pretended to be Methodist, but asked me to light the candles and pray for her soul as I did.

Thank-you, thank-you my dear ones, how I miss you, yet feel you near still.

Shalom!

"For Onto You A Child Is Given!"

"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

"Lord of Lords! King of Kings!"

"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

Almighty and everlasting Prince of Peace!

Thanks be to the Lord, Our God, who alone does wonderous things for his children!

"Peace, Peace I say. On all the earth, good will towards Man!"

For unto us a child is born! Rejoice, for this is the day the Lord has made...

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

24 December 2005

I woke this morning thinking of Joseph and Mary's arrival in Bethlehem.

I tried to imagine the Blessed Mother's thoughts as she rode into the town on the donkey's broad little back. Did she ache from the journey, heavy as she was with the weight of the coming Messiah? Did she, in the way that many soon-to-be mothers do, know the birth was less than 24 hours away, and did she keep her concerns in her heart, as we are taught she kept other, more important things?

"Hail Mary, thou who art full of grace-the Lord is with you!" What that dear young girl was glad to endure in obedience to His will! How many times in the last two thousand years have Christians considered her situation? The nuns glossed over it frankly, but I know that Mary would have gone through no little trouble when she was found to be pregnant before the official wedding to Joseph.

'Things' have only changed recently-unmarried girls were, two thousand years ago, a very big deal. Especially to the religious people of her community. It is a wonder she was not stoned to death immediately after being found out. Surely her survival was due only to God's care of her during those rough few months!

One would have only had to be paying the slightest attention to hear the part in the story that Joseph was not impressed with the impending birth, and sought to 'put Mary aside' to avoid marrying someone he knew certainly couldn't be carrying his child. Until the angel came to him in a dream and put his mind at ease. Yes, most folks know that part of the story...

Do they know that soon after the Annunciation, Mary set off on a trip to visit her aunt, Elizabeth? Elizabeth had begun to show the pregnancy she was carrying-an unexpected and joyous miracle to her and her husband as they'd given up hope after so many years of childlessness.

Elizabeth's un-born child moved vigorously in her womb at the entrance of Mary, prompting Elizabeth to cry out, "Holy Mary, mother of the Christ! Pray for our souls, now and at the hour of our death!" That yet to be born son? John the Baptizer.

The Pax Romana made it safe for our young lady to travel by caravan to her elderly aunt. The Romans! Franco's Spain sometimes reminded me of the Pax Romana. The streets were safe for women in 'ancient' Rome, and Franco's Madrid! Also, the trains ran on time. But the cost...

Mary gave, I think, very little thought to her personal situation, and upon hearing her aunt was in the last months of pregnancy, went to her at once to be a help.

Wow! When one stops to consider it all, that Mary was one brave kid! Trust me, 'cause I was there, the Roman Empire was not a terribly warm place towards Jews. Their situation could turn in a half a heartbeat. At best they were tolerated. At worst...

And then, after a hurried wedding, off go the newly weds to take part in the census. Great, let's throw a young, first-time to be pregnant, Jewish girl on the back of a donkey, and go to Bethlehem. Even with the Pax Roman, the trip couldn't have been Mary's or Joseph's idea of a great way to spend their first months together. One needs to consider his position at this point.

Joseph was the Scion of the dispossessed House of David-not, I promise-a politically correct House to be the Scion of at that time. Herod wanted every last one of the family line wiped out to cement his familiy's political (and thus financial) future. The only thing keeping the Ben-David line alive was their continued promise to stay out of trouble. Apparently Herod was afraid to act too much against them...But just let them step out of line!

Which now might give my gentle reader an even better understanding of Herod's willingness to murder thousands of Jewish children after the Three Wise Men left his palace to follow the Star.

Herod's thinking has never been hard to imagine-"That upstart! How dare he try to foist a 7 month's babe on the people as King of Israel..."

Yeah, I think Joseph ben David probably had some 'issues' as he trudged through the desert towards Bethlehem...

On so, sometime on the day Jesus' mother was going to go into labour with him, the husband and wife arrived in that little town of Bethlehem.

21 December 2005

PS-I need to clarify that my father traveled quite a bit with his work, and rarely saw the abuse we went through at the hands of his second wife. People tried to tell him what went on while he was gone, but he never believed them until we children were utterly dysfunctional adults-too late to save us, Pop.

My dad was far from perfect, he could backhand any one of us from across the front seat of our '59 Ford station wagon without any real effort, although physically he was never taller than 5'8". And, as said above, he refused to believe what a monster Dirty Dort was until the damage was done very nearly beyond repair.

BUT. Two years before he died, during a vain attempt to leave Crusty, I loaded a rental truck with some furniture and the kids, and went to L.A. to make a new life. I drove from north Florida, and pulled into my dad's neighbourhood in time to see him hobbling across a parking lot dragging an oxygen canister behind him. I hadn't known he was sick, although the voice in my heart told me to look him up first thing when I got back to L.A. with the kids.

We spent the next two years, his last years, together, reconciling the past with the future embodied in my defiant little Fox. GadsZOOKS, Pop loved that kid!

My dad got my brother and me to sit down one time during those last two years, to tell him everything we were unhappy about from our miserable childhood-today 'they' call them issues-and he sat without flinching or making excuses for everything we went through. At a few of the most horrific points in the evening, he dropped his head into his hands, and moaned "I'm so sorry" over and over. (Later, after he'd died, and his will was read, the first words after the legalese were "I let you kids down, and I am so very sorry.") It was the bravest thing I had ever seen, my Pop sitting there gasping for air while we told him what our childhood had really been like.

Pop taught us to fly airplanes, and drive speedboats, how to shoot, hunt, plant, plow, troubleshoot a broken piece of machinery, and "Jerry-rig" (a phrase he picked up in the Army during WWII referring to the way Jerry, or the Germans, could rig up the most ingenious things with which to kill the Allies...) He taught us how to jump out of airplanes, too, although I gravely disappointed him when, on my maiden jump, after all that training, I got to the point where I was to go, looked out of the hatch, and thought "Not now, not ever" and told the pilot I would ride the bird down with him.

Most importantly, my dad taught me not to judge people by the colour of their skin, or religion, or national origin-even though the Germans shot the bejeebers out him regularly, and he'd more Purple Hearts in a box than I thought one guy needed...

My dad, oh God help me, I can't stop crying, My Dad, when Gov. Wallace was shot, was so patient with me while he explained, in response to my shameful expression of gladness that the man who stood in the door had got back a little of his own, that even George Wallace was a man who needed compassion, and that I should never ever be glad someone had been shot or worse, killed.

What a strange night this is for me. My father died 20 years ago tomorrow night in Los Angeles' Cigna Hospital ICCU.

Last night the co-worker who'd got another fired lost her son to a gunshot to the head.

I know none of the details. I dislike this woman yet tonight I wish I could hold her as she weeps for her murdered son, and try to comfort her shattered heart.

I am Fox'sMom. All I want right now is to hear his voice.

20 December 2005

I've always tried to apply what I've learned from my personal experiences to my behaviour and actions toward others in such a way as to make a positive difference for them. In other words, when something bad has happened to me, I have tried to use what I learned to prevent the same bad thing from happening to someone else.

The repeated demonstration by a segment of the population I come into contact with that they prefer to make their own mistakes never fails to dismay me. I and many others feel that the hallmark of maturity is the ability to learn from the mistakes of others. It is distressing, depressing, and rather frustrating that a growing number of people think it an achievement to repeat the mistakes of the past as they stumble through life.

When someone asks me for advice, I think they mean it, and try to give good advice without being judgmental. When they disregard the advice, or dismiss it and claim they never asked for it, I tend to respect their right to make their own mistakes, and try to stay away from them.

It makes sense to me to not impose my presence on those who show by their actions that they find my presence an annoyance.

By my reasoning, a person who is disrespectful of my feelings while expecting me to be respectful of theirs is either a child, or a bully, and I don't see that I should have to be around that person.

The trouble is that the past 7 years have exposed me to an overwhelming number of people who are children in adult clothing, and bullies, to boot.

I have not enjoyed, in this life, any 'Merry Christmas', but I have always enjoyed the season anyway.

I self-comforted by giving all that I could to others. This is a documented response to domestic violence that has puzzled the experts for years-what precisely makes the difference between survivors who lash out and those who use their experiences to alleviate the sufferings of others?

Personally I have always thought that it was a choice we could all make; I believed myself to be in a unique position to know anyone could make the choice between spreading their pain, or using it as a springboard toward helping others avoid the same horror.

My childhood was a nightmare of comfort and plenty when my father was around, and savage beatings, the psychological torture of my father's second wife turning my brothers and sisters against me (because, I later learned, I bear a striking resemblance to my biological mother), and hunger so profound that I begged for food from neighbours and rooted in restaurant garbage cans. Growing up I used to tell myself that if I could just hang on until I was 18 I would be able to take care of myself, and I would never be cold, hungry, or alone again. I promised myself that I would do everything I could to make sure this never happened to anyone else.

I believed that I would make it to that real world God promised me, the one where people loved and cared for each other, and home was a safe place, not a house of horrors.

When I was shut out of college by a lack of funds and the emotional support of a loving family (don't think the lack of the emotional strength of a loving home doesn't make the important difference!), I spent hours in the library learning everything I could to ensure that I would have the tools I needed to make a difference; when muddled thinking occurred due to mal-nutrition, I spent a little more on food and less on books until I could concentrate better, and then went back to spending more on books.

I found the strength I missed from having a supportive family through my faith in God and his promise that I would, in this lifetime, go home to a real family one day. I lived in total faith and hope inspite of the array of people I should have been able to count on that were instead my most terrible enemies, and I tried to counter their unspeakable cruelty by praying for thier return to peace while getting the hell out of their way-I am not a saint! OK, maybe in a couple of lives, but personally, I think at least one of those was less saint and more about an excess of salt in the tomb.

For fun I read what translations I could find of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Still try to, although the past 7 years especially, I have been rather busy just trying to stay alive.

I knew that the Days of Winnowing would come. I just didn't think I would go through those days alone.

I walk through this lifetime watching people defile themselves with utmost casual cruelty and utter disregard for anything but their false gods.

I am becoming phyiscally sickened by the growing number of souls perfectly willing to sell their souls for a red leather jacket or a Mercedes Benz, and are not satisfied with damning themselves but seem intent on taking as many others with them as possible, including their own flesh and blood, and maybe especially their own...

I am past frustrated with the pinheads who chulcke at my naive hope for mankind, and justify their wanton rush to hell by 'reminding' me that no-one said life would be fair.

SOPHISTRY! The road to hell is paved with sophistry. God said so, and trying to outlaw God-call him what ever you like, Yahweh, Allah...God is God-won't absolve you from the responsibilty to and for how you treat others. He said life can and should be fair.

So, I look around around at the so-called world these days, and I am crushed by the appalling inhumanity I see.

The Enemy is winning by attrition, and it is breaking my heart.

Not to agrandize myself, but the hypocrites are killing me, and His Holy Messenger said "As you do to the least of these..."

Killing the Messenger isn't going to get you out of your responsibilty.

Did you hear the one about the vineyard owner and the tenants who kept killing the rent collectors-including his only son?

I've become deeply, profoundly discouraged by the Christmas Wars, and by people who in essence take the Lord's name in vain when they decorate, shop, bake...not because they want to spread a bit of Christian cheer but because they are counting the coming loot.

Take my roommate's fiancee. Please! :) Sorry, couldn't resist...

Seriously, she seriously calls Christmas "The Evil Season" and she means it. But she doesn't decline to present everyone with a long and pricey list of what would please her this year. She doesn't fail to remind of her up-coming February birthday, either.

Honest, I'm not singling her out, she is typical of very nearly everyone I have come across these past 7 years. These souls anticipate the holidays with undisguised greed, and make anyone who prefers not to gift such a hypocrite out to be the quintessential Grinch.

They march by the Salvation Army kettle and bell ringer with eyes defiantly averted, as if making a point of their churlishness, and this year I actually heard someone justify the behaviour by saying it would just go to Katrina survivors, and they are getting too much already. The diatribe against Katrina survivors went on, no doubt, long after I hurried past them into the grocery store. When I came out I made sure to drop my little bit in. I told the guy I wished it could be more, and he told me in all earnestness that I already had done something pretty great. I started crying as I tried to get the car open and deposit my little bag of frozen 'meat' patties on the passenger seat.

During the horrific years that I was Crusty's prisoner I tried to do something to help people at that worst point in their lives, who needed to know that out there in the world are people who care.

I would take my time and choose an angel from the Angel Tree, in better years I would chose a boy and a girl. I always picked the kids who wanted warm clothes or books, leaving the kids who wanted Play Stations and BMX bikes for the better heeled 'Secret Santas', and I always put in some neat toy that would not need batteries-hard to come by when the choice is food or batteries...

Crusty was always-ALWAYS-furious, and punished me by never, in all of the years we were together, getting me so much as an orange for my stocking. Every damn Christmas he would look at the hurt on my face at the flat stocking, and the giftless under tree, and say sanctimoniously, "It's the thought that counts."

Yes, it is. He never thought of us unless it was to add to the pain he was using to brutalize our hearts with, mine and Fox's.

That first Christmas after he left was at once awful and wonderful. I really felt as though something wonderful was just around the corner-I would hear a knock, and open the door to a healing and joyous new life. I decorated the house with all of the things I had collected through the years that he had hated, OH! The house looked beautiful!

Unable to string the mini-lights on the tree, I spent money I should have spent on food for some clip on lights that looked just like candles. I bought a small box of frosted and glittered glass, a real departure for me since for years I had decorated with folk art things. Crusty favoured shiny red bulbs, exclusively, on fake trees-preferably aluminum or white plastic-gag.

By Christmas night that year of 1998, I knew I was in trouble.

I kept trying through Christmas of 2003, then I gave up. In '04 I put up a very few things, this year I have none of my Christmas decorations with me except the tree skirt and a few strands of lights.

I gave up because slowly I realized no-one cared, and I am not talking about the stupid decorations.

And I am not talking about how deeply it hurt that no-one cared for me personally-I'm unfortunately used to that.

I'm talking about how savage people are to one another these days.

Well, I am at that worst point in my life, that point that comes to some of us at one time or another, the point where I have come to believe no-one gives a fig about me, and that despite God's promise, I will never have that home, filled with people who love me and are glad I breathe. Not because I will get them something for Christmas, but because I keep it so well, because I love so much, and want to make people feel safe and loved.

How passe, how gauche, even my son likes to make me feel to think love is the reason we get the day off this year.

Oh God, God, I want to go home, but I haven't any because Crusty used his gift of free will to make Fox and me homeless...

19 December 2005

After reviewing what I'd published, I realized I was not quite finished expressing my outrage at Fiancee's wretchedness.

Unfortunately, Roomie knocked, and asked me to explain to him what was going on. I told him how I felt, and then he asked me why I had to make a scene in front of his mother.

After I pointed out that I was not the one who'd made a scene-Fiancee was-I told him I would find another place to live.

Fiancee is the one who made the scene. I was trying to stay out of it by going to my room. Fiancee was the one who made a point of pouting in front of the Mum because I wouldn't come out, and making sure Mum and Roomie thought I was being mean to her.

Back-up a moment. When I told Roomie his mother had left a message on the machine that she was lost, and Fiancee distinguished herself yet again, they left to go find Roomie's mother.

While they were gone, I got the last of my things together, and headed for the hoped for safety of my room.

Fiancee scratched at my door-GODS I HATE THAT!! Why the bloody hell can't that miserable piece of work knock like a normal person??-and I ignored her.

So she went out to the living room, and apparently informed everyone that I was being difficult.

After a while Roomie came out to the balcony and knocked on the glass door, I told him I was busy with a piece of research I'd been looking for the last two years-I am writing my thesis on the disenfranchisment of the global middle class-went to the living room for a minute and tried to be polite while Drama Princess Fiancee stood glowering and sulking in the corner. After a few minutes I gave it up and returned to my room.

So, I'm the bad guy. Of course, since the little drama princess could not possibly be in the wrong.
Excuse me, she makes a scene, and I am the bad guy?

Right.

No, not right. If Roomie wants to put up with her, that is his business. However, I don't have to be around her, I don't think I should have to be anything more than "Hi...Good-bye" around her.

I am the roommate, not the mom, the aunt, or anything else.

I am more than a little pissed that in the end really, her problem is that I am not interested in being part of her audience.

Or is it more? Being so dishonourable as she is, could Fiancee be ascribing the same lack of virtue to ME??????? Could she have finally figured out how utterly contemptible I find her, and is afraid that I will 'out' her to Roomie? Did she cause a scene in hopes that I would be asked to move out before I could, thereby eliminating the possibility that she would be revealed?

Ya know, for such an old broad, I can be incredibly dense.

DUH! Of course she did. Crikeys, poor Roomie, I can see where this mess is going.

The ironic part, to use my roommate's favorite preface, is that he knows what a horror she is, and loves her anyway. He loves her.

There is no way I would or could try to come between them. I am such a softie when it comes to love.

I just can't stand her, don't want to be around her, and hope to God that if they make it to a wedding day, that they will accept my lame excuse to miss it.

As I wish they had accepted my frankly true and quite good excuse this evening. Damn it all, I HAD been looking for this bit of information. Trust a bullying crashing bore like Fiancee to make a scene because I refused to be part of the audience while she enacted the charming scene of 'happy family' with Roomie and his mum. Gag, the thought of it is still making me sick.

I am going to have to have a little discussion with the silly little bitch.

WHOA!! No sooner had I typed that then the phone rang.

I looked at the caller ID-it was her, so I picked up, and told her to pay attention-I was not impressed that she'd caused a scene and then tried to blame me for it, I am not interested in causing her any trouble, please don't cause me any-say hi, I'll say hi and go to my room, just leave me alone. Now, hang up and call back to talk to your fiancee.

If she is really as smart as she thinks she is, she will finally behave, Roomie will have peace-sort of poor guy-and she'll get what she wants, which is to make my Roomie miserable without interference from anyone with half the brains God gave grapefruits.

I miss the 5th and 18th centuries. We knew how to deal with crashing bores back then.
What a pickle! My roommate, his mother (who arrived a short time ago), and his wretched Fiancee are in the living room, decorating a Christmas tree. As I refuse to decorate for Christmas with a hypocrite who is also a lying, scheming, cheating, rude, inconsiderate tramp, I am in my room, looking to my roommate and his mother to be the most unreasonable of souls.

Fiancee, for whom I have utter contempt, has pushed my very last button. I cannot stand to be in the same room with her.

Because after several other little drama princess stupidities on her part, she had the colossal gal to tell me (the day after Mum went back to South Alabama) what a great favour she was doing roommate and his mother by lowering herself to agree to be married to him.

Like all crashing boors, Fiancee has an extremely high opinion of herself. This miserable excuse for a young engaged woman arrogantly went on to tell me that she will do everything in her power to keep any children from the grasping clutches of Roomie's mother, since Mum is "simple, rednecked, ill-mannered, common, a religious fanatic, and completely lacking in the grace and elegance" Fiancee embodies.

Meanwhile, this grasping, gold-digging little admitted pagan rings up at all hours, wanting to know if Roomie drove by her house and saw her ex-boyfriend's car. The ex-boyfriend is a regular at Fiancee's, and yes, my roommate frequently drives by to pick her up for a planned excursion only to find the ex's car in Fiancee's drive. So her frantic calls are to be expected.

She also openly admits she is using the ex-boyfriend for tutoring services, since he is so brilliant, and is not a bit uncomfortable to do so in front of Roomie. She thinks she is brilliant for her ability to use many people, and dismisses me (Thank-You, God) as having no material worth to her.

Currently, she is using my roommate for an iPod and accessories. No fool he, he is giving her the iPod a piece at a time, calling it "The Twelve Days of Christmas" gifting.

Her latest frantic call came a few nights ago. I could barely be civil after she asked if Roomie had driven by, and been angered to see the ex's car yet again in the drive. The poor sot was actually putting in overtime cleaning the lab he works in. Blissfully unaware of the total git she is, he got home around 2300, and had her and the entourage over for a party.

The neighbours despise us. Someone in the entourage tried to enter the next door apartment near midnight; they all went out on the balcony at 0200 and drunkenly forced the vicinity to endure their boorishness until near dawn, at which time, good little vampires that they are, they crept away leaving a ruined kitchen and living room in their wake.

So. Here I sit, blogging instead of eggnogging, because that little hussy put me in the horrid position of having to be in the same room with her and her future mum-in-law knowing how disrespectfully the little brat feels about Mum.

After spending the entire day cleaning up the apartment-including kitchen that I rarely eat in yet somehow always manage to have to clean, and just as I was finally getting around to my personal chores of cooking enough food to ensure I would only have to microwave a plate every night after work, guess who called to announce the imminent arrival of Fiancee? Not Fiancee-trust me, this worthless piece of steer dropping is much too good to make her own calls-she had one of the entourage ring up to inform us that Fiancee was using the arrival of Mum to beg out of work, and would be arriving shortly.

Roomie fell asleep on the couch, and I hurried to finish my investment cooking before Fiancee could manipulate me into having to feed her.

SideBar Moment: I began wondering about Fiancee when Roomie arrived home a few months ago early from an outing with her in a towering rage. When he calmed a bit, he told me that he'd been waiting on Fiancee to get herself together so that they could leave her place-she lives with her parents-when she received a cell phone call from her ex-boyfriend inviting her over because he had some meat he was going to BBQ. Apparently she was more interested in the meat than her planned date with Roomie, and made no bones about her preference. He likened her good-bye to Roomie, and subsequent removal to Ex's, to the departure of a Delta rocket.

She also arrived last Sunday just as I was taking my dinner out of the oven, making it clear she was going to join me for the meal-another investment meal-went for a plate and helped herself without asking or being asked. I was so livid I almost gave into the temptation to stab her with a carving knife. I beat her to the food, got my dinner, went out to the LR to avoid killing her, and started eating. The little ho had the nerve to bring her plate and sit down next to me. She saw me eating and asked, "Aren't you going to wait for (Roomie)? I looked at her, said no, and went on stoically chewing.

She seems to know when there are groceries in the house, especially meat.

GRRR! She tapped on the door, and then stuck her key in the lock. I think that really set me off completely. I hate that she has a key to this place. I know that she comes in here during the day when Roomie is at work, she uses my bathroom and leaves behind her characteristic mess, and I am beginning to suspect that she is having sex with Ex here.

When I heard her key, I hoped it was Mum, and got the thing open before she could. When I saw who it was, I whirled around, and went back to cleaning up the kitchen. She mentioned that I'd had my haircut, I said yes, and prayed she would leave me the hell alone.

She woke Roomie, they went to his room, and apparently she started yet another of her tirades, because I heard crashing and her angry voice over the sound of the running water in the sink.

Unfortunately, I missed the phone call from Roomie's lost mother over the running water, because somehow both phones ended up in his room, where apparently Fiancee's tirade drowned out the sound of both phones ringing in the same room, because when I turned off the water, I heard the answering machine beeping. When I played the message, I relayed to Roomie that his mother was lost, and needed assistance.

When Fiancee made disparaging comments about Mum in her usual disrespectful tone I completely lost it.

I realized I simply could not be in the same room with her and Roomie's mother knowing how Fiancee felt about her.

I realize I simply cannot stand Fiancee, period.

She calls Christmas "The Evil Season.

I'm beginning to understand why witches used to be burned at the stake.

17 December 2005

Not a good day. I think a co-worker was fired today for trying to help another co-worker, who turned on her like a savage animal.

Jesus, what a nightmare people insist on making life. How do you stand us?

12 December 2005

We lost ourselves when we became a 24/7 world.

The seeds were sown at the opening of the Industrial Age. I told a young woman once that the root of the present unhappiness in the world took hold then, and she scoffed. I was disappointed in both her response, and the fact that this young woman, raised in a 'good' home, would be so disrespectful to an adult she claimed to hold in high regard.

Today, we work 7 days a week. Stores are open longer hours to meet the market demands, demands brought on by the market needing to have more and longer shopping hours to gather the supplies required to maintain a minimal standard of living brought up by the demands of greedier and greedier market owners, who know that if they make it, people will buy it, thus enlarging their coffers.

So, workers work on their former Sabbaths, workers have forced sex with the boss, workers accept the increasingly unreasonable requirements of their employers, all to keep their jobs, because the cost of living goes ever higher.

Capitolism is not the great evil. I believe in a market driven economy, it beats the hell out of communism-witness the utter degradation of Russia and China.

Greed is the great evil. The Bible tells believers that "The love of money is the root of all evil." So true.

I look back on all of the business people I have known who refused to admit the value of 'good conscience' in business. Despite every model that running their business with fairness, honesty, and integrity yields higher returns-long and short term, greedy people expose themselves with alarming frequency.

They manipulate, and bully to get their way. With increasing brutality they are forcing their false and worthless values on everyone with no sense of concern much less responsibility at the consequences of their stupidity.

And when called out, they shrug, and use the crudest of sophistry to 'justify' their behaviour.

Bad enough long ago, when the world was ever so much smaller population wise, and the implications of their evil had less impact and on fewer people-not to denigrate the depth of sufferring they inflicted on their victims.

But today the impact of unrestrained greed in global, the sheer numbers of victims makes no good excuse to condone by turning a weary and overburdened eye away from the impending disaster.

Historically, nations that turn away from an ethic and philosophy that safeguards the physical and spiritual commonweal of all citizens fall.

I grieved when Greece degenerated into a fetid immitation of it's self. I absolutely hated Rome. The moment I set my foot on British soil, I felt hope in me I had not had for centuries, believing with all of my heart that I had finally and forever found a home. Every lifetime lived away from it was filled with one thought-get through this until I can get home.

The 'Empire Years' cast a pall on my feelings; by then I'd lived through the horrors of the the crumbling of the Pax Romana; I'd been amoung the searching women at Hastings. Hastings-oh dear God, I still hate to see a live crow! I'd seen a usurping liar and cheat hailed as King at Bannockburn; I watched a red-coated bastard murder a suckling babe during the Highland Acts, I witnessed the evil done to fellow Britains by the English during the Famines in Ireland.

But centuries, millenia really, before Britain, I'd been speared by a Spartan, his eyes glittering like total emptiness through his faceplate. He showed no emotion at my death-no even satisfaction. Yet as I died I prayed that he would recover his humanity one day...

And the hope that sustained me then did so again during the 'Empire Years' and my hopes for America have not been diminished by G.W.'s "Mandate!"

Still, when I look at the hate that thrives nowadays, I can only say with the experience of all my years, that these are perilious times for Man.

God, help us who yet seek your face.

11 December 2005

BLAST!! I hit publish, I meant to hit preview!

Well, for those of you who have contacted me privately to ask how on this earth I manage to reconcile my belief in re-incarnation with my obvious acceptance of Yeshua as Messiah, all I can say is, go back and read the Bible's New Testement section of the Gospels, where at least two eyewitnesses, Matthew and Mark, write that Jesus said St. John the Baptizer was the re-incarnate Elijah. Hey, if it is good enough for the Christ...

Why does it anger/discomfit some of you that God might have a reason for sending me back fully capable of recalling prior lifetimes with sufficient clarity?

Why should I have to make a believer of you? You will either engage in intellectual exchange-dialogue-or you will not. The time for me to convince you of my veracity is past.

Choose. Either you learn from me, or you leave me alone. Either way, it is up to you.

The fact that God sent me because I am unafraid to remember, to learn, and then to share what I know is quite the affront to some folks.

And apparently, there are additionally those who are quite disturbed that I don't presume to think myself superior-I entertain the notion that I can learn from you as well as you learn from me.

Hey kids, we are all in this together. It's time we started working together. Put your gifts on the common table, and let's get to work.

I truly don't think we have very much time before things get REALLY ugly...

NOW I mean to hit publish.
Saul of Tarsus, AKA St. Paul of the Miraculous Conversion on the Road to Damascus, said-wisely, I think-"For we are not given a spirit of fear..."

Saul of Tarsus didn't have the 'quake sites on his Favorites Bar, though, and I am afraid right now for what is coming-SOON.

Damn. There have been two significant 'quakes this morning, one in Siberia, and one near Papua New Guinea-the one near P.N.G. was a horrific 6.8 and all I can do is think of the Boxing Day quake. It was preceded by a large quake near the 'Down Under.

I feel like Jeremiah in the caves, lamenting the foolish children of Israel. Or Jesus-"Jerusalem, 'o Jerusalem, how I have longed to gather your children under my wings as does the mother hen her chicks. But you would not have it-you reject the prophets and all those sent you.."
Oh no, it isn't really after 0100, is it?? But it is, and I have to look at my list, ticking off what I got done today to achieve a sense of satisfaction...

I stopped in on a couple of blogs I had bookmarked. Distressingly, one simply said-"No more.." The writer has serious health issues. She is in my prayers. If you are willing, please add her to your prayers as well. I think she really needs them.

Then I stopped in at what has to be the best blog on the site-"Job's Tale." The writer has recently lost a dear friend to cancer, and the eulogy the writer posted in his friend's honour is a work of ministry-it speaks to the wonder of fellowship better than anything I have read in a long while.

We need fellowship with likeminded souls, affirming communion with physical presence. This strengthens us to face the daily battle against the insidious whispers of the Enemy.

I've started giving a evening train station ride to one of my younger co-workers. He is hip, a dancer with a non-profit company. He was preparing for an audition, and I wished him well out loud, while reminding him that we seem to be living in especially perilous times; the Enemy is a predator, sensing joy or hope as a shark does blood. I rejoiced when he agreed whole heartedly with my comments about the Enemy.

I try not to force my opinions on people although I am not 'politically correct' enough to keep God out of natural speech. I will however, not only refrain from bringing up my faith in God's everlasting love and mercy to us if present company is offended by it, but will remove my offending faithful presence from those who take umbrage at it.

I strive to live the Ten Commandments, because they are the Law from God's hand; because the Christ said-"I come not to abolish the law but to uphold it."

This seems to be a great offense to some who find the Law an inconvenience. They must find God, His plans, His hopes for our ultimately choosing to act on our best behaviour, His love, a great inconvenience as well.

Pesky fellow, that God, expecting one to choose right over wrong! Doesn't he know we are animals, incapable of self-restraint?? Why, we are drive, creatures of instinct, and everyone knows that when an animal learns to overcome his instincts he is doomed to extinction!

Say "Sophistry." Come on, say it. Now, look it up.

Don't feel foolish-it is only a mistake if you refuse to learn from it. Yes, I learned that one from God.

I distinctly recall Him saying "Life can and should be fair. I've given you a set of rules that make it not only easy for you to be fair and be treated fairly, but is so well (after-all, I am God) thought out that by them you will be able to discern who is not interested in fairness for anyone.

I also keep "As you did to the least of these..." second in my heart only to the witness of St. Matthew when he writes that the Christ summarized the Law by teaching: "You must love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, body, and soul, for He alone is the Lord, there is no other! And the second is this-you must love your neighbour as yourself!"

Profound. Simple. Profoundly simple.

And perfect.

10 December 2005

Catch-up Weekend commences.

So far this morning I have updated my computer to my satisfaction, and it now is humming along beautifully. I've organized my favorites folders, and that is a great help to me as I go along learning how to survive as an anachronism. Hey, try being a 5K year old woman in these most perilous of times-NOT A JOKE-and no trifling matter, I assure you! I need all the help I can get.

A SIDEBAR MOMENT: Last night Roomie introduced me to a co-worker of his, and my new acquaintance asked if I too indulged in the medieval re-enactment lifestyle. (Roomie and very nearly all of his friends-Fox included-are heavy into it.) I could barely keep from laughing.

After work I was too starved to grocery shop/cook/clean. So immediately after ascertaining Fiancee was stuck at work (ergo A-Roomie was available because-B-Fiancee would not require Roomie's undivided attention until after she got off;) I forced Roomie to drop what he was doing, and come out with me to dinner.

After inhaling a huge steak I really couldn't afford but did anyway, Roomie asked if I would drive him to his place of employment, where he could purchase a few needed items to finish his current personal home improvement project.

ANOTHER SIDEBAR MOMENT: Roomie's idea of what consititutes an appropriate home improvement project differs from mine, mine being fixing the carbon monoxide detector and installing a new towel bar in the guest powder room. Roomie's ideas primarily include activities such as tweaking the home network system to enable all to play online video games and view downloaded movies from not only the computers, but from the TV in the living room as well.

Being Roomie's roomie is rather like dying and going to dog heaven. He is something of a nut, but then so am I, and he has the added grace of being completely uninterested in me sexually or romantically-and I am the same towards him. It makes for a non-tension filled atmosphere that is truly wonderful. Despite the age difference he is mature enough to 'get' certain things without that tedious requirement of explainations and definitions. Living here is quite like living with one's adult nephew.

Next up as a home improvement project from Roomie, no doubt, will probably be enabled TVs in the bath:) I am seriously beginning to see a distinctly 'former life as a Roman engineer circa third century B.C.' streak in Roomie. And I am certainly in a position to recognize such...

So I got to see where my roommate makes his walking around money and meet some of his co-workers. And stifle the urge to convince Roomie's co-workers that I am every bit the loon he is, without the 'saving grace' of being techno-competent. Sigh. No-one wants to have fun anymore...

I also got a look at the new Dunwoody Downtown Project-WOW!! I found myself wishing I could afford one of the apartments going up over a charming re-creation of small-town USA Main Street shopping districts. I am looking forward to exploring on foot come spring.

The weather outside is PERFECT, especially to someone like me, who has been trapped in the heat of SouthEast Alabama for so long. I need to get moving on my weekend projects though, so that I can continue to enjoy this marvelous-to me-weather. My knees get so cold I can't walk.

Last weekend, while on the North Georgia Premium Outlet Mall jaunt, I looked for calf-length overcoats but couldn't find any. Good thing, since I couldn't have afforded one even at those prices, but still, it would have been nice to save my sewing efforts for office wear.

However, I have warm overcoat fabric, a perfect pattern, and my sewing machine-this weekend I start a simple coat that I am hoping to be able to wear the upcoming week. I deliberately chose a simple pattern with few seam lines, to make the garment quickly available.

Plus I have laundry, room organizing, grocery shopping, purse sorting, dog clean-up...

Ciao!

08 December 2005

The Day After.

I am always proud to be my father's child. But never more than on the 8th of December.

A rather famous picture of a blocks spanning line of American men exists; one of those men is my dad. A young 20 year old college student standing on line to join the infantry.

Thank-you Pop. I miss you so very much. You gave me so much, and the greatest gift you gave me was a sense of honour. You did it at the expense of your education, your future. For me, for Fox, for countless immigrants, grateful or not.

I understand now what Roosevelt did then-that we had to try to stay out of it all for as long as possible, to avoid the inevitable.

It took the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor to bring the Yanks into it, and all of struggling Europe was contemptuous of the US for the vain attempt to stay out of it.

Hell, being who I was in that life time, I shared some of the anger, if not the contempt, and was incapable of seeing past the end of my nose. And when my husband was killed D+2, I was secretly sure if the Yanks had got off the stump sooner, Johnny might have made it home.

Maybe that's why in this lifetime I was raised in America. Maybe there is something to that modern, nearly completely mistaken definition of karma. I certainly have learned a thing or three as a consequence of my parent's divorce and my subsequent maternal abandonment to my father.

But through it all, I have been completely un-ashamed to be my father's child.

And never more than on the 8th of December.

I asked a man who was at Anzio, "How did you get through it?" His answer, so profound, so succinct-"I did it for you and your son."

See, he didn't know me, or Fox then, those three bitter months pinned on the muddy, cold, and fatal beach. He didn't even know his own son, much less anyone else'.

But, for me, for Fox, for all of us who carry that blue passport, he signed up on the 8th of December, too.

The Day After is the day that counts.

07 December 2005

I used to be an optimistic and hopeful person. Crusty took that. I find the awareness that he did so on purpose-frankly his sole purpose-to be the reason for the crushing loss, ultimately.

What sort of evil does it take to deliberately crush someone's spirit? I have asked myself that question over and again the past couple of years since the truth of his motives really sank in.

He knew precisely what he was doing to Fox and me, and what the consequences would be to Fox and me of what he was doing. The day I understood that he'd done it all precisely for the effect it would have was the day my world crumpled. My personality imploded.

His words spoken in the days after the discovery that my suspicions were correct came back with devastating clarity-"I am not a monstor." The day those words were uttered he had confessed finally to years of brothel hopping, and to have taken actions against one particular prostitute who had inconvenienced him. He proudly told me he had turned her into the corrupt police force because she foolishly had expected him to leave me for her. "She inconvenienced me." I went into an even deeper survival mode. But I was still a forgiving soul-I couldn't believe he knew what he had done and what the consequences would be to Fox and me.

HA!

This is America. These things don't happen here. HA.

Can, do. Daily.

How do we fight this Lord?

06 December 2005

I need to go to the doctor, and have a complete physical, which in turn will lead to several prescriptions and treatment programs. I am in not-so-good shape.

I usually give a bitter laugh when I hear some innocent (or self-righteous prig, depending) proclaim "Well, why don't they just go to the doctor, they have programs for the un-insured!"

Right.

The programs I've run into consist of "Gee, we don't accept the un-insured, try the county hospital." At the county hospital, the ONLY way one can get to see a doctor is to crawl in through the ER door, although one does get a better if albeit only a little less lukewarm response if one is carted through by a team of paramedics.

So, since Crusty cut off my insurance to punish me for not being willing to put up with his 'antics' I have not seen a doctor, and I am slowly crumbling.

Knowing I am not alone doesn't help one damn bit, since it strips any hope of a better future from me, and pisses me off to think that the basics of a decent life can be so casually squashed by the greedy sort that think themselves fine examples of 'the fittest.'

Yesterday at work one of the part timers and I commiserated about the state of the world's affairs, and I mentioned Crusty's motto of "Survivial Of The Fittest." She snorted, and quipped, "Survival Of The Richest" and as I drove home last night I reflected on that. She is right. It is.

Which really and truly TOTALLY pisses me off.

Define Fittest, please.

No wonder the psalmists begged God to show himself.

05 December 2005

The weekend is gone, and I got very litle of what I needed to do done. I am more than a little cross about that.

Everytime I tried to get my room cleaned up, laundry done, or just a bit of privacy, someone would insist on dispensing the pleasure of their company with me, and as a consequence, I am more behind than I was last week.

My roommate's mother is staying until Tuesday night-a good thing, since the weather is wet and not a little wild until then-and she is happily busy cleaning the apartment. Roomie's part anyway. Nice thing really, one can see the colour of his bedroom carpeting now, and the mountain of his laundry that once occupied a good portion of the dining room area is very nearly gone.

Gods, I wish I had her energy! She could bottle it and be an instant trillionaire! She is a handsome woman, fun, gregarious and vibrant. We were in the Wal-Mart grocery and a good looking man about my age tried to pick her up. I stood, hand to mouth, watching the two of them flirting easily, wishing I could be so easy and graceful. The man seemed to glow as he bantered with her, she does that for people.

I am glad for everyone that she came up to visit. Fiancee seems a bit put out, and there is an interesting small turf war going on; but mainly Fiancee seems more intent on claiming her "soon-to-be-a-daughter-in-law" rights and position. She puts her chair close to Mum's; ignores anyone else in the area; and generally tries to cement her place in Mum's affections. As I said, an interesting spectacle. As I went to bed last night I overheard Fiancee loudly decry the unfairness of her schedule that will not permit her to spend Tuesday-Entrare's only day off this week-with Entrare and his mother.

I can understand that. I can also find it a blessing that I am no longer in a position of having to make myself acceptable to an unknown potential mother-in-law. Poor Fiancee, she has my complete sympathy! She is fortunate in that Entrare's mother is one class act, and not the shrew my (thank-you God, Jesus, Joseph, Mary and all the saints and angels that MaryAnne is my ex-M-I-L!) ex-mother-in-law was.

I did get some of my ordinary weekend errands run, and in the process found a splendid "clearance table" treasure at the fabric store. Actually, I found several treasures-Butterick patterns were a dollar each with a five packet limit. So I got some great new patterns and some lovely suede cloth at a fantastic price. Happy, happy.

I also got a case of paper towels, and filled my gas tank for the week ahead.

But I did NEED to clean the carpet in my room-badly. Oh my stars I need to unload this wretched dog! Still no takers. It causes no little resentment in my heart. I got into bed at a nicely reasonable hour, and then from about 0100 had to fight the dog for cot space. He would wait until I fell back to sleep and climb back on the cot. I would wake, knock him off with a gentle foot prod and angry "GET OFF!!" whisper.

The cycle repeated until I finally couldn't get back to sleep around 0315. I got up. Naturally the dog is lying innocently on his rug-"What, me? I've been here on this rug since 2230 last night! Why ever are you up at this hour?! But since you are up, could I have a spot of water?"

Dogs.

04 December 2005

Quandry-what to do now?

Roomie's mum is staying on the sofa and since it is only just after 0600 I certainly can't get out there to get some of my week's end chores done; she put my towels in with Roomie's-who keeps his room locked at night, as do I, since we don't know to whom Fiancee has given keys to during a fit of anger at Roomie-so I can't get a much needed shower; she (Mum) also put all of my groceries in with Roomie's so I can't get to my much needed breakfast. Additionally, she is using the washer/dryer and so I can't even get in there to do a load for myself. Christ!

Yesterday at the outlet mall, everything I looked at to buy for myself-for example wonderfully priced king sized quilt-she grabbed for Roomie. I had the thing in my hand, she grabbed it out and exclaimed "Oh that's perfect for him!" I said, "Oh, I was thinking of it for myself..." which she ignored, and threw the thing into her cart. Really, it was the only one.

At the grocery she grabbed my bread, paid for it, and then put it in the kitchen-there go my lunches, since it is looking more and more as though I will again today be entertaining her instead of getting what I need done.

And reflection has made me realize what caused my nausea last night-I am using the wrong OTC, which no doubt has Doctor Dad in fits. So I need to make a Wal-Mart run even more, which I can't do because Roomie's mum is staying on the sofa-right by the only door to the flight of stairs leading to my car-and if I wake her, I will have to entertain her.

'Od's bodkin!!!!

Thank Heaven I keep a stash of kwick foods in my room-but are peanuts really an appropriate breakfast? Damn it all, my fresh case of bottled water is sitting on the living room floor!

Not to sound as though I don't like Roomie's mum, I do. And more in her favour, she is one sharp cookie-when I put the water on the trolley she mentioned Fiancee's nasty habit of assuming the world owes her a feeding, and everything on everyone's plate or in every/anyone's pantry is there for her first and foremost.

As Mum added name brand soda to the trolley, she mentioned her surety that Fiancee and entourage would not doubt clean the sodas out within the day of discovery.

When Mum learned that I'd bought the groceries last week, and cooked a Thanksgiving meal for myself, she wondered aloud how long it took Fiancee and entourage to arrive after table setting. (Answer-Fiancee arrived just after the turkey was ready to be carved, the side dishes were cooked, and the cranberry sauce opened. She 'assumed' she was invited, was offended when I didn't wait for her and Roomie to get their plates-had the nerve to mention it; and naturally didn't say so much as thank-you or "The turkey is so juicy!" A single member of the entourage arrived as the rum cake was about to be served-but to his credit, he often appears with his own food, so it was demmed hard to fault him at least!)

Roomie's mum was even less impressed after she found out I'd been the one to purchase and put on the sideboard several nice red apples, to which Fiancee unhestitatingly helped herself to in Mum's presence without so much as a "May I?"

She hadn't liked the way Fiancee helped herself when she thought her son had bought the groceries. Because of her good breeding and innate good manners, she was more disturbed to hear Fiancee had committed a double faux paux by abusing the hospitality of both Roomie and me.

You see, gentle reader, to Southeners, when one's son has his own establishment and later finds he needs a roommate, although the 'new' roommate is often paying the lion's share, the establishment is, to the Southener, still the Southener's son's; ergo he is extending his hospitality to the new roomie. Ergo, when the 'new' roommate puts a treat on the sideboard, the treat becomes a doubled bit of hospitality-Southener's son's AND then only by extension, 'new' roommate's.

Gotta love real Southerners. They have a fineness rivalled only by their British ancestors. They do us proud, really they do.

And she shared, in the unique way Southeners have, her disquiet at the stinginess of Fiancee, who'd brought a whopping four cookies with her as a welcoming treat for Roomie's Mum and then proceeded to enjoy two of the four.

As I said, Southeners-what's not to love except the racism thing? As our younger cousins, they too have the knack of saying what wants saying without the embarrassing frankness that so often comes back to haunt...

Hold up, my tongue is too deeply embedded in my cheek:) Not to mention the muck has very nearly got up past the hip waders...
Entrare's mom called late Thursday night with the announcement of her arrival the next afternoon. We went into panic mode, and spent the rest of Thursday night cleaning house to make sure the place looked less like a frat house, and more like the home of two mature, responsible, TIDY adults. After all, Entrare is 29, and I am 49; it is of course a reasonable assumption that the house is at least tidy and sanitary.

And so in the panic-really not needed since the house for the most part is clean-we completely forgot to clean the 'science projects' out of the 'fridge.

Which then made us look like the quintesstienal 'absent minded professors we are really, and has caused Entrare's mother to worry.

I don't think it helped that lunch/dinner caused me to need to throw up into the bushes as we arrived home from a shopping trip, because damn it all, Entrare's mum is a bloody retired charge nurse who took one look at me and knew something was up-during lunch/dinner she got it out of me that I have this stupid little heart thing going on. She had the grace to refrain from voicing the sceptism plainly on her face when I told her my diagnosis-I am quite sure she didn't buy the prognosis part; less so after the consequences of what I was eating hit just as we pulled into the apartment complex car park.

Naturally, lunch/dinner was loaded with sodium (DAMN IT ALL, I really thought the zittie was a good choice! Who knew marinara sauce had that much blasted sodium?? Well, I do now, and since I appear to have survivied the night, I certainly will tuck that bit of information up safely for the future!), and then I drank a half a bottle of water too fast, and by the time we got home was clammy, dizzy, and throwing up in the bushes.

And she as a retired R.N., when I insisted I simply needed to lie down for a bit, knew enough to worry that I would morph into a corpse in my sleep, and kept tapping at the door in that lovely way that truly good nurses have to make sure one is still able to arrive at a conscious state upon waking. Over and over-who has not had that experience in hospital? Just nod off-FINALLY-and the nurse is waking you just to be sure you can be awoken. Over and over until you recover enough to get out of the place just so that you can get some bloody damn sleep!

"Not On My Watch!" is the motto of any good nurse.

Any road, we went to the outlet mall about 30 miles north of here. What a splendid place!

Just avoid the marinara sauce.

01 December 2005

I started this blog to have a place to sort a few things out. I used to be very good about keeping a journal, but over the years several people have availed themselves of it to seek ammunition to start or prolong a fight. I thought a blog, under a pen name, might be just the ticket.

I wanted a place to write things out, and maybe see how silly or relevant my feelings might be, to gain some insight...

Writing here does help.

However, a blog is not a good friend who truly cares, and gives a constructive voice to a different perspective, and I wonder, do I have friends?

Of course I do, Entrare is a good one.

I have others, too.

So why in the hell am I having a hard time checking my email, singing along with Christmas carols, and feeling joy in life?

Because there are things no matter how quasi-anonymous this blog is, it will never be a place where I can sort those especially difficult things out, and no-one I know/trust is physiologically capable of helping me cope with. I feel obligated for several reasons, to censor the attempt to 'talk it out with a friend" and the censoring makes my deep and profound grief impossible for anyone else to understand. The need to censor makes my troubles-or my reaction to them-seem trivial, and shallow.

"oh, you are like every other divorcee, bitter, and angry that your financial situation changed so very dramatically after the divorce. You need to let it go."

Oh Christ, the things I know about the things my ex-husband did! He is a rapist, a kidnapper, and those are just the crimes he committed against my son and me. Those he committed against others are even worse, and he dared to say that he is not a monster.

I have been living in fear for my life for years, afraid to tell, afraid to speak, afraid to even try to go to a 'mental health' professional because A-who would believe me? and B-I could endanger someone beyond those already endangered.

I am trying so damn hard to hang on, to keep the flicker of hope alive in me that this nightmare will end soon. That I will be able to get past this, that I will somehow save my family.

Crusty deliberately destroyed my family. He took EVERYTHING, every single thing-family, love, hope, faith and trust in humanity-and dragged it through an unbelievable sewer of consummate evil; he did this not only to my son and me, but to others. He deliberately created a horrific ripple that is spreading across the entire world with heartbreaking consequences.

It is as if he murdered Father Christmas on live television, and no-one much cared, because it simply couldn't be real, could it?

But it is, and I am having more trouble than I thought I would getting through it.

I trust in God, I do. I understand how Crusty is temporarily getting away with this horror he and his cronies are inflicting on the world. I truly believe in Free Will, and that Free Will is God's greatest gift and simultaneous ultimate expression of hope for us. So I understand about how Crusty was and is able to do these terrible things.

Ah. I think my problem is that no-one, even those who knew what was happening, and were sworn to stand against it, not only failed me and the other, more important victims, they stood by idly and let it continue! No-one, NO-ONE who could have stood up and said "Hey, you can't do this!"

And secondly, no-one who could/should have, stood up and defended FOX and ME-ever.

God, help me, they let that little girl die, and justify it by saying she was "trailer trash." They could have saved her life, and they let her die, even though they knew my hit/miss record. They did it because it would have blown their cover, and now a thirteen year old girl is dead. They did it because they had so much filth on them what was one more kid?

Oh God in Heaven, how do I get through this alone? I know you are there Father, but oh God, why do Fox and I have no-where safe to lay our heads? Because Crusty and his cronies are still getting away with their evil, and everyone who knows (because they were there and saw what happened) are afraid to stand up.

United we stand-divided we fall. Gaius said it-"Divide to conquer." And so Crusty did. Because (nothing original or novel about Crusty...) he saw the impunity others operated under, and wanted some for him self. He actually thinks he is "running with the big dogs" now.