28 January 2006

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.

The above is the first sentence I ever typed on a typewriter. To warm up my fingers I type it now on a computer keyboard, but back in the olden days I used first an old Royal, then an IBM Selectric-man! We were stylin' when we got the Selectric!

For those of my readers who follow the re-incarnation writing, here is the history lesson for tonight-when the first machines for writing began to be mass-produced, and offices-oh yeah, offices have been around in one form or another for all of man's recorded history-made the shift to a more 'modern' approach, the most progressive hired a typewriter-the official name for the first scribes to use the machine professionally. They had schools, and everything. And when they graduated-all men by the way at first-the certificate awarded proclaimed the graduate to be a certified typewriter. A man could command a pretty good salary with one of the machines and the certificate.

OK, after a while, men got bored sitting at a desk all day; they 'let' a few women become typewriters. But truthfully, nice girls didn't grow up to be typewriters, not in those days. In fact, nice girls did not visit offices, even if their daddy owned the office. Just not done, you see. (Before the war my uncle had a ticker in the library and that was as close to any office equipment I was allowed to come in contact with until I died in '49, and came back in '56. It was quite interesting to watch him literally play the market from it. We lost nothing in the Depression-silly, did you think America the only country to suffer grave losses during the Depression?-because the family NEVER 'plays' the market, but keeps a finger on the pulse to see which way the wind is blowing the economy. I still pay attention...) The old Royal, first played with in my dad's office in the 1960's, was the first writing machine I had ever seen up close, or touched.)

I fell in love, frankly. Such a marvel to be able to get nearly all of one's thoughts down almost as fast as the thoughts took shape...There is a lot to love about the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Caller ID, word processors, the electric sewing machine with 62 built in stitches...

But I miss handwriting. I miss sealing wax, the sand and blotters; the sound of a good tip on good paper-the scratch is not at all annoying, rather it is uniquely satisfying. Sometimes at work when I am signing off on something, I catch a faint hint of the sound and it brings back such lovely memories.

Then something will happen to bring me back to current times, and I am immersed in the struggle to keep my head above rapidly rising sewer water.

I read an op-ed piece in the online Washington Post a few days ago, lamenting the pornification of our society.

OK, now I am really concerned, because the writer knew what he or she was writing about. Things are not good. Not at all good.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party...

24 January 2006

The quakes are increasing in both frequency and size along the Rim. The news from all over the world is becoming more and more awful. No-one seems to be connecting the dots publicly, which is something of a concern because if enough people connected the dots "out loud" we might have a better chance of surviving what is coming.

I asked my roommate last night what he would do if the power grid went down-permanently.

He did not get it at all, and talked about using his car battery until it came back up.

I think the infrastructure all over the world is crumbling, and I am totally angry that pissants like my ex, my former employers, and those whom my father called outlanders are obstructing any effort to prepare.

Been there, done that. I can tell you when and how it began, I can tell you what is going to happen. Been there, done that, so many times. This was supposed to be a good and peaceful life for me and mine; instead we are scattered and face the coming horror without the comfort of trusted companions.

The ex used to say that he wanted to be at ground zero when the bomb went off. Knowing what I do about radiation sickness, I used to hope that for him too, since if he survived the initial blast while I was still chained to him, I would have to take care of him.

Trust me, you have to REALLY love someone to nurse them through death by radiation sickness.

Then the Cold War 'ended' and he stopped talking about ground zero. We divorced in '99 and since then I have spent too much time praying for the strength not to hope that he is in the wrong place at the right time, and thus suffers terribly before death.

I come from a warrior people, I come from a people that KNOWS it is better to die free than to live in dishonour.

We don't love war, but we recognize that there truly are times one MUST pick up a hard weapon, and fight for home and hearth.

Every life I have lived has been a training ground for making hard choices in times of war. I have walked all the days of this life in the total horror of knowing I would have to make some of those choices to save the lives of my people.

I have struggled to arrange my life so as to preclude the making of some of those hardest ones; worked with my every breath to make those choices un-necessary.

Still it comes.

A man once said, and I paraphrase, that prudence overdone becomes cowardice.

It could have been so different, but petty bullies unchecked WILL grow in their capacity to inflict suffering as the bully ever strives to prove his or her power.

I work in the same room as an Iranian girl. She is very nearly insufferable in her arrogance, yet I watch her, and she could be such a nice person.

But as things hot up between Iran and the rest of the world, her rudeness increases; remembering lives lived in Persia, how savage Persians can be in victory OR desperation, I know another hard choice will have to be made that some will record in history as our brutality. I hurt for the commander who will have to make that choice; I pray that he will remember who and what these people are; I pray that he will remember to open his heart to God.

It could have been so different, but petty bullies WILL have their wars...


Meanwhile, those of us who have been trying to remind the rest that Earth is a geophysically unstable planet are in a dead-on panic, myself included.

Damn you Crusty, damn you for what you think you have done to my house. May you live long enough to see with living and knowing eyes your utter defeat.

16 January 2006

Since the dawn of Man's time I have walked this earth. I have watched civilizations rise, and I have witnessed their falls; some quickly, and some slowly.

I have begged, pleaded, prayed. I have been born, and I have died, watching, hoping, always believing somehow upright sentient would prevail against it's enemies.

I have been outraged; I have been deeply disappointed. I have been dishonoured by the very people I should have been able to trust the very most; I have been abandoned at the precise time I needed defense most. But never more than in this lifetime, this life of the winnowing.

Civilization is crumbling. As usual, the closer to the end we come, the faster the downward spiral.

Approximately two hours ago I was awakened by the sound of sirens, a man screaming and weeping, a woman's voice growing louder, more desperately pleading. Spanish voices, then an American police officer ordering, "Don't move!" The Hispanic man's cries turning to sobs.

More sirens, and the sounds of heavier vehicles-fire engines and ambulances, and I thought the apartment complex was on fire.

But my first thought was to roll off of the bed, and find a corner of the room in which to huddle so as to avoid the strike of a random bullet.

I know these sounds in the night.

Despair.

A man has lost everything. A family has been forever rent. I heard, through the closed, locked, sliding glass door of my room, two policemen talking, one saying, "There are three children inside." I started praying again.

Rachel weeps, her lament a rising crescendo in the darkest hours before the morning light will reveal the crime scene tape; blood pooling and congealing on the macadam.

I don't imagine this little tragedy will make the morning news. This is Metro Atlanta, and doubtless larger tragedies are playing out in other parts of the area to displace it.

My neighbours are not gossips-a bad sign if you are as old as I am, and have seen what I have seen.

When a people stop gossiping it is a sure sign they have deliberately turned blind, deaf, and mute in an effort to ward off any evil coming closer than it already has.

It is a psychological response to an overload of negative stimuli-denial, avoidance, deliberate ignorance.

I have seen this, too, over and over again through the millennia.

I was in Rome when they murdered the Christ. They called me a pagan, heathen. But even then I was a One God'er.

When we escaped Greece, we were; in Egypt, when Ahmon opened his heart to the truth and sought to lead his people to Ra-The Light! There were we in joy; history yet calls the man an idolator.

Too, present were we when the Light came from the Heaven and smote the twin cities for it's unspeakable practices. My husband said, "There is a wrongness here, let's us be gone from this place-NOW" An urgency in his voice turned our caravan not an hour into the city's fetid gates, we fled as far and fast as the horses, camels, and mules could move.

When the Light struck we were miles from the awful place, yet the column of eerie light over brightened the entire world it seemed; my husband, his men, the horses, all circled without a word or shout; he flung himself over me and repeated, "Do not look!"

The earth trembled for hours after, no matter how far we got away.

No-one spoke for days as we put as much space as possible between us and that place scorched so completely not even the stench of death emanated from it.

We stopped when we reached The Outer Steppes.

We are Travellers, although you would not know by our looks, our works, our lives. We settle, marry, give birth, pay taxes, build communities, with you, for you. We are no different than any one of you, we want the same things for our little ones that we have observed a great majourity of you want for yours-peace and safety from the cries in the night wrenched from all of our heart by the despair the Enemy feeds on.

The only difference is that we remember. You always seem to chose not to; I have been fastened to a wood pole, great humps of smallwood about my skirts, simply because I have tried to share what I have learned from my lives with you-as have many of my kind.

Because we are One True God'ers. Our only thought to obey His Ten Simple Rules To Live By that we may know and share the soul-safety that arises from the sanctuary of His peace.

We watch. When the Evil comes, we move, trying to take as many of you with us as we can persuade. To survive. To try again. Elsewhere.

But now, there is no Elsewhere. Humankind has spread so far on this world there is no Elsewhere left for us to flee to, and we must dig in and hope there is something left to rebuild on when the dust settles.

I have spoken so many languages I am rendered inarticulate now by the exhaustion wrought by trying to keep them from spilling out of my mouth in heated moments, and thus revealing myself.

Saul of Tarsus said a few true things-"We are not born in a spirit of fear!" Yet I am afraid, because this most critical time sees me utterly alone, and I am deeply afraid of what you can do in the panic a dying civilization engenders.

Although my husband and I have lived and died many times apart, yet were we one, and now I am truly Walks Alone Woman.

Worse still, my father is dead, and cannot protect me as he would have in previous times by marrying me to a good man who would stand beside me in honour. My brothers and my son seemingly devoted to the debauchery and denial.

Oh Papa, now I understand that look in your eyes! That grief, which I mistook for disappointment in me that I was born yet again a woman, that horror re-born everytime you looked at me knowing I would face this time completely alone.

Now is the Time of The Winnowing; he said it would come.

The Christ, our King, our over-lord; the Holy Messenger-The Chosen One. Murdered to maintain the status quo of fatlings who hoped to make his life a vanity; to lead us, you, all, away from salvation.

NOT the Jews, NOT the children of Israel.

But Philistines, merchant pimps, defilers! Dressed in the robes of the highest priests and frightened rat Roman senators.

And poor Pilate, he who converted, who washed his hands publicly to show the known world his absolute disdain for the murder they sought to make him commit. In Rome, we knew what was happening. He died, too, not much later after the murder; he never recanted but cherished the teaching he had from the Greatest Rabbi.

FOOLS! Is there any better politician than an angry Roman? Any more honourable man than a contemptuous Roman pro-counsel who sees the truth?

Two thousand years you have had to save yourselves, but you are not content with your own destruction-you choose to take your little ones with you to Hell??

Truly it is the handwriting on the wall when 'spell-check' does not recognize words such as 'defilers' and 'idolator' - how can you miss it?!

And did he not warn you this day would come?

The King is dead; Long Live the King!

13 January 2006

Our floor supervisor got the two kids I was most worried about job interviews with a friend of his who manages an electronics store.

Tomorrow our department head is having a meeting with all of us to outline the changes taking effect Monday. I like working at a company that has meetings-the last one we had was great-informative, shortish, and included free pizza and Pepsi. (Ooops, should I have said that we had Pepsi in the Co-Cola state?:)

I am still hoping Ariel Sharon will wake up and ask who won the elections-a sure sign of his undiminished mental capacity to have awakened knowing he has surely missed the elections, and is curious about the results.

Hey, hope floats! Drs (they don't know everything!) told me I couldn't get pregnant-I have TWO adult children that I promise you I personally gave birth to after carrying them for the prerequisite nine wretched months.

OK, the nine months with Fox were not as bad as the ten with his sister-she refused to be born. I really think she was not interested until her hair was a decent length, and she'd sprouted a tooth. The doctors were amazed; even her fontenale were closed.

Fortunately I was able to keep them from inserting a steel plate in her head-is she grateful? Hmmph.

So. A new year begins to play out.

12 January 2006

I started this blog one afternoon a few months ago after a young twerp told me I was too old to find a real job, and that I should throw myself on the altar of mediocrity (Burger King-truly the king of dead end jobs), instead of wasting her time trying to find me a temp-to-hire job.

I needed a place to vent. Hence, The Blog.

Then she called and said she'd found me a little job. She told me not to get too excited, that the job was only temporary; although the company was planning to hire a few of the temps, surely I wouldn't be one of them. She stressed, repeatedly, that to become a permanent hire I would have to really impress "the Powers that be" in a tone of voice, and with accompanying body language that made clear her utter doubt that I could impress anyone at my advanced age.

Gee, what a swell way to start a job however temporary it would be.

I showed up the first day, and every one after, ready to work hard, but with a diminished self-confidence. Seriously diminished. I found myself asking every night as I left for the day, "Are you sure you want me to come back tomorrow?"

Today was the last day of the assignment for the temp workers.

I volunteered to go home early when it became apparent that there was not enough work for everyone, and the floor supervisor was looking more and more scared at the thought he might have to tell someone to go.

I reasoned that the temps needed every one of the last eight hours they were going to get from the job, especially since several of the temps haven't been offered new temp positions elsewhere. Most of them have children, small ones, at home.

As for me, I am going permanent, and as such, am expected to arrive tomorrow morning ready to put in a full eight hours, at the job the 'recruiter' for the temp agency that placed me, was so very sure I would leave at the end of the assignment. She was so sure I would not impress the powers that be.

Surprise!

Whew!

And especially, thank-you Father! I cried out to you in my distress, and you answered by reminding me that if this job had not worked out, still you would always provide...

Please Lord, help those kids find work.

01 January 2006

Last post of the year.

Geeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzz-it can't be 2006, already?

Five hours, and it will be.

I'll probably snooze through it, the midnight. I'd like to stay up, but I've spent so many of the New Year's of this life alone, I don't think I'm up to stay up:)

God willing, 2006 will see me sorted out, home again-my own home/kitchen-and maybe God will send me a great man to share my life with. I know that this past year I have nearly succumbed to the whisper that I should admit that I believe God's promise to me has been broken, but ya know, nah.

God said so, and I believe him. Maybe this year...

OK, Crusty abused his gift of free will to savage my family. He wanted to hurt me for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was my absolute belief in God, and my faith that His will would manifest. He said I needed to learn what a vicious world this is, and that my God wasn't going to help me. He said I would learn how good I had things with him. He said that he would punish me for believing in God, that I would curse God...Crusty said he would teach me to hate...

And I also know from Crusty's own mouth that he was counting on God to 'make it up to' me-gulp, if that isn't abusing God's mercy, to think it will by some bizarre and convoluted 'logic' be OK to have brutalized Fox and me because God will make it up to me, I surely don't know what is abusing His mercy.

BUT.

I am not Job. But I believe God has all of this in His sight, all of this, Fox, my grandson, Crusty, and everything else in creation. I really do believe that the reason all of this is happening is because God loves us, every last one of us, so much that he has given us the freedom to choose how we will live our lives-mortal and immortal.

Crusty thought he would bring me to my knees, and he did, in a way-but then I have always been a prodigious pray-er:)

Because I still believe that for every single second of the horror years-from July 1981 through this very second, an angel has stood by Crusty's side, praying for him, begging him, "Don't do this..."

Just as I believe that an angel stood at the side of every one of the terrorist as they planned and then executed the attacks of 9/11 here in the US, on 3/11 in Spain, and on 7/7 in London.

I believe we all hear His voice if we chose to-"Let those with ears, hear." I believe He sends every one of us an angel (which is the anglicized version of the Greek word for 'divine messenger') and we can ignore that angel if we chose.

I also believe the Enemy whispers, and tries to drown out the voice in our hearts, and that his whispers are insidious.

So yes, I've been through too much, my beautiful boy far too much. A lot of people have been through far too much, and all of them at the hands of the Crustys of the world.

But I am not going to rail and curse God for what the Crustys of the world chose to do, nor am I going to find a perverse satisfaction in the divine retribution.

I'm not going to do either, not out the need to spite Crusty; but I am chosing to accept God's love for me and my son; and I am chosing to feel pity for the Crustys because they think they are getting away with murder.

The only real murder is of their own souls. And God has a rule about that.

But that isn't my problem. I wish God didn't have to deal with it, I feel badly for Him that so many prodigal sons have no interest in coming home.

And I have a prayer in my heart that 2006 will be the year my son and I become a family again.