Where Did I Sign-up to be an Anachronism?

2012-01-28T06:46:00.004-05:00

28 Jan 2012, 1147hrs local (Scotland) time.

I woke up this morning thinking about the weeks and months just after my dad had died, and Crusty, Fox, and I had settled into a 3/2 brick ranch in SouthEast Alabama. Thinking how cold it was that first month in Alabama, how Fox had been changing as he approached his third birthday, how difficult things were between Crusty and I.

I lay there in the nice warm bed with Paul and the cat snugged in under the duvet, and thought to myself "Why am I thinking about that horrible time?"

I got up (late, it was very cold here this morning and it was a real force of will to crawl out of that warm bed and start a fire in the bedroom wood stove!) and got the morning started-Paul loves to make breakfast so while he did that I did other things. Eventually we both took breaks and booted up our computers to check email (FOX-write yer mum!) and scan the news.

I have a routine. I open the email and look for personal emails first. Then I move all the earthquake alerts to the EQ Log folder and pdf the page listing them so I can delete the previous days worth and move on to the new day. Then I read the news headlines morning newsletters sent out free from news feeds all over the world-it's how I stay in touch with local and global current events.

I read the local (UK feeds) stuff first, starting with The Scotsman of course for the really local stuff, and where once again it looks as though I haven't hunted enough Haggis to win a holiday at the famous St Andrews Golf Resort. Oh well, there is hopefully a next year. Paul and I don't do Burns Night so much for the Burns as for the end of the annual Haggis Hunt, lol!

Then moving quickly through The infamous Daily Mail (oh, don'cha love a bit of refined tabloidy trash first thing in the morning?) and onto The Telegraph for serious news, I scan the headlines and sometimes do a pdf of the articles that are interesting, educational, or seem to be a part of the forming jigsaw of Life.

And then I start receiving the US feeds, and I trawl through The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The LA Times (among others). As I work my way through the US morning collection, I am usually on cuppa number four and thinking about making another pot...

This morning I was so unsettled by waking to memories of Crusty and the misery he caused Fox and me that so far I've skipped the tea, although Paul did force breakfast on me-bless him! I make him eat things like brussel sprouts, broccoli, and salads, and he makes me eat breakfast every morning. We have a perfect marriage (which is why I hate waking up dwelling on misery-it seems SO disloyal to my wonderful Paulie!).

Well, I'm on my way to make that pot of tea now. I read through the British newsletters. Moved onto the NYTs, and there at the end of the newsletter was the offer to see the pdf of the NYTs front page on 28 Jan 1986-the morning the space shuttle Challenger exploded just after lift-off.

And because I do know that we humans are anniversarial even when we don't consciously recall the date, I now know why I woke up thinking about AL, Crusty, and those unusually dark winter days so long ago across the American Deep South.

It's been so long ago, and yet for certain people it must seem like it is happening all over again. Humankind is anniversarial, and today is a very sad anniversary.

I recall where I was this morning all those years ago-I was getting the morning started in a SouthEast AL 3/2 brick ranch, my three year old playing with his breakfast, and my husband sulking in the living room while I listened to CNN news as I washed the dishes.

28 Jan 1986:

We'd had a terrible row the night before, fierce for all it was conducted in whispers so as to not disturb Fox; unresolved the next morning, Crusty flounced into the living room and sulked in the dark. I made breakfast (his sat congealing on the breakfast table) and tidied up in the kitchen, not really paying attention to the little TV on the counter until the CNN announcer said "And we have lift off of the space shuttle Challenger..."

I turned off the water and went to stand in front of the TV. I watched the screen and the interspersed shots of family and shuttle and it was only seconds after lift-off that the Challenger lift-off became the Challenger Tragedy. Fox went completely still as I called Crusty to the kitchen with the words "Oh my God, Mike, come quick!"

We spent the rest of the day glued to the TV, hoping against hope that the astronauts somehow had miraculously been saved.

But of course, they had not.

28 Jan 1986.

No-one should have died that morning and 'they' should have learned from the earlier tragedy that occurred (eerily enough) 19 years+1 day prior to that horrible 1986 morning-the launch pad fire in Apollo 1 that killed three men, including the uncle of one of my friends.

I feel safe saying that because I heard it said by another friend, this one met during FL Master Gardener training. He'd been part of the team in FL that day in 1986 and when I met him in 1993 he was still shattered by the event, blaming group think for the decisions that killed both the Apollo and Challenger crews.

He retired soon after the Challenger disaster and avoided the place like the plague. Knowing my family loved the space programme, he gave us his tickets for 'ringside' seats to the Endeavour maiden voyage.

The intervals between majour disasters seems to shorten. Apollo 1 burned on the launch pad in Jan 1967, Challenger exploded in Jan 1986, 19+1 day years later.

Space shuttle Columbia, 17 years+4 days after the loss of the Challenger crew, burned up on re-entry because no-one had been willing to loudly suggest that loosing a chunk of foam during lift-off might cause catastrophic damage to the tiles.

I've been blessed-over the years I've known some amazing people, people of tremendous courage and honour. Some of them have been involved with the space programme, and they are sorely missed. I read a piece this morning on the Washington Post about the Apollo 1 horror, and the gentleman interviewed made it clear that he believes safety is the one cost-cutter that should be done without.

He is so very right!

27 Jan 1967
28 Jan 1986
1 Feb 2003

2012-01-15T06:48:00.004-05:00

Hard to believe Paul and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary on Tuesday-wowsa, where DID the year go?!

Well, of of course the answer is that four months of it went to VisaQuest, lol, while I lounged about my son's flat. ROFLOL, lounging as in cleaning the oven for the first time since my son moved in the previous August, and other Mom-on-a-visit type cleaning. Laundry, sorting, and through it all my grateful son thanking me for unearthing things he'd thought he'd lost. It was a great visit, and took up four of the twelve months of Paul's and my first year of wedded bliss.

The remaining eight months have been rather good (oh I am getting the hand of British understatement:). Nothing is perfect, saves boredom, but it has been rather nice to be married to Paul over this past year. We have a quiet life, lol, our biggest excitement being the latest incredible sewing machine find-permit me to digress from blethering on about my blissful marriage to bang on about:

A PRISTINE 1898 COFFIN LID HAND HAND CRANK SINGER MODEL 28

And I do mean pristine! It's in amazing condition, the Victorian decals barely worn although it is clear the machine was being used by a homemaker as recently as 15 years ago-we found sewing notions in the tool compartment on the machine case that we can reliably date to having been sold in 1997.

I don't really know how these women manage to keep the decals on the machines in such good condition. When I use mine, I tape a plate of cardboard over the decals, but I really don't know if that's how the original owners managed. I do have one near antique Singer with most of the decals worn off where the fabric feeds across the flat bed, so I am always astonished when I find one with age AND intact decals.

Now, as to how this little beauty has joined the collection...

There is a charity shop here in town that does wonderful work with people who have hit a really rough patch (usually unemployment or loss of the main wage earner), they are a bit like Habitat for Humanity without the house building aspect. We like to support them by visiting often and buying (if we need a piece of furniture, they get amazing stuff!).

Because of Paul's background and my amateur interests, we've steered them towards using an auction service to sell the better things they get in. They really do get amazing things, Art Deco wardrobes, glass and housewares, and other bits and sticks that we know sell for incredible prices. Paul advises them on the furniture and glass, etc-made them hundreds of pounds they wouldn't have got otherwise.

So we volunteered to come in and check anything they had questions about, and for me to do the function tests on any sewing machines they get.

This came about because I bought two machines from them that were originally hideously overpriced (and one needed extensive repairs). I spoke with the manager on both occasions and was able to show her why those machines were over priced, which led to her throwing her hands up and saying that many of their clients would love to have a decent working machine...which led to my saying I would come in and check any machines before they priced.

I got a lovely free-arm that way-the second originally overpriced machine. The manager watched me carefully take it apart to find out why the bobbin wouldn't wind, then fix it so that the bobbin winder feature was restored to full functionality-she was so pleased that I could actually do what I said I could that she offered it to me at half the price I told her she could reasonably get for it in the shop-since I didn't have a free-arm and needed one, we had a deal!

The first over-priced machine was an interesting sale, too. I simply turned the hand wheel-which was jammed, and pointed that out to the manager, who then asked me what I would pay. The machine is a duplicate of one I own and love, but mine came without the instruction manual which would have cost me £17 to order and have shipped. The one in the shop with the original instruction manual but needing majour repairs was priced at £25, and I told her any buyer would have to spend at least £40 to have it fixed. I told her I needed the manual and offered her the £17 but she dropped it to £10, and I scurried home with the machine as fast as I could!

So over the past few months I've gone in and checked machines, fixing if I could and leaving a note on what was needed if I couldn't fix it on the spot so buyers would know what they were getting.

I've even made them money by having them send Feather Weights to auction, where those beauties have raised several hundred pounds for the charity. She told me once they would have priced those especially low because "They're so old..." OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!

So. Last Monday morning we got a phone call asking me to come have a look a 'really old one'. Since I've got them able to recognise a valuable Feather Weight, I hotfooted it down there thinking they had something REALLY special, and oh my word, did they ever!

As you can see, the very rare coffin lid case is in outstanding condition, as are the decals, the hand wheel, and the crank.

I took down the serial number all the while nearly incoherent with joy that I was actually in the presence of such a rare old Singer-I could tell from the serial number that it was a pre-1900 model, I could tell from a quick examination that the machine was is perfect working order (oh wow, it had a sharp clean needle in it and modern sewing notions in the tool compartment), and I was just flabbergasted to see the coffin lid at all much less in such amazing condition. LOL, I really couldn't stop babbling, I kept telling the woman I'd never hoped to see one in person outside of a museum.

After making sure she knew it should have a reserve of at least £50, I left the shop and skipped all the way home with the happiness of having been able to handle such a rare piece of Singer history. I contacted Singer to date the machine and download an instruction manual.

Tuesday morning the answer came back as I'd suspected-this little love, a 3/4 version of the larger vibrating shuttle model 27, was built on 17 March, 1898, in Clydesbank, Scotland. Official name: Singer Sewing Machine Model VS 28K. Oh. My. Gosh! I contacted the charity shop manager to give her the results and went back to my quiet life. I was very excited, of course, to think they would get at least £150 for it at auction, after all it is a rare coffin lid in excellent condition, a functioning machine that makes a gorgeous professional stitch, goes all of the time for £150-250 depending on how many collectors are at the auctions...

Thursday we went to Dundee to celebrate our wedding anniversary a bit early. We came in late in the afternoon to find a message on the answer phone-their auctioneer refused to handle such "...an old piece of tat..." and would I like to have it-FREE OF CHARGE?

WOULD I?????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul lugged it home, all fifty pounds of it, walking a mile carrying this thing home. I still cannot believe we have it in the house. Just the coffin lid case is rare, to have the case and machine looking as though it's maybe twenty years old is incredible.

We're going to recondition it (only needs a bit of a tune-up as it looks as though it was unused for about ten years but stored in a dry, clean, and warm spot) and sell it on, donating the proceeds to the charity. I feel so lucky to have a chance to have this 114 year old machine visiting my house!

Right, back to marital bliss. ROFLOL, I do not recommend finding a new husband online but it's sure worked out for me:) Paul and I think the only fly in our balm is that Fox and The Grandson live across the Atlantic.

2011-12-25T05:23:00.004-05:00

Happy Christmas to all, especially all the fine 'beans and Cats in Lee County Clowder:)

Yes, Paul AND Scotland celebrate Christmas, some years more than others. For Paul, this is the most Christmas he's had in years. Decades, really. I'm bringing him along slowly-next year it is my goal to have stockings hung. With our names on them. And things in them Christmas morning.

Last year we had a string of electric fairy lights and one (seriously) bauble on the lovely huge Sitka Spruce we hauled home from the Focus D-I-Y; this year we have several little handmade decorations on the very lovely little (20" if that) live dwarf Alberta Spruce we intend to pot up slightly after 12th Night (AKA The Feast of the Epiphany, 6 Jan) and keep for next year:

We also have designed window decorations (see below), a door spray (that gale force winds have blown the live greenery from:

and the entry hall is bedecked:

(Next year, bathroom and kitchen will be as well)

It's half ten here (10:30 GMT) and we've been up since six. The children next door have been also, I feel for the mum, I really do! Shrieks of joy caroled out into the general back garden area as they found new bicycles under the tree:) I was standing out there having an early morning smoke so I got to enjoy the Christmas cacophony-it brought back memories.

Paul and I outdid each other in the gifts department by buying a careful mix of new and charity shop items. I got him a nearly new pair of Levis at the British Red Cross yesterday, that was a bonus! LOL, I went in there because it was on my way to the grocery and I was so stunned at the luck of finding a pair of Levis in his size in that condition that I almost forgot to pop round to the grocery.

Gifts wise, it's been a rather lovely Christmas-he gave me a nice sum of money when he realised on the 23rd that he couldn't figure out what to give me, and I promptly turned that money into a top rated electric hand mixer, a string mop and bucket with built in twister. My Christmas cup runneth over:)

We are having a traditional Christmas lunch, which means I need to get into the kitchen and get the beef joint into the oven! I'm cheating this year with frozen Yorkshire puddings that I'll drizzle some beef drippings onto when they come out of the oven, and yes, we are also cheating by having a store bought Christmas pudding. At least the whisky drizzle on that is authentic, lol, Aberlour, distilled up near his home county of Moray.

We watched the Alastair Sim Scrooge last night, that was lovely too:)

We went for a walk to see who had Christmas lights up, that wasn't as lovely since very few people have them up this year. I'm thinking about organising a caroling choir so that maybe people around here will get a bit more Christmas spirit.

I can understand the lack of interest but Christmas time is not really mandated to cost a lot of money-the general excuse this year for the lack of Spirit in this town! By the evening of 15th I ran a battery operated tea light in each of the two front windows (to light the Christ Child's way), and wired together some fake holly, a twig star wand and some greens from our garden to make a door spray. The next day the rest of the people on our street had something up too, nothing fancy but at least something on the doors and front windows. And then we got a Christmas card through the door from one of the neighbours thanking us for putting up the decorations:)

So I'm thinking a caroling choir made up of the neighbours might go over well. It certainly might get us a bit more Christmassy-I have been greeting people all this past week with a hearty Happy Christmas and the shock on their faces to hear the greeting is sad to see, frankly. Perhaps if they are busy practising for Christmas Caroling all year it will prompt them to plan ahead for other Christmassy things as well. I've got my year planned chock full of gathering gifts, making stockings and decorations-I'll natter on during choir practices and maybe, just maybe...

So here I am, Christmas Mid-Morning 2011, with a word,doc open because I am planning Christmas 2012. I made all my goals last years (except the quitting smoking thing, blast it all, but hope floats for New Years Day)-we had plenty of homemade Christmas Tree ornaments, the entry hall had a lovely bit of holiday bedecking (found 50 metres of red Christmas bead garland in a charity shop. I combined that with some artfully scattered larch pine cones and some vintage looking glittered gift tags on the hall mantle), the front door had something like a wreath, and the windows had a designed decoration in the Christ Child candles (which come down today to be replaced with a strand each of multi coloured fairly lights until 12th Night).

I had Christmas gifts for my husband, although the stinker sussed the big one-a framed print of a Tuscany farmhouse he's been eyeing up in a charity shop for months. I was going to pick it up Christmas Eve so the woman took it off the display and had it behind the counter when my husband decided it would be a swell idea to go visit the print he wouldn't buy for himself, and saw it gone, then saw it behind the counter (with my name on it). Sigh. Well, he got his Big Gift early (the afternoon of the 23rd) and lucky me, I didn't have to carry it home myself. Sigh.

I Believe.

I believe in Father Christmas, and the Spirit of Christmas, and to keep it in my heart all the year. It's time to spread that to my fellows on the other streets of my newly adopted hometown.

2011-12-07T10:12:00.008-05:00

Houston, we've got Winter.

It's been snowing off and on the past few days leaving behind snow dust, sharp cold, and ice. The ice melted off just enough to cause worse icing now that it is late afternoon here and the temp is dropping. I love Scotland in the Winter-sunrise at 0830, and sundown by 4pm, pitch dark by 4:30pm and by 9pm I feel interested in falling asleep. We have a TV license now, and I find myself falling asleep during the best parts of programmes. Of course.

Here in our little corner of Scotland in that the ice hasn't blocked anyone in or caused any terrible car wrecks but there have been a few very bad collisions resulting in death elsewhere in Scotland. More wintery weather is on the way, and from the sewing room window I can see a good bit of snow on the Cairngorms-I think it is officially Winter.

This afternoon we took delivery of two more builder bags of wood-I think we have enough now to get us through until around March. Paul has been building the nicest log stores with the pallets last winter logs were delivered on:

The above is the first one he built, we have another one now, too. Each holds a builder bag of wood. I'm not really sure what that is in 'cord' wood, though, but eyeballing it, I'd say a builder bag holds a little less than a half cord of wood. He has enough of the pallet wood left to build a few more log stores, too. I'm really proud of his work, he used almost all salvage material, and the cover for the second and subsequent ones will be at the whopping cost of 50pence, lol, thanks to a going-out-of-business sale locally.

We are using seasoned wood this year having found a reliable source; last year we were not able to find a reliable source (a very polite way of saying we were taken advantage of by the seller who had NOT properly seasoned that wood) and had to find a reputable source for kiln dried wood in a real hurry or risk freezing. We had the gas turned off to the house and the boiler pulled to make room for a walk-in pantry in September 2010, and while my husband was not pleased to hear me say "Hey, most of this wood is green" last year, he was even more unhappy when I was proved right as he tried to light what I'd just ID'd as greenwood.

Brrr, off we went out to the garage where the wood had been neatly stacked by him after the woodsmen dumped it in our forecourt-I'd offered to help and if I had I would have known immediately that we had a problem. But I was busy inside, and he was busy 'being the man' and so I didn't get a chance to heft the firewood until it was about to go into the stove.

Uh oh.

We re-stacked the wood, Paul learning very quickly to tell the difference between 'tink' and 'tunk' as an identifier of seasoned and unseasoned wood. Naturally the stack of green wood was a lot taller and wider and deeper than the tiny little pile of wood that we could reasonably expect to burn...

I got on the 'Net and found a company we could do business with and a couple of days later we were running both stoves wide open because we took delivery of several pallets of kiln dried wood (and a couple of pallets of pressed chip logs-oh my those do burn nicely!) just in time-The Big Freeze 2010-2011 had hit and the UK was near paralysed with the cold. We however, stayed toasty with our kiln dried wood. And we seasoned the greenwood over the rest of the winter 2010-2011, and spring-summer-fall 2011; it all worked out, the green wood is now seasoned and burning along merrily.

But when we looked at the cost we were disappointed at our savings (in electric and gas from not having the boiler doing the central heating). Luckily this year when we had the TV antenna installed we found a reliable (as in money back, etc) source for seasoned wood at a great price, and we've got the last of it stacked in the garage. The antenna installer has a cousin, you see, and they sell firewood...

So we bought four bags early, back in September, to give them a try and thinking well, if this doesn't work out we can always season it for next year. But every single piece in the delivery 'tinked' instead of 'tunked' and we just finished stacking another delivery of two more of those 'tinking' bags-not a 'tunk' in the lot. To make it even better, the driver told Paul that if they look as though they are getting down to the last few bags of seasoned wood, he would call us.

Now, between deliveries we had a chance to check out their business base, and are pleased to have found they season the wood in huge log stores with dating tags attached. So we are comfortable with this company, happy with the wood, and feeling pretty good about our warmth factor for Winter 2011-2012.

Just in time, I'm crocheting like mad to finish off the Dr Who length scarves for son and grandson Christmas:)

2011-11-24T01:40:00.002-05:00

Being an expat on Thanksgiving Day is horrible.

No-one slogs through the snow to get to your house because getting to your house requires a passport, a visa, and shedloads of money.

To go to a place where it is impossible to avoid the realisation that Thanksgiving Day and all the trimmings is not by any stretch of the imagination a priority in anyone's mind but that of the expat.

So you lie there in the pre-dawn dark wondering just what the hell you are going to do with yourself this morning, and when you recall that your bog plan of the day is to finish your husband's new pyjamas, and go to the Co-Op for a turkey not to be consumed until Christmas around lunchtime, you can become VERY distressed. Especially since you haven't had pumpkin pie with WAY too much Extra-Creamy Cool Whip since 2009.

Because when you lived in America you had turkey on Thanksgiving, standing rib roast on Christmas, and a baked ham on New Year. But when 2010 rolled around you were in the UK on Thanksgiving and didn't 'observe' the day because your soon-to-be new husband didn't get it that it was an important day for you, you sucked it up thinking Christmas would be different...but it wasn't, and a year later you really can't even recall what you had for Christmas Dinner...

I miss my son. I miss making Thanksgiving Dinner while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I miss the bustle involved in buying the ingredients for the perfect meal, too. I miss the way I started shopping for the meal in late September because I could never forget the horror (lol) of leaving it all to the last minute one year, and not being able to find ANYTHING two weeks before Thanksgiving-no kidding, there was nothing to be found, the shelves were bare of the basics. Scary.

The last real Thanksgiving meal I cooked was in 1995. My then husband ruined the next ones to come right up to the last one in 1998, and because of the things he did that year no Thanksgiving has been the same since. But hope floats, and I thought in my heart that one day Thanksgiving would roll around and I would be joyously bustling around again planning, then preparing, then serving, then clearing up after the meal and the day and the joy of finally having my family...

My son and grandson are in America and I doubt deeply I will get a phone call, and know that I will make excuses in my heart for that lack of phone calls from the only family I have left, and frankly right now nothing is helping my mood at all.

I am feeling very alone, unloved, unwanted, unappreciated, and obviously VERY sorry for my expat self today. And the sun isn't even up yet.

Sigh.

2011-11-22T04:32:00.002-05:00

Like most Americans and not a few Europeans, I can remember the events of 22 Nov 1963 very-very clearly. I know just exactly where I was, what I was doing, what I did, and how the grown-ups around me were reacting.

Every year since that awful day the world changed forever I have sat somewhere quiet and remembered, and prayed for the family-not because they are famous icons of American Royalty but because they are people. I've prayed for Caroline Kennedy especially since her brother was killed and yet more fervently since her uncle passed.

She is the last one left, she is completely alone now, bereft of people with that especial intimate relationship of close family at a time of terrible tragedy. Everyone is gone-her mother, her brother, and her uncles. The cousins count of course, but there is a uniqueness to the family bond of parent and sibling. She has no-one left with whom to grieve, and that has grieved me deeply since Ted Kennedy died.

Yesterday as I went about my day something about the sound of my footsteps caught my attention and held throughout the entire day. The sound of my footfalls on the back garden path especially got my attention; the sound is as different as can be from the sound of footfalls on the American desert floor at dawn (my all time favourite sound just before the creak of saddle leather) yet somehow very nearly as comforting, nostalgic, restorative.

I'm going to listen to the sounds of my footfalls today.

2011-11-08T02:52:00.003-05:00

Smokin' Joe Frazier has died of liver cancer aged 67. I remember The Thrilla In Manilla very well, we watched it at the Olympic in Los Angeles in Aileen Eaton's suite.

We were in the Ali camp, himself having used my dad's boxing gym down in Long Beach to train when the crowds in LA got too big around the gym he used there. He also had a very nice training camp that Angelo Dundee built for him, but he liked the Skid Row atmosphere of Seaside Gym where my dad put hundreds of 'troubled youth' through the boxing programme he ran for the County of Los Angeles.

One of these days Ali (whom I've always thought of as Cassius Clay, and always will-it's not meant in disrespect, but because I met him when he was Cassius Clay and it was hard to remember to call him Muhammad) will pass too, and I will post a blog about him teaching me to skip rope like a 'real boxer', and his admiration of my speed bag skills.

Mr. Frazier was an amazing man, very gentlemanly, very reserved, very determined. I expect he faced his illness with the same reserve and determination, and I am beyond sorry that he lost this fight. It doesn't seem right that this quiet man is gone so young (at 55, trust me, 67 is young), and that he had to endure the horrors of liver cancer before leaving too soon. I heard about the cancer just a few days ago when his agent announced it-I have no contacts left from those days, no one to reminisce with about the days of the boxing gym, and the people we knew back in the day.

I feel sure though, that Smokin' Joe was met at the Gate by people who respected him, and like him, went on too early. I have a feeling my Pop was there to say hello, he very much admired and respected Joe Frazier for all we were officially in the Ali camp. And I'm positive that Mike and Jerry Quarry were on the 'We went too young, didn't we' welcoming committee for Smokin' Joe, among other boxing greats who died far too young, and primarily as a consequence of their boxing days.

Both Mike and Jerry died from complications of the horrendous repeated concussions suffered in the ring, it's the biggest reasons my dad got out of boxing when he realised Jerry had a serious problem. Pop said one afternoon while we were driving home to Laguna from the Long Beach gym, 'The lights are on but there's no-one home. Jerry is not in there anymore, and it's time to get out of this.' It disturbed my dad to see what was happening to Jerry, and he saw the beginning glimmers of the same thing happening to Mike, and that shattered my dad-he really liked Mike and didn't want to see that happen to either brother.

I don't know if Joe Frazier's liver cancer developed because of his boxing, I doubt it. He wasn't the steroids or other 'aids' type. I remember him as the kind of boxer who went about it honestly-shoulders set, chin tucked, and throwing a Smoking Jab that rocked your world in a very bad way if you were on the receiving end. I heard a rumour that he routinely snapped heavy bag drop chains while training. Dunno if it's true, just that he earned his nickname because he threw his punches so fast and hard. I seem to recall he was called Joltin' Joe for a while, in the early days of his boxing career for the same reason-if he hit you, you were beyond jolted.

God rest you, Mr Frazier. Say hi to Mike and Jerry for me, will you?

2011-11-05T06:55:00.003-05:00

Well hell, CNN has just sent a breaking news alert to my inbox that Andy Rooney of 60Minutes has died aged 92 following complications after minor surgery.

He was my favourite segment of 60Minutes, providing valuable training to this Curmudgeon-In-Training among laughter and nearly constant agreement with his venting against whatever annoyances struck him that week. Sometimes his pieces moved me to tears, too. He was great, and will be missed by the sensible everywhere who had the privilege of watching him on 60Minutes.

RIP, Mr. Rooney, you will be missed, and you are thanked by millions of C-I-T worldwide.

I was going to blog about my vintage Singer sewing machines today. I think I may have mentioned that Paul presented me with a 1933 Singer treadle model 66 for a wedding present in an earlier post. That machine and I are spending the winter together in the lovely new workroom Paul graciously gave up on as first a lounge (living room to American readers) then as a master bedroom. It is a huge lovely room warmed by a large Bohemian wood stove, lit by the huge front window, and is the perfect place for my now five sewing machines:

A 50s model Russian made Jones electric that converts to hand or treadle operations, but unfortunately is a side loading bobbin machine (WHY DO THEY MAKE THOSE WRETCHED MACHINES?!) that I am having a great deal of difficulty finding a manual for. At this point I would take one written in Russian although the machine is one manufactured for the British market.

And my four Singer lovies:

A 70s model 513 Stylist, all metal except for the bobbin gear. Guess what broke in the middle of the first project I sewed on it? Happy accident, though, it led us to a wonderful 80-ish years old former mechanic (read repairman) for Singer down in Clydesbank where my four lovies were manufactured. The 513 has several whistles and bells, straight, reverse, zig-zag, and something called Flexi-Stitch that I am having a TERRIBLE time getting to work WITH me. It's for knits, and with winter fast approaching (it was 33F here this morning at 0700 Scotland Time), I really need that feature to work-long johns and janes won't be made without that Flexi-Stitch feature, dang it!

A 60s model 449 Straight Stitch (and that's all it does, although it does have a reverse button, and stitches an incredibly lovely stitch)

The aforementioned 1933 treadle model 66, which I will now extoll as the most lovely gift I've ever received (except for the presents my son gave/gives me). It too is a straight stitch machine, but can be made to perform a zig-zag by the attachment of a special foot that will also fit onto the 449. No need for me to buy that attachment as long as I can keep the 513 running, but one of these days I think I will buy the zig-zagger foot. One of these days. More on attachments later...The treadle, cabinet, and machine are in pristine, 'start sewing with me today' condition and the decals look as though they were applied yesterday, but Paul (now the proud possessor of the Ultimate Refurbishment and Repair Manual for all things treadle and hand crank) is going to go over it with a fine toothed comb before I actually get started. The cabinet drawers hold the original manual, needles, bobbins, and a spare foot, and there is room for the tool box that holds the attachments set that came standard with the machine but didn't last the years to make it to me...this morning I received the Holy Grail of attachments...more on this later...

And finally, the incredible 1917 hand crank model 99, the baby sister of the 66-meaning it is the 3/4 scale copy of the 66 and uses many of the same parts, all of the same instructions including repair and maintenance, and is in the original bentwood case-with key. (Forgive me, I want to use a pure tonne of exclamation points at this juncture because finding that machine in the animal charity shop in Devon was an incredible stroke of the Sewing Angels leading my wonderful husband to its hiding place behind a rack of clothes, and for it to be in its bentwood case with the key and a few spare bobbins is next to miraculous frankly. So I want to jump up and down, and put LOTS of exclamation points, WOOHOO, I am over the moon!) The decals on the 99 are worn in the exact place fabric would feed over the plate. The hand crank turns smoothly. The case needs a nice lot of work with a restorative, but the key works and so does the machine.

Yes I have pictures-awful ones not worth keeping on the laptop, so I will post pics when I finally learn how to get good ones.

Now. 'Bout those attachments...

OMGsh I am now the thrilled and grateful owner of a complete GODZILLA BOX of Singer attachments that fit all four of my Singer lovies! I can now sew just about anything (except zig-zag) on my straight stitch machines, and if I'd like, the 513 as well. The tucker looks most interesting to me at this point, but there is a ruffler, two different types of binders, an under braider...eight lovely sewing machine attachments in all, and all in the wonderful Godzilla Box complete with a layout leaflet.

It doesn't have the instruction manual for the attachments because Singer cleverly included these attachments as standard in most of their machine sales, and the instruction manuals for the machines include instructions for using the attachments. So the manual never came standard with the box, just the layout leaflet so the home sewer could put the tools away properly until next time.

I commented recently on a vintage Singer machine blog that for me there is something both romantic and practical about sewing on a machine that is a functioning antique. Frankly, it's Zen. Sometimes I go into the workroom and just stand there looking at those two aged beauties thinking about the things they've seen. I think about the home sewers who sewed for their families through two world wars and the arrival of the motor car, space travel, video recording, and the Internet.

And somewhere in that I can hear Andy Rooney commenting on how modern sewing machines will never be able to compete with the one his Gran used to make his short pants back in the day.

Tick-tick-tickety-tick, what a lovely sound a treadle and hand crank sewing machine makes.

2011-10-08T04:09:00.004-05:00

There is a distinct bite to the winds now, Autumn is here and shouting that Winter is not at all far behind. We are going like gang-busters trying to get things done around the house and gardens to have the house ready for what all predictions say is going to be a winter at least as severe as last year if not more so.

Now, last year just after what would have been Thanksgiving Weekend in the US, our area of Scotland was hit by heavy snow and a huge drop in temp that lasted until late January. The snow melted off just enough for our wedding guests to make the drive to our wedding-just. The temps came up enough for people to be comfortable, but in essence Scotland slogged through a deep freeze that began in late November and continued until late February.

And 'they' are saying this winter will be at least as bad. At least-which means it will likely be colder, earlier, longer than last year. I'm reviewing instructions for homemade snowshoes and I'm not kidding about that. There is an art to good snowshoes, I learned a little about it when I lived on Kodiak Island, Alaska in the mid Seventies. Snowshoes are wonderful both for getting around and for working off the pounds. (And my doctor wants me to lose at least two stone, and would be thrilled if I managed to make that a full thirty pounds loss)

So Paul is going through his checklist for essential repairs that have not already been done (it's been a busy summer since I got back from the States, and he'd already been busy while I was gone this spring), and I am going through every article of winter clothing and bedding we own.

Now, things are of course done a bit differently in the UK and it's been interesting to see how very different things can be! I mentioned in an earlier post that the amounts of food one buys in the shops are much-much smaller than what we are used to in the US, and now I'd like to bang on about the clothes washing machines.

Paul came with an under counter front load Hotpoint clothes washing machine capable of washing a 6kg load (6x2.5=15lbs of laundry in one load) but it really works best if there is no more than 10-11lbs of wet laundry in that poor thing.

Which means even if I could force the double and queen sized duvets in the machine I would burn it up and have a very cross husband to contend with.

Laundromats, places I avoid like the pest-and-plague ridden horrors they were in North GA (the owner shut off the hot water, now I ask you how the heck you are supposed to sanitise anything in cold water, and yes, bedbugs and lice were a constant problem in the schools...) are not something easily found in Scotland market towns. Everyone either has a clothes washing machine, or they take everything to the cleaners.

Including and especially duvets.

But not us.

We ran a bubble bath for the first duvet, sized double, and took turns agitating (read kneading, it was incredibly hard on the back and I think the king sized one is going to be snuck down to the cleaners), soaking, rinsing, agitating, and then using body weight to press the water out of the duvet and hefting it out to the back garden where it dripped for a full twelve hours, and then was hefted back into the house when the sun went down. Still wettish, I draped it over my lovely tower airer (drying rack) and it took four days to dry.

Because in Scotland, a top loading, large capacity washer is considered an unconscionable affection and display of conspicuous consumption. They are wasteful-use a lot of water and electricity, but in the process you get a hell of a lot of clothing and bedding washed.

My mother had an American top loader in her home near Manchester, England, and growing up I did think it luxurious whenever we visited her but that was because at our house on the desert of Southern California, my sister and I washed all of the family clothing and linens in a huge cauldron every Saturday morning. We had a portable wringer that we attached to the cauldron and my job was to feed the fabric through it while she cranked the wringer, then pull it out of the cauldron into baskets until she could refill and reheat the water for either more washing or more rinsing. I'll never forget the day my dad brought home the wringer washing machine, my sister sat down on the front porch steps and cried for an hour with joy.

There were a lot of reasons I liked visiting my mother in England, the laundry was one of those reasons. Until I met Paul I hadn't been to the UK since the Princess's wedding, and so it's taken me a while to figure out that there were HUGE differences between England and Scotland!

Tumble dryers, better known in the US as a dryer, are also something of a luxury, and the only people who have them are either middle-class with young children, or rich people. Dryers use an incredible lot of electricity. (Yes, Mum had one of those, too)

Of course, they also would come in VERY handy in the damp climate of Scotland, but that is not something my husband is quite prepared to buy into. In the months when the wood stoves are not burning it takes DAYS to dry anything if the sun isn't shining long enough to get things dry on the clothesline.

Which it wasn't for most of the summer.

I begged him to go get the free kitchen wood stove a friend offered us because I knew that bad boy would have a fire going year round (my husband loves my cooking and baking) and I could have a ceiling hung drying rack, oops, I mean airer, that would have solved my drying troubles.

But the cost of the wood outweighed my need for clean and dry laundry.

Sigh.

We took delivery Wednesday of most of our winter wood supply, and it was a bit pricey. I understand my husband's position on this topic-I try to wear long janes, socks, undershirts, heavy shirts, and thick pants to stay warm. We are on a fixed income and have to be careful.

We had a forecourt (driveway) full of beautiful wood and spent most of the Wednesday last afternoon stacking it in the garage. The log store is taking longer to finish than we figured because it's been raining more than it hasn't been, but when finished it will sit just outside of the back door for quick and easy replenishment of the stacks next to the stoves.

I baked a huge lot of chocolate chip cookies. These are not the same as chocolate chip biscuits as they are called here as I used a Betty Crocker recipe-if you bake with an American recipe it's called a cookie and is an important distinction apparently. LOL, I made Southern Biscuits for my husband one morning and he told a friend I'd made him cookies for breakfast.

Actually, what I made him were scones-not a cookie the way we think of it, but what Southern Biscuits are called in Scotland.

But only if you use a Scottish recipe can you properly call them scones.

Jeez. When I visited my mother they were called crumpets!

Scotland is an educational experience in many ways:)

2011-10-02T01:35:00.006-05:00

Oh boy.

First, @ Zippy, Sadie and Speedy's Mom-Frugal is the only way to fly, but oh I do know what you mean about one illness! It is the one difference between the US and the UK that stands out as 'their way is better than ours'-that here if someone in the family has illness they can be treated within a reasonable period of time, with a reasonable expectation of survival, and with a reasonable expectation of that treatment not putting them into the poorhouse.

The NHS isn't perfect, and there are movements afoot in government to cut it back drastically, but it is a health care system that seems to work pretty well.

That young American man who died with the abscessed tooth because he couldn't afford dental care sticks in my mind, as does my husband and his battle with testicular cancer. NHS would have matter of factly saved the young man's life, and NHS matter of factly saved my husband's-Paul was diagnosed after age forty, and had it come back (metastasized to his abdomen)-not a good prognosis in the US (read they likely would have let him die for lack of sufficient insurance), and not an especially good one in the UK or anywhere else for the simple fact that returned, metastasized testicular cancer is usually a killer. But Paul is alive, and doing well-we're almost to the ten year mark. Could. Not. Have. Done. It. Without. NHS.

@Lee County Clowder-thank-you for that, I try to tell myself the same things but it really helps to hear it from someone else!

And now for Blog'O'TheDay:

The longer I am in the UK, land of my parents, grandparents, great-grands going back thousands of years, the more I realise I am probably the first generation of my family to be fully, wholly, genuinely American-funny accent and 'weird' spelling aside. Yes, to my fellow Americans, I sound British. I grew up on Queen's English, not American English, so according to the Yanks, I not only talk funny, I spell funny too. And to top it off, I'm excessively polite, and I start my day with either a pot of tea or a pot of hot chocolate-not the American coffee.

BigWoo. I've come to see it's more like the difference between being from Boston instead of Atlanta, not the difference of being from the UK instead of America.

I have been thinking this for a while now, and wondering how to express it (read vent, sometimes these people drive me just a little bit mad). Last night we watched the first 30 or so minutes of Nineteen-Eighty-Four and the need to say something drove me out of the room and into the back (soggy, it's been raining since late Friday night) garden for a 'real' cigarette. When I came back in Paul had turned off the movie and fallen asleep.

I wonder why my great-grandparents came back to Scotland, what was the big drive to live out what was left of their lives and then die here? Why was my father always self (and actions) identified as a man of the British Isles? Why my mother returned to the UK after the divorce was a no-brainer, but the longer I am in the UK, the harder I wonder what brought my great-grands back here, and why my grand raised my dad to be British, and why my dad tried so hard to raise me to be British as well.

Which I thought I was there for a while, British. On the surface I've slipped into the British routine with ease. I have no real trouble understanding the accents (for the most part, although some of the more rural Scots do flummox me), I know the right words-for the most part. I have caused a bit of a stir because the words I use for things are English, not Scots, or Welsh, and certainly not Irish, but for the most part I have 'fitted-in' fairly well. In fact I sense I am something of a disappointment in that I do fit in here so well, I think the locals were hoping for more of a Wild West Show from me.

If only they knew.

I walk in the park (not far from our house) and wish I had a gun in my shoulder-it seems the height of lunacy to go about unarmed. In America I was licensed to the hilt to carry concealed, and to use the thing at my discretion-a discretion trusted by sheriffs and police chiefs across the Deep South. That trust was earned on a number of occasions, the first of which was when I used my little snubbie to run a crack-head out of my front yard and into the front yard of a retired LEO (law enforcement officer) two places down from my 20 acre place. I put a round over the junkie's head and he took off running; a near neighbour heard the gunshot and rang the police.

Long story short, while the retired LEO was wrestling the guy into cuffs he kept around the house as a memento, the active LEO taking my statement was nodding his head condescendingly at my story, convinced I'd shot at shadows in the middle of the night. Until the radio came alive with the news that my neighbour needed a pick-up on aisle five.

The next day the sheriff AND the chief of police made visits to my driveway to enquire: "Ma'am, why didn't you just shoot that boy and save the taxpayers some money?" Turns out the kid (about 20) had a rap sheet as both a juvenile and an adult, and they were in the expensive process of deporting him to his native Germany.

Here's where the trust was earned:

I looked at both LEOs for a minute, thinking what should I say, and then simply answered "I just didn't feel like killing anyone last night." Both understood what I meant-the young man was built like a long time junkie, whippet thin. If I'd knee capped him (my original target), unless I applied a very quick tourniquet and then got paramedics there REAL quick, the kid would have bled out on my front porch. And the application of First Aid is something I would have done, thereby put myself in a worse spot-hopped up junkies bleed profusely and feel no pain. There would have been a very real and very dangerous moment he would have been well placed to take my gun.

Couldn't have that.

So when I put that round over the junkie's head I was hoping the little bastard would go and I wouldn't have to kill him. Because I didn't feel like killing anyone. Not that night, or any other.

Say what you like about South Alabama law enforcement and it's very likely spot-on. But they aren't all corrupt, they have a job to do, and they appreciate it when the citizenry can be trusted not to add to their burden.

Word got around, and no matter where I lived in the American Deep South, I could count on the local LE to trust me and my discretion. Renewing my pistol permit was never a problem no matter where I was living at the time.

It's an American thing.

And I am an American.

I grew up on the desert ranges of Southern California, off-grid (due to an old feud between my paternal gran and the Mullhollands) watching and helping my older siblings, my dad, and the hired hands slaughtering chickens, raising cattle, making soap in the same huge cauldron my sister used to wash our clothes every Saturday morning and scald the dead chickens every Saturday afternoon. I had a pet coyote, and knew to pay attention to my horse if he shied from a spot-usually meant a rattlesnake, a tarantula as big as a car tire, or something dead.

I learned to swim in the wild Colorado River, body surfed the beaches of LA and Orange County, and skied off Mt Baldy in the winter.

I had a .22 from the time I was five, and a snub-nose .38 from the time I was ten because by then my dad had sold off the ranch and we were driving into the ghettos and barrios of Long Beach and Wilmington to train his boxers, young men sent to him by parents in Mexico and other Central American countries to get them away from the continual wars, and young men sent to him by the LE of Southern California because they knew if anyone could wear out the anger of a young man headed for adult hard time, it was my dad. He did it through a boxing programme he started, and several of his fighters went to the Olympics and beyond. A few fell through the narrow cracks but most went on to straighten out their lives, graduating from college and becoming dentists, MDs, school teachers...

I had tutors who taught me to think critically, grans who taught me to shoot straight if need-be, and to cook a decent meal with just about anything hanging around. I was raised to be at ease in a saddle, boxing gym, dinner party, or in a boardroom-my dad owned several businesses and trained me to run them too.

I had siblings who hated me, lol, because I seemed to be the reason our parents broke up, could shoot straight, ride for hours and still be able to help out around the place, and seemed to be my dad's favourite.

Competition was stiff 'round our place, and they thought it was the height of unfair that my dad took me everywhere with him. What they didn't know was that my step-mother was dedicated, apparently, to one thing only-killing me, and so Pop took me with him everywhere he went to keep me out of Dirty Dort's clutches.

I wasn't Pop's favourite, I was the replacement for the baby who'd died supposedly of SIDS 1st July 1955, but whose body was found dressed in a snowsuit in a nursery with the heat on full blast. Pop could never prove it but he always believed his second wife had sent the night nurse home, dressed the baby in the snowsuit, turned up the heat, and went to bed. He wasn't going to let that happen to me.

Another long story short, my parents married in the UK during the war. They had three children, then he got caught fooling around with the woman who later became my step-mother. She got pregnant, my mother did a Reno but stayed in the US at my paternal uncle's hoping for a reconciliation. The chippie had the baby Mother's Day 1955, by July of course, he was dead. My dad went to my mother for comfort, she got pregnant, when my dad didn't remarry her she gave birth to me, dumped me and two older siblings on my dad, and went back to the UK with my other brother.

I was not especially popular at our house. I could try to make a list of the things my step-mother did to me but the most illustrative is that on the way to have my portrait taken in my First Holy Communion dress, she tossed me out of a moving car and then tried to back the car over me.

Typical of those days, a neighbour rescued me, told my dad he should do something about that awful woman like institutionalize her, and washed their hands of it.

What my dad did was keep me under watch 24/7 (except when he was away on business, then he hired someone), teach me to defend myself including fighting back and speaking up loudly if someone was treating me badly, taught me to believe there was every reason to believe a better day WOULD come, and in the process raised a completely independent American girl.

My Pop taught me that if I wanted or needed something I should earn the money to buy it or learn how to make it myself-using repurposed material if needed. He taught me that if something wanted improvement to get out there and do it myself. The British for the most part want/need something but hit an obstacle and give up. Meh.

Americans for the most part aren't quitters, and I am an American.

It just took me 50+ years to figure that out. I grew up thinking I didn't belong in America, that I was more British than Yank. But.

I am an American.

I am strong. I am optimistic. I don't kneel in the mud and let 'Life' walk over me because it's what my forbearers were accustomed to do, and it is especially American that I would not stand for the squalor of the life the Winston Smiths of what used to be known as Great Britain meekly accepted as their lot, their due, their fortune, their fate.

I put up with about thirty minutes of that Doomer Porn trash movie last night and then couldn't take anymore. I am the girl who would have picked wild flowers to brighten up the cells.

I wouldn't have it any other way. 'Life' is not going to beat me down.

I don't have a scooby why my great-grands came back here but I will find out. I come from them, am only two generations out from them, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how or why any of my gene pool would come back to such a strange and sad way of life. Yeah, there is an amazing beauty to Caithness (where they are from and now rest eternal), and a breathtaking beauty to North Wales where we are really from, but...

People here are too meek. Too easily cowed. They live on top of each other and they accept a quality of life that is meager, small, and mean (cheap, it's a lexicon thing). They pay outrageous prices for tiny bags and bottles of things-OMFreakin'Gsh, a jar of applesauce here is the size of a small mustard jar and costs twice what a normal American sized jar would. It's as though these people take a perverse pleasure in deprivation.

And they do revel in it, and consider themselves vastly superior to Americans, calling us greedy cows because we expect a four dollar jar of applesauce to have some heft to it.

It's a head-shaker, a head-scratcher, and frankly? I find it obscene.

I'll continue to be the 'good American', the 'good guest'. But I am an American, and always will be.

2011-09-26T02:09:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I started using the e-cigarette. It's not bad but I am secretly sort of wanting a 'real' cigarette and contemplating a quick run to the newsie for a packet-an urge I shall resist fairly well since the e-cigarette does work to substitute for 'real' cigarettes for the most part. It is a bit strong and a lot heavier than a 'real' cigarette of course, but other than that it is remarkably like and I think I'll stick with it.

The battery is disguised as the business end of a 'real' cigarette and even has a logo at the top near where the filter attaches-just like a 'real' cigarette; the tip glows when the smoker inhales, and exhaling yields a very realistic smoke stream that is in actuality a harmless water vapor.

The filter screws in to the battery. In e-cigarette terms it's called a cartomiser (I chose to go with a company called VIP Electronic Cigarettes and they have their own names for things, the other companies call the filter an atomisers, a cartridge, and the nicotine in the hidden vial is termed e-liquid) that has a concealed vial of nicotine; when activated by both inhalation and the battery the nicotine becomes a vapor that is so low in nicotine the exhalation tests out to have only bare traces. The taste takes some getting used to, as does the weight.

I printed out the glossary, lol, there is an entire lexicon for using an e-cigarette. Users don't smoke, they 'vape', for example, and 'real' cigarettes are known as 'analogue' cigarettes, ROFLOL!

So I smoked the thing all over the house yesterday and there was no odor, no yellow film over everything, and it was fairly satisfying as a smoke. I wish I'd listened to my son while I was in the States, who tried mightily to get me to try the thing. He was so right about the e-cigarette!

Yesterday I also did something for Paul I never did for Crusty. I made real nachos for Paul to enjoy while he watched Formula1 racing. The nachos came out rather well, and now Paul is looking at the Betty Crocker cookbook I schlepped back to Scotland with a much less jaundiced eye. I've never made nachos before and I'm rather pleased at how well the recipe came out.

OK, I did substitute a small onion for the zucchini-who the heck puts zucchini in nachos?! And I used chile con carne instead of plain chile and beans, plus I used Red Leicester cheese instead of Monterey Jack-hey, this is Scotland, you can't get Monterey Jack at the Co-Op. Paul said he could get used to this kind of wifely activity.

Then for supper I made a nice beef roast with potatoes and onions, and broccoli on the side. Paul said he could get used to this as well. It's the second Sunday in a row that I've made a roast. We watch the sales and get them on offer, then I stick them in the freezer. In Scotland if one watches the sales one can fill the freezer with all sorts of goodies.

I had to laugh last week whilst sitting in the dentist chair trying not to think about what was going on in my poor mouth-the radio was on a talk show and the presenters were gasping about the tough lot of Baby Boomers who have to manage on a mere £24 ($37) a day. ROFLOL, Paul and I'd think we were living in the lap of luxury if we felt able to blow £24 every day!

I kept my thoughts to myself, however. The plain truth is that for most Baby Boomers there is still a mortgage to pay, credit cards and other loans (car, university for the children), and little to no skills at grocery shopping-veg gardening-making do/using up/repurposing. They're in a world of hurt because they owe-owe-owe, and have no clue how to cut down their expenses. It's so strange to think about, when I was a girl visiting here people were so careful with money, so frugal, and so sensible. Nowadays though, it's different here, everyone seems to have got this notion they need to have THINGS to prove they are worth something, and so there are almost as many McMansion estates here as there are McMansion subdivisions back in the US. While the 'fancy' pick-up trucks are not at all a common sight on the roads here, the behemoth SUVs are, and because the cost is so high, I know there are car loans on nearly every one we see.

Meanwhile Paul and I own the house with no mortgage, have a veg garden (which reminds me, hopefully we really will get that Indian Summer forecast for this week, and the tomatoes will be able to be left to ripen on the vine in the ground), have no car, and repurpose with ruthless skilz!

I can understand the problems in the US, there $37 a day is not enough most of the time. Having lived in several of the large metro areas of the US, I know from personal experience that using mass transit is almost an impossibility-it's dirty, dangerous, and unacceptably depressing. Decent grocery shops are few and far, far, far between. Housing prices were so high for so long that people are mortgaged and remortgaged to the hilt. Thrift shops are located in the worst parts of town and one needs personal transport to use thrift shops anyway for the most part.

But it's different here. Mass transit is clean and safe-I can get anywhere I need to go with a bit of planning, and we live out in the country. We don't have nor do we need a car available 24/7, it saves us no end of money! Every now and again we hire one for a couple of weeks, which is fun, but when it goes back to Arnold Clark (the Avis of the UK, lol), we are happy to see the forecourt (driveway) again.

We have and use bicycles, but it's simpler to walk down to the shops (which are clean, close-everything within a half mile including lovely charity shops, and did I mention clean?) towing a shopping trolley for heavier loads-LOL, Saturday morning I trundled off with a load of library books to return and my grocery list tucked into the trolley. I returned two hours later with a new load of library books, and several grocery items, I confess pulling the trolley up the hill to the house wasn't as easy as I would have liked. My point is that I was able to get a weekly shop and library trip accomplished on foot in less than two hours-without rushing. Never something I was able to do in the US.

Paul bought this house at a very good price and then worked himself to the bone to pay it off right away; he bought the house in '96 and by 2007 it was paid for. So, no mortgage.

I could go on but it's starting to sound smug and braggy. I really love my husband, it's great to be married to a man who appreciates the finer things in life-being debt free and living a simple life:)

Today I am sewing him a new pair of pyjamas, cut from flannel sheets in excellent nick bought from the British Red Cross charity shop. We've rearranged the furniture yet again-think we've finally got it where we want it now-and I have a dedicated workroom, YEA!!!!! Paul's old desk works perfectly as a cutting table and Saturday after I got back from the weekly shop I was able to get the cutting done, today I will do the sewing. It's fantastic to have the ironing board on permanent set-up, and the sewing machine in its cabinet awaiting a bobbin and some thread. The light in that room is amazing, too, so this afternoon I will be sewing to my heart's content!

Best part is that with the money we're saving by my not spending £6 a day on a packet of cigarettes, we'll be able to have a cat in the house. I feel guilty about that-I do feel I abandoned Mozart and Gonzo and wonder if I even deserve to have a cat in my life again. I think that's because I cannot get any information from the people who took them, they've changed their phone number and email addresses, and I can't get in touch with them. I have daymares about them out in the woods alone and frightened and wondering where I've gone...

2011-09-23T00:35:00.003-05:00

Wednesday Paul couldn't go with me to the dentist so I had to ride up on the bus alone.

We had it planned that I would travel back by taxi. I was not looking forward to the travel or the dentist appointment as the previous visit had been so very difficult. On that return journey I was reeling with pain and nausea, and bleeding badly-the ride back on the bus was a nightmare and the walk home wasn't any better. The wind howled louder than I did, and it was so cold it took me three days to warm up!

So Wednesday afternoon, trembling and faintly nauseous already, I managed to get myself onto the correct bus and purchase a ticket for the next village up. I arrived in time, bought some paper towels and persuaded the clerk to give me an extra bag (to spit blood out into, I just knew I was going to be in rough shape). I got into the dentist office and waited to be called, by which time I was shaking so badly I worried I would throw off the dentist aim!

Suffice it to say this appointment was considerably nicer than the last one. I rode the bus home, no trouble; walked home, no trouble. Sat up in bed the rest of the evening, and only needed aspirin to cope with the pain. Yesterday I didn't need anything and had to remind myself I'd had two teeth pulled.

I was so sick the time before that for the first time in my life I was afraid to go to the dentist. However I only lost two teeth instead of the four the dentist had planned on taking. Oh yes, I am happy!

Re the mass transit in our little corner of the Kingdom: it's very nicely done. Quite unlike the chicken buses in Central America, the only animals allowed on the bus are domestic ones with vax tags and they must be restrained by either cage or leash. Music may be enjoyed only via headphones, people say please and thank-you, and even the school children try to behave. This was my first bus journey alone and it went so well that I am sure I could get myself to Dundee if I wanted to go alone (a distinct possibility, they have fabric shoppes in Dundee!) I felt strange, though, this was the first time ever that I have taken public transportation in a foreign country, it was a bit scary. Because even though we have a somewhat common language, there are differences and I worried I would do or say the wrong thing. But I got there and back, and am feeling able to wander a bit on my own now. It's a really wonderful feeling. I don't feel up to trying to drive-it really is confusing, this driving on the left, and the roundabouts are very intimidating!

Paul couldn't go with me to the dentist Wednesday because he had to be home to accept two different shipments. One was my e-cigarette, something my son tried to get me to try while I was visiting in the States this past spring. I was so sick then I couldn't get the research done (heh, I was so sick I could barely move, my grandson must think I'm a real lump) but I've been doing the research and have found the right brand. We ordered it Tuesday afternoon and it was delivered Wednesday while I was at the dentist. As soon as the wounds heal I will be able to try it-REALLY looking forward to not being a smoker. I plan to cut down on strengths to the zero nicotine atomiser-yippee, all the things I enjoy about smoking with none of the nicotine. I feel like a winner already because all of the chemicals have been eliminated with the atomisers from the e-cigarette company, though. But I am really looking forward to being a total quitter and I think the e-cigarette is the way to go for me.

And.

And we have a working, licensed TV in our house. A 22" colour TV was scheduled for delivery while I was at the dentist and Paul had to be here to sign for it. The license was paid for Wednesday night, the aerial installer arrived yesterday afternoon, and we were watching FreeView by 1530hrs.

British television is different than in America. First of all, when a television is purchased new or used the seller is required by law to communicate said purchase to the licensing ministry (seriously), as are aerial installers-who ask to see the license when they arrive to install the aerial without which there is no TV reception. It is highly illegal to watch live television (as it is broadcast on the airwaves) without a license, and they DO have monitoring vans that go through the street searching for unlicensed TV viewing. Officially the license fee is paid to the BBC, and it covers television, online, and radio use. There are tiers of the fees, we unfortunately do not qualify for another twenty years to have the senior citizen advantage of the free license, lol!

Most of the BBC programmes are very highbrow, lol, but actually very good and interesting, and then of course there is Dr Who on Saturday evenings. And there is the very distinct plus of no commercials-the licensing fee of £146 ($225) per year gives us four BBC channels commercial (called adverts in the UK) free, and the right to watch several other channels (very advert heavy).

So far as I can tell from channel surfing yesterday afternoon and evening, telly in the UK consists of the BBC channels, and several channels of other stuff. Like in the US, there are scrambled channels, and one can pay for premium a' la cart (dratted spell check!) choices that are loaded onto a card inserted into a slot on the telly, or one can (like in the US) order from a cable company.

The commercials are not like the ones in the US, but are charming for the most part although some of the adverts seem to be trying for the US style and are awful. It is a little funny to hear the American accents in the some of the adverts (not well done, I'm afraid, hmmm, I wonder if I could get a job doing voice overs?)

The programming on the BBC is excellent. Last night I watched a fantastic programme on art history that focussed on Charles the First's official portrait painter. We also get several other channels and a couple of those feature programming from the US! Last night I was able to catch up on The Big Bang Theory OMGsh, Penny and Leonard are going to be getting back together? WOOHOO!! Now, if I could just catch up on House I would be content, LOL. It does run here, so I just need to figure out when it is on. It did feel odd to be watching TV, and American TV at that, whilst sitting in my little Scottish bedroom, lol!

I am also now hooked on Downton Abbey, oh wow, what a spectacular programme! And I got to watch Midsomer Murders, that was splendid! I've been hooked on that programme since the first time I saw it on PBS years ago, and followed it as best as I could through they years-now I can keep up with it:)

It's strange though, to have TV in the UK, in this house. Paul always said he hated TV and we wouldn't have one, it was theone thing he insisted on and I decided it wasn't that big a deal, I could always keep up with the news online and use the iPlayers for things like Dr Who, Midsomer Murders, etc. But he came home from a walk a week ago and said we were getting a TV-I think to compensate for dropping the forum (he hasn't been posting, and I don't even think logging in except to answer PMs). And then it turns out he missed watching Formula1 racing. ROFLOL!

He went out yesterday afternoon to pick up a few things from the grocery and came home with a What's On, a UK television viewing guide. LOL, he said he looked around to make sure no-one saw him buying it. My husband is very well known in this small town, and everyone knows (even the children) that he is vehemently anti-TV. (Insert laughing smiley with rolling eyes)

People stop me in the street to chat-they are all curious about the woman who married Paul, the town misanthrope, lol, and now our house sports a TV aerial! I'm sure they're all thinking that on Halloween we'll have a Jack 'O Lantern and give out treats, lol, and have a holiday wreath on the door this Christmas.

Well, yes, actually, we will:)

2011-09-17T01:33:00.004-05:00

Hmmm. I get busy IRL and Blogger changes it's 'interface'-uhm, would that be the old dashboard thingy? Sigh.

OH BOY!!!!! Update on the new interface-DOES. NOT. WORK. To get this post in properly I had to copy and paste it into the old 'interface'.

HMPH! @Blogger-if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

@Zippy, Sadie, et al's mum-you are SO right! On this past Labor Day I read a Washington Post op-ed that Americans should have marched on the White House, and I agree. Non-violent but obvious protest against what is happening in the US. I hope it happens soon, but I wonder if it will happen at all. There seems to be a drive against the working poor and their cousins (the New Working Poor, formerly known as The Middle Class)

Meanwhile, I am so glad to hear your DH is coming home from hospital and is on the mend from NF-oh wow, I almost fell off the chair when I read about it! Thank-God you were there, thank-God you got 911 there so quickly, thank-God he responded to the antibiotics!

Sadly, there is a global drive on several fronts against the Common Man. There are things being put into place here in the UK that will strip the people of their ability to protest overdevelopment, and there are constant attacks on the NHS. There are so many attacks on civil liberties all over the world that it easy to believe the Doomers who say we're on a Highway to Hell. In Paris it is now against the law to pray in the streets-should we be in Paris and I make the Sign of The Cross when I see or hear an ambulance, for example, I will be arrested. The law is being enforced due to the increasing number of Muslim men who prostrate themselves in the middle of busy Parisian boulevards at prayer time. But last night it was announced that this law will cover all form of prayer-which a Sign of The Cross is. Guess we won't be going to Paris anytime soon.

I've stopped posting at the forum, in fact I've deleted my account. Paul is leaving his account there because he's part owner and admin, but he tells me he won't be posting either (LOL, we'll see, he loves that place, and men have a strange notion of what constitutes loyalty).

Someone said something a few weeks ago that has stuck in my head (that no-one on that forum is there to talk, they're there to spout and spew), and after several incidents of trolling/cyber-bullying I decided to end my association. Yes, I still believe Peak Oil is going to jump up and bite us all in the face; yes, I still believe that preparing for the potential ensuing chaos is the right thing to do.

But I also believe in the goodness of people, and to be honest, a group of cyber-bullies have taken over the forum who are merciless to anyone who is religious, hopeful, and not 'edgy' enough for them. And my darling (dense) Paul preferred to hope they would shut it and go away rather than smack them down every time they raised their pointed little heads. Two in particular were especially difficult and when it got to a certain point, that was it for me. I won't be going back. I'm sure I won't be missed.

Something that has been particularly painful/hilarious are the people who know my private email address but are choosing to use the forum messaging system to ask my husband to tell me how much they will miss me. Funny, I never saw them standing up for me when I was being attacked (but then they never saw my husband and our forum co-owner do so either, someone I thought was a personal friend, God knows he's been a guest in our home and broken bread with us. Never again, but my husband doesn't need to know that).

"Let's be lights in this age of darkness" Someone sent that saying to me after I left the forum a couple of days ago. They no longer post there, either.

'This little light of mine/I'm gonna let it shine..."

We're getting a TV (I almost fell over when Paul said that, and I wonder if he really thinks I'm that easily bought).

We're getting a cat. Not the older one we'd thought we were going to have, but a kitten who will grow up an indoor cat. There have been anti-freeze poisonings and fox attacks, and there are increasing attacks on cats by yobs-often in front of the horrified owner (usually a child). Not in our town as far as we know, but in nearby towns. Enough for us. Mozart (oh Lord I miss those two!) was right-In IS better!

As for my health, the antibiotics had to be extended for a second course but the infections are beat! I had starting walking before I knew how sick I was-thought I was just lazy and out of shape so I would FORCE myself around the track enough times to make two miles. Well, a couple of days ago I was halfway through the second mile when I realised not only was I striding comfortably and vigourously, but that I was indeed halfway through the second mile. I stopped on the track for a few minutes, shocked to understand yet again just how sick I'd let myself become, just how bad the pain had been (now that there was a no-pain condition to compare), just how little I was willing to accept from Life.

And that the leaves are beginning to turn colour. Autumn has fallen.

2011-09-07T12:25:00.003-05:00

6 Sept 1974 I arrived in Cape May New Jersey to begin basic training, USCGR. I was one of the first women to go through basic training since WWII. I've always been proud of that.

Years later and I am sitting in a dental surgery having a WHOLE LOT of dental work done. I feel as though I've been hit in the face by a telephone pole. I've had three teeth pulled yesterday, and while he was pulling those three he determined I have three separate infections two on the left and one in the front. I'm on a high dose of antibiotic, I feel woozy, and I feel angry.

Not at the dentist, he didn't do anything except arrange for me to be treated-he's doing a fantastic job!

I'm angry at the dentist back in Ozark who knew I was in trouble back in 1998 and pulled treatment because he believed my soon to be ex that I was the one who'd strayed. I'll never forget that. I'm sitting in the chair and he comes in saying "Someone's been a very bad girl" I asked him what the hell he meant and he told me my soon to be ex had rung round that morning. We got it cleared up but I also told him to go to hell and I'd find a new dentist.

But the divorce became so dangerously ugly that I was busy sorting that out, plus Fox was in terrible shape.

I didn't see a dentist again until 2004, and he was doing an incredible job getting things sorted out until one day my boss told me if I went to my next dental appointment I might as well not return to the office/apartment. The pain was bad but bearable and I quit in 05 and moved to No GA where I thought I would be able to use my new job dental insurance.

Before it kicked in, though, three months before it kicked in, I had what I thought was a sinus infection, and I was terrified, and broke, and sucked it up for days although the pain was horrific. My roommate had an old prescription of antibiotics and he gave it to me, and I seemed to recover.

Then the insurance kicked in and I went to find out about finishing getting my teeth fixed only to find there was so much wrong with my teeth that the dentist wanted $20K plus what the insurance would pay, and he wanted it up front because since the divorce I had no credit...

Off and on through the following years I've had horrible pain come and go on both sides of my face, and thought it was my sinus', something else I couldn't afford to treat.

I was sick the whole time I was in the States with my son, keeping the pain at something of a dull roar with a combination of high dose aspirin and sinus pills I bought over the counter.

A few weeks after I got home to Scotland I knew something was really, really wrong, and then two teeth broke while I was flossing. My husband made me an appointment with his dentist. I didn't want to go because I didn't need to hear how badly things were in there, and that the dentist would want £20K...except he didn't want that much. He wanted a little less than £300 and we paid it, and I went to the dentist yesterday for the second treatment.

It hurt beyond belief, I lay there last night moaning and crying and telling my husband I can not do this.

My husband set the alarm so that it goes off when my next antibiotic pill is due to be taken.

I left the dentist office yesterday minus teeth and plus a prescription for high dose antibiotics. Because I have a raging infection on the lower left side of my face where he took the remnants of two teeth out; I have a raging infection on the upper left side of my face where he took out a badly abscessed tooth; and I have a raging infection across the upper front where he'll be removing three teeth as soon as the infections are knocked down.

He'll be replacing them with a temporary bridge and tell me as soon as the trauma is healed and the gums shrink back to a normal size, we'll discuss better alternatives. He was quite firm that I should take the antibiotics to the finish, that I should 'swish' with warm salted water three times a day. And he told me in an amazed tone that he can't believe I'm ambulatory but since I am he'll keep me out of hospital. For now.

A few weeks ago a young American man died because he couldn't afford the treatment I'm getting. He couldn't afford the pain killer and the antibiotic so he chose the pain killer, and the infection in his one abscessed tooth migrated to his brain and killed him.

I'm angry-I could have had this taken care of years ago if not for the divorce, if not for my former employers, if not for the greedy Atlanta dentist who let me leave his office knowing I was sick. Because my Scottish dentist tells me it's obvious I've had these infections over and again for YEARS.

And I am sickened and angry because a young man in America is dead because he couldn't afford dental care; because a dentist, and then and emergency room let him walk out of their facilities without proper medical care, and he died.

My son is in America. He doesn't have insurance, either. He can't afford dental or dental care either. So I'm scared, too.

Forgive any typos, I'm sick from the surgery and the antibiotics.

2011-08-19T21:54:00.002-05:00

It's been thirty years since I found out I was pregnant with Fox. My beautiful boy, my son. Those terrible years we were estranged now over and passed, I am the mother of an adult son who lives in a different country than I do, with my beautiful grandson and I miss them both so much that I hope for miracles-I would be SO happy if Fox and 'Bas came over to the UK and my family was physically together!

Day before yesterday my husband taught me how to change bicycle tires. He and Fox would spend hours in the garage working on bikes-both love pedal and motor bikes in the same way. I know they would enjoy spending time together, and I know that Paul, in-spite of his avowed "Never wanted children" is anxious to be a father to Fox and a grandfather to 'Bas. I know too, that he feels terribly that we weren't able to get Mozart and Gonzo over, and while he has stopped asking if I have heard back from their new Peoples, yesterday we saw a ginger cat the exact colour of Mozart and we both went quiet for a moment.

Because yesterday was the one year anniversary of my arrival in Scotland, and the day before the last time I held my ginger close.

What a year it has been! I came over to Scotland unsure of what I would find-I was only 99% sure that Paul and I were right for each other and because I am after all the five thousand year old woman I knew it was very possible that the missing one percent of surety would prove we weren't a couple after all, and I would end up back on the plane to the US for another round of 'single life'.

I read and post on an ex-pat forum and often make the joke that I came over last year to see if Paul and I could share one small Scottish bathroom-but kids, it ain't really a joke! It's symbolic of all the things that can wrong in a relationship, it's a metaphor for the little things that erode away at a relationship until you are waking up in the middle of the night wondering why in the name of all that's holy you climb in the bed with that person in the first place.

I woke up this morning (BST) at 0230 not because I am wondering why in the heck I am with Paul, but because I have a WHOPPING toothache-oh ouchie! I have a dentist appointment Monday that I am not looking forward to in the least as the dentist informed me in the consultation that I have a rather lot of dental work wanting done. I'll be seeing him weekly until the middle of September. Oh joy.

Yesterday we went to lunch with a dear friend of ours, a former work colleague of Paul's who has been gently prodding him to go back to work, and yesterday was finally able to get him to admit that he misses it. I love Sarah as though she were my own sister for getting that admission from him! I watched the two of them together yesterday going around inspecting buildings and the interest, the glow emanating from my adorable husband was fantastic to see.

He was offered a really splendid job in Wales last month and I know now that he is regretting declining the offer (I'm regretting it too, the money was incredible and it would have got him back on the game).

We've been working on the house. The contractors are coming this week to start the work we can't do ourselves, which means we'll be painting and 'trimming' on the inside while the contractors are working out. We're having a fence and gate installed across the forecourt and the side garden, and some work done on the roof and a couple of the shed windows. We were going to build a log store across the bottom of the terrace wall below the back garden but have decided we are going to use the garage instead to store the logs and need to get started building the log store in there. Based on what it took us last year to get through the admittedly brutal winter (which I expect will be repeated to a lesser degree this year), we're going to need most of the garage fitted out with log stores, lol, poor Paul!

We have a lovely life. Boring but lovely in the boringness. I've got him hooked on jigsaw puzzles-next up backgammon!

I'm making good use of the time this morning-a blog post (Hi Fox and Kev, thank-you for reading:) to catch my son up (why is it that I always forget the important stuff when writing or talking to him?) washing up in the kitchen, reading a few news pieces online and answering emails, then off at a reasonable hour to get the morning walk in-the doctor wants me to lose two stone (close to 30lbs) and I completely agree!

It was depressing enough to have gained 15 extra pounds after arriving in Scotland last year, but when I was with Fox this spring I added an unconscionable twenty more! The heat/humidity made exercise impossible for me as thanks to my stoopid little heart thing I can't go outside if it's over 85F and 60% humidity because then I swell up like a water balloon, especially if I have been less than conscientious about the low-sodium diet. Which I have been for the past year, which explains the extra pounds. I now own a bathroom scale (I think it owns me, although I am trying not to obsess.)

I love my son. I miss my son. But I cannot-CANNOT-take the heat and humidity in SouthEast Alabama, not without tons of money lying about to pay for air conditioning and a car to get around. One of the things I love most about Scotland, and that I think my son and grandson would love as well, is the joy of not needing a car. I can walk to the shops for just about everything I need; I can now ride my wonderful red bicycle to the shops as well, and to the 'beauty spots' (British for tourist attraction-photo ops) of which there are many in the very near vicinity.

We rode the bus yesterday to visit our friend who'd kindly arranged a tour of a restoration being done in the town she is assigned to as conservation officer-we had an incredible time climbing all over this amazing 16th century building in hard hats and hi-vis vests, poking around at 15th century timbers reused in the 16th to build a 'merchant house' being restored to a ground floor shop and what will be a rather posh home above on the next three stories.

The only disappointment was the bustle of the workmen (in whose way we strove not to be)-it was impossible in the commotion to enjoy a sense of history; no shadows out of the corner of the eye, I think the din has driven out whatever 'ghosties' may have been there.

Just as well!

2011-08-14T09:39:00.005-05:00

So far it's been quiet-no riots in Scotland but arrests are up now on young people who've been caught 'inciting to riot' using FaceBook. I'd laugh but it's not really funny given the seriousness of the rioting, but if a FB user doesn't know by now that there IS NO ANONYMITY WITH FACEBOOK he/she deserves what they get. I don't FB and don't intend to (har-dee-har-har, you watch me have to FB now to keep up with the grandson).

We had a houseguest last week, and after he left to return to England, we jumped on the bus and went to Dundee. I'd seen the doctor Monday and been told I needed to lose two stone (sob, nearly thirty pounds!), so we used that as an excuse-need to find bathroom scales.

Which we found, and which I regret to say measure in stone and kilo, not pounds. Dammit. It sits there in the bathroom glaring reproachfully up and I stand there in the bathroom glaring resentfully down...

Dundee was not at all fun Friday. We took the bus down-lovely ride at the top front of the double decker, but within minutes of getting off the bus near one of the shopping centres we could sense something wasn't right-the vibe was tense, still, thick. I had my rucksack on and quickly began to wish that I hadn't. I felt vulnerable, as though anyone coming up too close behind me was going to be able to get at my purse and passport quickly.

We stopped at the chipper for sausage suppers (oh yeah, that helped that 30lbs alright). We took our treat back down to the shopping centre area and stood under cover watching the mist and people passing. People passing who looked hungrily and resentfully at our sausage suppers and I began to wish I'd had time to make us a lunch so we could have picnicked in the Howff Cemetery the way we usually do. I seriously thought some of the passersby were going to lunge at us, I really did, it was a VERY strange vibe going on in Dundee Friday!

People looked strange, almost as though I was seeing them through a fun house mirror. They looked angry, and on edge, and it wasn't just the young people, even the older people, the OLD people looked snarly.

We had a haggis we meant to post down to said houseguest who'd forgot to take it down when he left. Paul went into the post office and I stood outside to smoke a cigarette. While I was standing out there I noticed a beggar harassing an elderly Hindu. The beggar looked to be in his early to mid-twenties. He had his hood pulled up against the misting rain but there was something sinister about him-I kept telling myself "Oh now, you're hyper because of the riots" but eventually he left the slim pickings of the older man, walked past me rather automatically asking if I had a spare twenty pence without stopping. He made eye contact, his eyes not really registering any emotion, not even disappointment when I shook my head regarding the 20p.

About three minutes later I noticed he was back with friends. Friends who looked more seedy than he. One of the young men looked about 17 and as though he was slumming-he positioned himself across the pavement (sidewalk) from me and I started to think, "Oh hey, I think I might be about to be mobbed..." I didn't really want to think that but Gavin de Becker's outstanding little book The GIft of Fear popped into my head, the example of getting into a lift with someone who makes you VERY uncomfortable...

I got rid of my smoke (I was at that point willing to take a chance on a bobby giving me a littering fine-nae bother, didn't see a one the whole time we were in Dundee, and that was odd as we always have before) and went inside the post office.

Just before deciding to get rid of the smoke and go into the post office, the group of young men down the pavement started to row, and the young man who'd stationed himself close to me had the strangest look on his face, as though a prospect was slipping away.

When I got inside and found Paul, I moved my purse and passport to the inner pockets of my jacket. Next time we go to Dundee (or Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, or Montrose, or...) I am NOT wearing a rucksack. Which of course annoys me. For one thing, the rucksack is very handy for hauling lunches and water and purses and passports and jackets and facial tissue and napkins and camera bags. All of the things a newbie-in-town likes to carry (camera, maps) and all of the things a Scottish housewife likes to carry (purse, tissue, lunch, water, jackets, brollies, etc). It makes much more sense to carry one's food nowadays with the hygiene of most establishments being highly to question; I like my creature comforts of jackets and tissues and brollies...

But all that makes one a target. I knew I'd got off easy with that beggar-I was smoking a cigarette and it was clear I had things in my rucksack-poor and downtrodden I didn't look in my NorthFace jacket and rucksack.

It's back to money belts and concealed carry for me. I hate that. The yobs have made getting out too unpleasant.

Not to mention the spare thirty pounds weight I'm hauling around-if I had to protect myself I wouldn't be able to.

What a lovely life, eh, to be having to think "Could I fight these guys off?" No one should have to do that, and every one is lately. I read a number of horror stories this past week, and more are coming to the surface of what the regular people went through down in the riot struck areas of England last week-people pulled from their cars and beaten, mothers attacked going home from work and the library, whole families trapped in their homes as the mobs swirled through their streets setting wheely bins and cars and the occasional house, on fire.

No-one was spared if they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The older man who died after being savaged by a gang during the riot-he was standing up for the British values of his growing-up, the values I grew up with, btw, and tried to raise my son to have as well.

Oh hell, no-one was spared period. People who thought they were safe in their homes were broken in on by the mobs in some areas, diners were attacked and robbed. People had to leap from their burning homes because a gang of feral animals decided they were 'gonna show the rich and the government and the police that we can do what we want". Swear before God, that is what the little bastards are ALL saying-"We can do what we want, and the government ain't takin' proper care of us so we have to take what we want." Even the middle class, the rich, and the advantaged who have been arrested red-handed robbing, looting and vandalising.

I'm definitely out of shape two weeks away from 55. I need to get back into shape for a lot of reasons not the least of those reasons being I want to go back to Dundee and not be afraid.

Dammit!

We cut through the Howff Cemetery without stopping to look at any of the 16th century tombstones, hurried through our shopping and got the bus back to home as soon as possible. I don't think we'll be venturing to Dundee for a while.

2011-08-11T02:00:00.002-05:00

A police chief calls rain the world's greatest police tool, and he hailed the downpours over England yesterday for the quiet. One or two spats of attempted thuggery quickly handled by the constabularies that have been beefed up with squads from Scotland and other parts of the UK.

But I think the real reason the violence was stopped yesterday was because of the horrific deaths of three young men in Birmingham, and the beating of a 68 year old man in Ealing that left the man unidentified in critical condition.

The three young men, youngest being only 21, and the other two late twenties and early thirties, were victims of what appears to have been a racially motivated hit-and-run. Police have the driver in custody after an all out hunt yesterday. The father of one of the victims called for peace yesterday afternoon, and it appears his was the voice that finally dispersed the rampaging mobs of youth.

And what stellar (read that as dripping with sarcasm) youth! Some have been interviewed by news outlets as laughing at the police and government, and scorning the values their 'boring' parents have tried to instill; asked why they are looting and being so destructive they are replying that it is to show the police (and government and parents) that the rioters can do as they please.

These little monsters (go to hell Lady Gaga!) are laughing as they ask "Wot they gonna do, gi'me an ASBO? I'll jus lif'it" (What are they going to do, give me an ASBO {Anti-Social-Behaviour-Order}? I'll just lift it")-meaning they will simply ignore the terms of their ASBO and continue doing as they please.

And what they please to do is destroy 'rich people's property', and get free stuff. Seriously.

One young girl (aged 15) told reporters she'd participated in starting fires in small business' because the shopkeepers "are rich, and we need to show them".

Mainstream media is restraining themselves to calling them 'little blighters' but all over the UK the real label being applied is 'little bastards' and people are arming themselves, fortifying their homes and business', and organising, some unfortunately with the help of the EDL and BNP, two of the most dangerously racist groups I've ever seen, they remind me of WWII Brown Shirts, the KKK, and the NAZI political party. (You did know the Nazis were a political party, right, like the Tories, Whigs, Democrats, Republicans? That they swept to power with HItler at their head before becoming the single most dreaded name in genocidal insanity?)

Tuesday night as Croyden burned, a Polish lady had to leap for her life into the arms of fireman gathered below her first storey flat. US readers should understand that what the UK calls 1st storey is what we would call second floor, and that the heights of the floors in the UK are often much higher than we are used to seeing in the US-she had quite a leap to make, and almost didn't as she was paralyzed with fear).

The media tried to find her all day yesterday as the readers (mostly) were worried about her safety. She has been located, and she is not doing well emotionally; her sister said "We thought this was such a civilized country!"

But it's not right now, and while the violence had quieted down for now, I strongly suspect it will blaze back up once we have some drier days. Two Scottish teens have been arrested, one in Glasgow, and one in Dundee-MUCH closer to our little village, with more arrests being on the local police agenda. FaceBook and Twitter are being used to organise flash mobs, and the police have not shut down the social networking sites as they are using the information to try to prevent further violence.

Good on them, and I hope every one of these little bastards, these feral little savages of every race, religion, and apparently of every socio-economic class (several of the youth being arraigned are from middle and upper-middle class homes, ffs) have the book thrown at them.

They are being likened to the characters in The Lord of the Flies, and having read that terrifying book years and years ago, I have to agree. These 'children' are savages, frightening beyond words. One mother kept saying "I did not raise them to be like this!" and she has my total empathy-these rioting animals are NOT all from dysfunctional homes that lack grounding in common decency.

Some are of course-one mother when rung at 0245 to come and fetch her teen from the rioting was angry about being woken to attend parental duties.

And most horrifying, most saddening, maddening-several of the youths were accompanied by a parent or older relative.

God save us! I would prefer the rain to stop-I need to get another crop of peas in, and to hang out the washing, and, and, and, and...and I find myself hoping it continues to rain long enough to take the fervor off the rioters. Because I have a VERY bad feeling that this is not going to end well for the UK, that the violence and sheer lunacy WILL spread to every corner of the UK.

We are having contractors around tomorrow to see about fencing off the forecourt from the street, and installing shatter-proof double-glazing on the last front window that we stupidly didn't have done last fall. We are rethinking our shopping habits-no longer does the purse (wallet) go into the handbag or rucksack. Instead I am working on designs for new rucksacks with pockets on the straps for not only the purse, but a weapon that can be easily reached. We are starting to carry walking sticks that can be used for protection as well (very glad I learned how to use a staff all those years ago, and interesting how the moves all come back).

And every kid in a hoodie that passes our house is eyed suspiciously. The council estate with the worst reputation is across the park from us, the kids cut through the park and our neighbourhood to get to the grocery and other shops. They've left beer bottles and other litter in their wake many times, and I've caught some of their parents urinating on the hedge and lamp posts across the lane several times. Two weeks ago obscene graffiti was splashed across the monuments in the park, and a swastika painted across the bronze back of the man who donated the park over a hundred years ago-a man who made his fortune making and selling sweets to the people of the area and Scotland, and who gave nearly every pence of it back to the people in one way or another. He hired the jobless, he built housing shelter for the low-waged that was comfortable and modern for the times; and he donated parks, concert halls, and libraries-all to help the disadvantaged.

So their thanks is to paint obscenities and swastikas across one of his gifts.

As I said, we are having contractors in tomorrow-we will have a fence across the forecourt just as soon as we can get the work done as we have also had some of the yobs cutting through our gardens to get to the lane behind us. Of course, they also had to cut through other gardens, and Paul and I are not the only homeowners in the process of fortifying our homes.

Our village is a small one, our neighbours are nice people who mind their own affairs. And the yobs in our town as are capable of destructive rioting as any other yobs in big or small towns.

2011-08-09T05:17:00.006-05:00

I'm sitting here in north-east Scotland watching the news coming out of England with my jaw scraping the floor-I cannot wrap my mind around what is happening and I am starting to wonder if this insanity is going to spread north into Scotland. Frankly wouldn't surprise me, we have a lot of the same conditions and problems as the English do just now, problems and conditions that are the real source of the rioting spreading through England.

This link will take you to the Daily Mail, it's sort of our version of FoxNews-a little breathless, a little tabloidish, and a lot right-wing, but dang if they don't always have the scoop on the best photos of whatever is going on!

***There should be a hyperlink showing here but I'm not seeing it, leave a comment if you can't either:)

The pictures that the Mail has been posting the past three days are shocking. One photograph that was published Saturday made me angry to the point of shaking with it-the photo showed a child of no more than ten out in the midst of the rioting with an adult who was clearly an older brother or father, and it wasn't until last night that I was able to get the image and the thought ("Who in the hell takes a CHILD to a riot?!) out of my head.

The image was replaced with more frightening ones, when the violence spread north to B'Ham, and Nottingham-bad enough the violence had spread to the very outer skirts of the M25 (which rings greater London) and was now a mere two miles (as the crow flies) from the home of our houseguest (whose wife remained South, and is under strict instructions to 'Bunker Down' and be ready to evacuate away should thing become worse than they are already-to get to their village the rioters will need boats or cars, the nearest bridge across to the village is thirty miles from where the violence erupted last night).

This simply isn't something ANYONE expected when a gangsta (self-proclaimed, the photos he posted on his FaceBook page make it very clear, he was 'gangsta') was shot and killed resisting arrest last week. This is beyond protest, this is wanton thuggery.

A better commentator than myself has likened it to 'shopping by violence' and I think he is spot-on. Children as young as seven years old have been photographed clearing sweets counters into pillowcases-but only after having been snapped using bricks and ballbats to break the windows of the shops. They are feral, and the violence is becoming much worse. There is a viral video now showing a young asian man bleeding profusely who is robbed by passersby who first seem to be coming to his aid.

I asked Paul if he thought the violence would spread to Scotland and he said he really didn't think so, but I wonder. When I read the comments on some of the news sites I wonder-it doesn't matter where a poster is posting from, the sentiment is the same: "Multi-culturalism doesn't work; the immigrants are taking 'our' jobs; the men are here only to rape our women..."

It. Is. Scary.

I was in Los Angeles when the Watts Riots broke out. I was appalled when Reginald Denny was brutalised during the Rodney King Riots-appalled and terrified, I really understood how fragile the line between 'diversity' and mob-violence' was the day the video was released-it COULD happen because just look, it HAD happened!

And it is happening in England right now as I type this blog entry. Mobs are roaming more and more streets attacking people who are simply trying to get home; shops all over England are being looted in broad daylight, and Parliment has been recalled.

There are rumours of Martial Law.

The riots are no longer confined to the socio-economically depressed areas of Greater London. Last night diners at an 2 star, upscale restaurant in Notting HIll (a VERY posh area) were attacked when thugs broke through the windows and robbed the diners of jewelry, etc. The restaurant kitchen staff (have I mentioned that my son is a chef?) rescued the diners and led them to the safety of first the bathrooms and then the wine cellars-and I have to be honest in saying that my first thought after thank-god no-one was injured was OMFG THAT COULD BE MY SON LEADING HIS KITCHEN STAFF T RESCUE HIS GUESTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***There should be a hyperlink showing here but I'm not seeing it, leave a comment if you can't either:)

2011-07-27T01:08:00.003-05:00

Looking for 'someone who's close to the action' my right toe! They're looking for someone who doesn't rock the boat:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/business/help-wanted-ads-exclude-the-long-term-jobless.html?src=me&ref=general

I remember thinking back in 2006-2009 as I watched 'them' terminate employments that 'they' were in the process of eliminating the 'troublemakers', a weeding out of the aging, the difficult, the office activist types who had morals, values, and principals that didn't include violating just about every single code of common decency there is. I remember frantically trying to get my mortgage paid off, the house renovations finished, the garden producing, and the pantry stocked before they came for me-I knew they would sooner or later because in the end, I am a troublesome employee to the corporate Human Resources people.

I was a team player, I did 'play ball', but not to the extent of crossing that line-I never became ruthless, I never went corporate; I never lied, cheated, or back-stabbed. Credit to the team member to whom it was genuinely due even when it was someone we all heartily disliked, and I expected it back from the others. All the while I knew things 'out there' were so bad that my coworkers would throw me to the wolves, under the bus, etc, and oh yes, they did. People were so desperate to keep their jobs that I have some unpleasant suspicions about the acts some were willing to commit.

And when I politely refused to go along to the pub/lake-side BBQ/ride on the boss's yacht, I knew my days were numbered.

And I knew that because things were so bad out there, and because I was over 50 (53 when I lost my job), and because I don't play bulls*it games, I knew I was in for a very rocky ride.

And of course it was a very rocky ride both before and after losing my job. Finally, on 28 September 2009 I joined the ranks of the unemployed. I mechanically went about the things I needed to do-cancelled the cable and Internet, put out the word I was looking and would do odd-jobs ("Say, I can fix that wall your husband punched, trade me...") in barter or for cash. Thank-God I knew how to sink a wall anchor, patch a wall, replace a light switch; thank-God I knew how to sew, crochet, and garden and hunt and clean game-all my very valuable skills put to barter and personal use to save the cash I'd managed to stash. But it was a very rough time, those three months of unemployment I went through. I never really got another job, either, not the sort I was looking for-one I could stay in for years until I was finally ready to stay home all day becoming the cat lady-neighbourhood grannie.

So. Two years later the New York Times is publishing a piece on how hard it is to find a job when you haven't got one and how that is cutting millions out of potential employment. I like the Times, I've been reading it for decades. LA and NYT, the two best newspapers on the rack, back in the day, with the Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe thrown in if there was enough spare change on the dashboard.

But the Times missed the most important reason the well-qualified-yet-currently-unemployed are being eliminated from the CV (resume) queue-they were 'let go' from their last positions because they were undesirable for reasons sometimes so subtle the newly unemployed were utterly clueless as to what the hell had just happened.

I watched my now former employers 'let-go' a woman who'd used her horribly expensive company health plan to beat the first round of breast cancer.

I watched my now former employers 'let-go' several of us women past the age of 45-many of us scant years from being vested, so we missed out on our pensions.

I watched my now former employers...well, name the typical corporate dastardly anti-employee deed, and for over four years I watched those bastards commit it. Speaking up never did any good and trying to see it from the company point of view was incredibly stupid now that I think about it. To read the NYT saying that the reason those of us who are unemployed for over nine months are likely never going to find a job because we 'are out of the loop' is insulting, too easy, and at best naive.

We lost our jobs because we were troublemakers of one sort or another, and that is all there is to it. We were troublemakers in the corporate eye-we had to go because we used our insurance, might use our insurance, and/or wouldn't play the corporate games to the extent of selling our souls to the devil to keep up our house/car/credit card payments. Since I didn't have a mortgage, car payment, or credit cards, I was suspect; because I was getting older and would presumably soon begin to use my health insurance, I was a potential drain on their bottom line; because I wouldn't lie, cheat, or otherwise back-stab my coworkers, I wasn't really a team player, now was I?

I'm not an unusual case, I watched my now former employers get rid of everyone like me.

Our unemployment is the secret signal to potential new employers that we are the troublemakers who have been weeding out for them. We are unemployable now because when we lost our jobs we were unemployable to the corporations that insisted we permit them to own us by our refusal to be owned.

We've been disenfranchised because we refused to be enfranchised by a system that insists on making people into non-people. We're screwed, frankly, and the potential employers would like us to go off and quietly die, thank-you very much.

2011-07-25T03:50:00.004-05:00

Within hours of posting a new entry on my blog Friday, an unimaginable horror was visited on a country little more than 200 miles from where we live. For many Scots the massacre of over 85 teen-agers brought back memories of Dunblane, and the streets of our town emptied as people were home or in pubs listening to the increasingly horrific stories pouring out of Norway.

The quiet streets lasted through the weekend. Yesterday we pulled ourselves (Paul and I) away from the Internet news feeds and went for a long slow walk around the loch. It was a rare sunny day in Angus (at least our corner of it), and we had an incredible afternoon.

We were not surprised to see all of the families out on the paths, some on foot, many on pedal bikes. It seemed as though the Scots were holding their children close. We saw teens with their parents, and for once the teens were not eye-rolling but staying close to their parents. Quietly talking, in some cases walking arm-in-arm, all reaffirming their family ties. As the loch is a favourite place for Paul and me, we know the large numbers of families with teens cheerfully along was a rare occurrence. Teens are teens, the world over. But this weekend, Scottish teens were glued to their parents.

I wanted to call Fox immediately, I always do when these things happen, but I knew his mobile was off because he always turns it off while working. It is an instinctive thing in a parent to reach out to their child (no matter the age of that child) in the aftermath of an unimaginable horror so seeing the families yesterday was not too surprising.

I was washing up after supper last night, and was thinking what doubtless many people are thinking-when in the hell did things go so terribly wrong?! Was it when Rabin was assassinated (1995), was it OK City (1995)? Was it when NAFTA was pushed through (1994); was it multi-culturalism gone horribly wrong as the madman who perpetrated this latest nightmare claims? Surely it went wrong before 9/11/2001, though, the feeling is that 9/11 was a reaction, not a catalyst.

When did the world turn upside down, and things like what happened Friday become something that happens?

When did living become so fraught?! Like the other women I spoke with Saturday, we want to not have to think about these things-we want to feel relatively safe to walk to the shops, send our children off to summer camps and school; we want to be worrying about getting ready for our brutal northeast Scottish winters, and getting stock cupboards (emergency pantry in the States) filled economically. We want to be talking as we queue for pork steaks and beef mince (pork chops and ground beef) about the latest find in the charity shop, and how we up-cycled a pair of sueded curtains (micro-suede drapes) into a really stunning overcoat using the picked apart fabric and an old duvet for wadding (batting).

We want to be sharing tips on finding the best bargains on the groceries and other household goods we need to keep our loved ones comfortable, not tips on staying safe in public places!

Then we look at each other sheepishly, ashamed that we are complaining when a scant 200 miles away mothers are waiting to plan funerals for children whose bodies are not yet released from the crime scene.

And yet...and yet complaining, talking about these nightmare things is nothing to be ashamed of I think. We live in the 21st century. We live in a civilized country, a country wherein events like the one of last Friday are one-offs, things that should never happen to anyone-yet did in 1996 when a lunatic murdered 16 children and their teacher at Dunblane. We hadn't forgot Dunblane, just put it aside with sorrow and believed it was a one-off.

But then Columbine happened (1999); life changed for Americans then I think. There had been an earlier school shooting-can you remember when it happened, where it happened? I can, it was in Pearl, Mississippi, 1997. My son was in military school when that happened, and he told me on Easter break that he was afraid to go back to school after the holiday because he thought it might happen at his school. But we thought that was a one-off too, although the phrase 'going postal' (1983) had been part of the American (indeed global, I had friends in London who used the term) vocabulary for years. But then Columbine happened, and I distinctly recall being very glad I'd listened to Fox, and withdrawn him from school that spring of 1997.

I can go back to the Olympic murder of the athletes (1972), I can see the USS Vincennes shooting down of an Iranian airliner (1988); I can look to the savagery of the wheelchair bound man thrown overboard from a cruise liner (Achille Lauro, 1985). But we counted those as horrific one-offs too, as we did all the hijackings, all the embassy bombings, all the events that happened every few years...maybe the world didn't turn upside down overnight, but in a long slow roll that began in the early part of the middle years of the 20th century-did the world turn upside down when President Kennedy was assassinated? Is that where all of this really began?

I am an American. I remember being a terrified seven year old praying fervently with my classmates in St Joseph Elementary School church that November day in 1963. I remember that as being the time I first became aware that outside events could directly affect MY life and the lives of my loved ones. Maybe the world turned upside that horrific day and everything that has happened since is a reaction to the unimaginable event of someone being able to shoot the head of a First World country.

All I really know is that yet again a horrible, unimaginable thing has happened. And it happened not because a hurricane, tornado, tsunami, earthquake struck. It happened because a man who felt disenfranchised picked up a gun and started firing.

2011-07-22T02:17:00.003-05:00

Busy days! We're working on getting the last of the painting done inside, and getting more done on winterizing the house. In between coats of paint we run errands, and invariably on the way home walk past a house that has been on the market for over a year.

It's an average house, nothing special except that it's detached (meaning it's not attached to any other house along the lane; our house is a semi-detached, what we would call a duplex back in the States). Detached houses are somewhat rare in this town, so it is a curiosity to us and we have been watching it since last August to see who would buy it. So far no-one, which is why last week we succumbed to temptation and had a wander around the back garden.

We found out why it hasn't sold, we think. It has a very badly done conservatory extended from the back, the kitchen (what we could see through the window) is TINY, and the greenhouse is oriented the wrong way for the way the lot lies. Also, there is a concrete roof, and my husband is adverse to anything less than slate; and the retaining walls look as though they will require work while we are still young enough to enjoy the life savings on something other than going halfies with the neighbours on a rebuild. Even at halfs, there are three VERY tall and fairly long retaining walls to be maintained. OUCH if the things go at the same time, which my husband thinks might well happen. As he is a retired building conservation officer I am confident this is not a house we would be interested in.

It is nice, though, to look at available houses. The looking inspires us to recall why we like the house we are in-great neighbours, great location, great gardening, only one longish retaining wall, and best of all no mortgage. Good neighbours are hard to find, and we have great ones. That alone (combined with the paid off mortgage) is enough to keep us where we are.

I still haven't heard back from the people who took Mozart and Gonzo. I am a bit pathetic, I email them about every other day, and when I look at LOL if I see cats that look like them I tend to scrutinize the pictures-is that Mozart, is that Gonzo?

My son seems to be doing well. Although like all mothers, I wish he would contact me more often! I sent him stamps and pre-addressed envelopes and everything! ROFLOL, my husband says I should let the worry go, maybe I will be able to after a few years of having contact with my son again. Maybe.

The garden is moving along slowly. We have cleared several beds and actually have a bed across the back wall planted with tomatoes and salad. We missed the planting times for most things, and that is probably just as well as we have not got the complete set of beds sorted. We have a lot more gardening space than my husband realised, when we got the long bed along the side of the house cleared and saw how much space was there he was astonished. The entire bed is sun-drenched (when there is sun, lol, this is Scotland, after all) for the entire day. Finding that out has changed the garden plan considerably.

Wednesday I had a dentist appointment, something I had really been dreading as I knew beforehand what the dentist would say and was frankly very worried about sticker shock. Because I was so preoccupied with the money worries, I found myself having more trouble than usual understanding the accents of the people around me as Paul and I travelled by bus to the dentist office in the next town over-had I been alone I would have ended up in Glasgow instead of the town I was aiming for. The strain must have shown on my face and Paul kept calling me Mrs. Grumpy, but I was sure the cost was going to be incredible and I was really worried!

The cost is so small I am still in shock. I already knew what the dentist was going to say regarding needed treatment, and had I been in the US, the cost would have been close to $20K. I knew this because I had been to the US dentist before coming over to Scotland last year, and had reeled from that office in horror. The $20K was after the insurance contributed, btw.

Things are different in the UK. By September my teeth will be sorted, my gums will be healthy, and I will only be out of pocket £300.

Still, as soon as I think I've got the knack of being an American-in-Scotland, I run into something new, and feel lost again. I do still love it here, but sometimes I realise how different things are, and I have a little trouble feeling balanced. I wobble, and want to hide in the house.

2011-06-26T04:53:00.004-05:00

**Mozart and Gonzo update-it's not cheery news. While in America waiting for my UK visa to be granted I tried to find Mozart and Gonzo. Their new people prefer not to share-when I asked for pictures they declined saying I needed to let go. I have lost contact with my mogs forever. I feel terrible, as though I abandoned two trusting companions, and I feel so badly that I wonder if I have the right to bring a new mog into my life. Paul wants to start searching the rescue facility, and I am holding back. Things change, I've found-what if I have to abandon yet another poor soul?

So I compartmentalize, I don't think of it. Until I see a ginger or a tuxie. Then I start to cry.

Back in the UK since the 18th of June, I'm watching world events unfold (gotta love cliches when they fit) with some apprehension missed in with the interest. Having friends all over the world will do that for you, and thanks primarily to the cyber world I have friends literally everywhere on the face of the planet. Not to mention the friends met through travel and assignments to 'divers foreign spaces'.

I've 'met' people from all corners of the globe since going online back in '04; through attending university online, through current events forums, through the cat's blog. Some I've met in person but most are still cyber-friends no less dear. So the increasingly frequent and higher magnitude of earthquakes and volcano eruptions have personal importance to me; the tsunamis, the tornadoes, the cyclones, hurricanes, and of course, the endless wars-I know people affected and sometimes open the inbox with hesitation.

I have a dear friend in New Zealand who has suffered terrible loss in the Christchurch earthquakes-her nephew was first listed as dead, then alive but missing in the hospital chaos, then finally and sadly found-dead in the rubble of his office. Now she is sitting at what is her mother's deathbed, and struggling with the ambiguity of loving someone who is dying with whom the lifelong relationship was fraught with the mother's 'eccentricities' as regards child-rearing. My friend told me about a month ago, when it looked as though her 92yo mother would last forever, that as a child she was afraid to be home alone with her mother because of the constant verbal (intense) and physical (relatively mild) abuse. The abusive nature of her mother continued into my friend's adulthood so naturally my friend is the only person in the family who took the job of designated family carer of the mother.

Last Thursday afternoon my friend's mum had a massive stroke and isn't expected to survive. Meanwhile aftershocks continue to jostle the inhabitants-imagine sitting in a hospital room at the deathbed of someone who made your life miserable and enduring constant earthquakes. It must feel like being trapped in a war zone.

I have friends who do volunteer work in Haiti-they too endure the war zone atmosphere. Friends in Africa-the same; friends in Latin America-the same; friends in Japan who are coping with what must be the ultimate triple whammy of the quake, the tsunami, and the nuclear horror unfolding at Fukushima.

Closer to the personal hearth, I was in Alabama about 150 miles south of Tuscaloosa when the tornadoes shredded the town and all points north. Neighbours in the southern AL town my son lives in parked pick-up trucks on the neighbourhood streets with signs saying "For Tuscaloosa", and we loaded those trucks as full as we could with things we knew from experience would be of the most value to the stricken. The trucks filled, would depart and simply drive north until they hit a neighbourhood in need.

One afternoon I was making an early supper for my grandson, he informed me daintily that he didn't care for the meal I was about to provide. I looked at him for a second, debating if it was time to remind him how very fortunate he was to have a meal at all, much less a choice. I decided it was and asked him if he had ever in his life gone to bed hungry.

Of course the answer was "No ma'am", and I got as far as "Well, there are children.." when he interrupted to say "...in China, I know, I know..."

So I sat him down, looked him straight in the eye, and said "No, 'Bas, there are children right here in this town who go to bed hungry every night, wake up hungry every morning, and are unsure if they will have anything to eat at all in any given day."

I told him there are children at his school who never ever have enough to eat, who are ALWAYS hungry-ALWAYS. Yeah, he ate everything on his plate, and yeah, he tried to figure out how to help those kids in his own town as he ate, and yeah, I felt pretty good about the whole 'raising my grandson's awareness factor' thing.

I made it out on the last Continental flight to go airborne before the United-Continental computer system crash. I almost didn't, but thanks to a very determined United-Continental gate agent, a place was found for me on a United flight into Newark with bare minutes to spare before my flight to the UK lifted off. My bags caught up with me the very next day, and yes, I have written Continental to tell them how very grateful I am to their team.

The flight across the Atlantic was made miserable by the airhead seated in front of me who insisted since her seat reclined and she'd paid for her ticket, she bloody well would recline into my lap for the entire seven hour flight. She further insisted on leaving her seat back reclined when she made the restroom trip, making it perilous to try making the same trip myself. Made worse when the landing cards were handed out, and it turned out the row ahead of mine (all of whom travelled with their seats reclined whether or not they were in those seats) were all Americans.

The Scots I sat next too murmured to themselves "Oh, right, that explains it" when the Ugly Americans raised their hands for landing cards. When I raised my hand for mine my row mates looked at me in shock, and I apologized for my ejit countrymen.

FFS, when flying economy, please DO NOT recline your seat unless the seat behind you is somehow miraculously unoccupied!

Things are going insane everywhere, be careful out there! While in America I walked softly and tried not to attract attention, lol, hard to do when I walked everywhere in an area where between heat, humidity, and social status, walking anywhere is considered stupid, eccentric, and dangerous. Can't tell you how many times I was swerved at as I negotiated neighbourhoods where strangers are not welcome.

While travelling home I kept a firm grip on my little rolling laptop bag and watched the TSA agents VERY closely-rumours abound but it is distinctly disconcerting to find there have been several convictions of TSA agents (including supervisors, in Newark) who helped themselves to valuables while the owners are separated from them in the security lines! I had about two hundred American dollars in my purse stuffed deeply into my carry-on, my laptop, my wristwatch, my passport and boarding passes-all manner of things stolen from carry-ons while riding the belt as the owners are being scanned and wanded and patted down. Apparently even carry-on food has been stolen by TSA agents, and I checked my bag carefully before leaving the security area to make sure everything was still there.

I foiled at least two attempts to steal my rolling bag (seriously!) when both would-be thieves dared to reach for my bag gripped firmly between my ankles and permanently fused to my right hand at the telescoping handle; I foiled at least three tries to pickpocket me by thieves using the distraction, and the bump methods. All this in the Atlanta airport, btw, and the would-be thieves were not people you would expect to be thieves. I've never travelled with such deep suspicions clouding the journey, it was upsetting, frankly.

But finally I was home, and with my husband:)

And now I feel guilty for having left my son behind. When I embarked on this newest expat career last summer, I hadn't had any contact with my son for over four years. Now I have got on a plane after spending four months getting to know my son again, and it was VERY hard to leave him! I feel torn-I love my husband, I love my son, and you know what, both have professed to needing me. I left Fox with paid up bills, a clean flat, clean clothes, organised budget, etc, but I still feel as though I should be closer to him, and to my grandson.

I came home to a clean-ish house, a garden ready to plant, and a husband who'd missed me so much he was sick with it and thought his cancer had returned. We went straightaway to his oncologist, had several tests and scans done, the upshot of which is that my husband should be getting back into shape instead of eating all the wrong things (if anything-apparently he didn't eat properly at all) and throwing himself into 18 mile bicycle rides and pulling out tree stumps! I looked at the doctor and said "Ah yes, weekend warrior syndrome!"

So we are on a steady exercise programme, and a proper diet again.

It's good to be home. Now, if I only felt confidant about Fox being OK, things would be as near perfect as things can be.

2011-06-11T19:16:00.005-05:00

Ah well, perhaps it's for the best. For the 32nd year in a row we've gone without a Triple Crown winner; Ruler on Ice beat the Derby and Preakness winners to win the third and final leg of this years Triple Crown of races.

I was so hoping-I tuned into the Preakness and was on my feet with the live crowd urging Animal Kingdom on, on, on...the disappointment was thick and I knew then I would leave the USA without seeing a Triple Crown winner.

I was tuned in that glorious early summer day 33 years ago when Affirmed thundered down the last stretch and won the Belmont Stakes-WOOHOO, a Triple Crown for the world to savour! I danced and shrieked and celebrated and my little daughter watched her mummy going deliriously, deliciously mad with American horse racing joy.

Every horse lover/rider/owner has that secret dream in us. Gelding, unbred mare, we still dream as we groom the glossy coat, check the hooves, parcel out the feed morning and night...we stand at the paddock watching our old nags and in our mind's eye see him or her decked out in Triple Crown glory. It's a beautiful dream no matter age of owner or horse, lol!

My visa has been granted and I am on my way back to Scotland to rejoin my beloved Paul-I leave early next week, and am, LOL, already packed to go.

My son, my grandson, and my husband have become acquainted via digital photos and emails, and vid chat-this modern age, how amazing it still is to me that a family is forged thanks to the Internet! But we are a family, and Grandpa is already rubbing his hands together at the thought of an architect in his newly acquired by marriage grandson

Dreams made possible by family ties-last night on an evening walk around the neighbourhood my grandson observed that a particular house didn't fit into the neighbourhood-right as rain, the adobe style house, while cute and doubtless energy efficient in this horrid heat and humidity, doesn't fit in with the rest of the houses in this area. My son lives in the historic district of an old Southern town. Most of the houses were built between 1890-1930, and are gorgeous little cottage gems. The mansions are in the next neighbourhood, lol, this section of the historic section is more modest.

Any road, when this intelligent and unsolicited observation by ahem, OUR grandson was reported, Grandpa rubbed his hands together in undisguised glee saying "We'll have an architect or urban planner out of our wee lad yet!"

Family=Dreams. We haz 'em:)

I am an official expat again, this time in a marriage made in joy and peace, and love and happiness, and every good thing. My husband in this latest expat adventure is a man of the country I am going to be an expat in, and in truth, I'm only two generations out of Caithness myself, so it's not as hard as it could be.

Not at all as hard as it was the first time I was an expat, those nightmare Guatemalan years when I and my son accompanied Crusty to a country hostile to Anglos owing to the ongoing civil war, kidnappings, the organs and orphans for sale scandals, and the nature of my then husband's work (US Embassy attachment). 190+ days without leaving our little compound because of all the car bombs. The rolling black-outs, the water shortages, the water contaminations, the e.coli laden fruits and vegetables...

This time I'll be an expat in an English speaking country-the country my own family has called home for over 1000 years. A country where I can walk safely (prudently but still, safely) alone to the butcher and green grocer for our few needs. A country where my husband and I don't need to own a car, where we found my treadle sewing machine in, as my darling calls it 'good nick' and working perfectly.

Where our wood stoves heat the house, the water in the kettle, and our meals-yes, I've learned to cook on a small wood stove, and I love it.

Expect to read more in the coming years of my expat experiences, and to see photos of our beautiful home. For now, in closing, I leave you with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6km7phBQRF0&feature=related

2011-02-02T02:00:00.002-05:00

Life.

When I 'met' Paul at LATOC in October of 2008 I'd just had one of those adventures a body hopes never to have (I'd witnessed two Junior Leaguer types brawling in a gas station fuel pump line). I was in the middle of renovating a 40 year old Tin Shack clinging precariously to the side of a north Georgia, USA, mountainside, and wondering if I would manage to avoid being called Crazy Cat Lady by the neighbours as I aged.

I was so steeped in grief and what I know was clinical depression that I was in a numb fog-one foot in front of the other, and try not to attract undue attention as I fretted about growing old alone in the rough and tumble area I'd fetched up on.

I'd been at it for years-what did I do wrong, where did I make that final misstep that led to my son's problems. A constant examination and re-examination of parental mistakes that turned my beautiful boy into a snarling hyena, and by 2008 I was very close to having given up hope that I would ever see my son or his son again. By August of 2010 I was so sure of it that I didn't even try to talk Paul into coming to the States to meet me in person-I threw some things into a couple of small suitcase and a rolling laptop case, and sleepwalked across the Atlantic.

I look at our wedding pictures, and except for a very few, I look as though I am about to throw up, or run for the hills. I told Paul yesterday that I hope his friends believe that I am so happy I am truly over the moon, because if they look at those pictures, they sure won't think I am!

But I am, and I think I may just be getting to the point now where I am willing to let myself feel the joy.

In two weeks I will be getting off the plane and looking for my son at the baggage claim exit door. Right now he is far more excited about it than I am, and I've been thinking a lot about that.

Why is he so excited to see me, why after all these years of what I'd really come to believe was hate, and anger? Could I believe that he was meant it when he apologised for all of the grief? Over the past few months as I have spoken with my son on the phone on Sunday afternoons, I've always been left with a profound bemusement-doesn't he remember how much he hated me? The bemusement has of course left me with a sense of the surreal, the feeling I'd better not let my hopes get up too high...which of course is how I felt about Paul and I getting together-surely something will go wrong if I am such a loser that my own son has turned on me.

I've pondered it ever since I first spoke to Fox again after all these years-why the hell am I not doing backflips of joy? I mean hey, I've got it all, this really fantastic new husband, and my beautiful boy sounded like an adult version of the 11 year old who disappeared into his room one day, and didn't come back out until just before Thanksgiving 2010.

Because that's what happened-my funny, witty, brilliant 11 year old son went to bed one night, and a snarling little monster emerged the next morning to make the next 17 years a living nightmare for everyone around him. It seems, in retrospect, just that abrupt. of course it really wasn't, but it sure seemed it then. Things escalated steadily, I caught him drinking, I caught him with an ever increasing litany of crimes and misdemeanors including drug possession, vandalism, theft, of course, lies, lies, lies, and hurled abuse.

And now it's over. the 11 year old is back, as a 28 year old man who is just amazing. It is as if he never left, never went through all of that horror-and I was having the worst time understanding how it could have happened, got so bad, stayed so bad, got worse so that by the time he was 21, I'd put him through rehab twice. Slogged through priest and psychologist appointments. Had every conceivable medical test run. And finally, gave up, let go of hope, and left the States-only to get an email in the second week of Nov 2010 that Fox was ready to 'come home'.

How do you cope with something that enormous yet I did, and was well on the way to thinking I was something of an unfeeling monster because I couldn't get too excited about it all.

(Forehead smack) D'uh.

This last Sunday while Fox and I laughed and chatted about the upcoming trip, his friend came in, and shouted "Hi Miss B". I was stunned-I'd've known that voice anywhere-it was the old Roomie from Georgia. I'd heard he was back in AL, and that he'd voluntarily checked into rehab that two years later was still working. I was gobsmacked-didn't Fox know? Surely Roomie had given Fox some version of the ten months we'd spent as roommates, surely Fox had been told by Ed (who'd been kept up to date on my doings as I was kept up to date on Fox's by Ed)? How could they be so casual??!!

This morning it really hit me-the drugs and alcohol. They don't remember most of what all happened back then with either of them. They've both made the required apologies to the people they hurt, and they are moving forward. I've been out of the loop up there on that crag and now over here in Scotland, while they've been there having to face nearly all of the people they hurt so badly over the years...

Neither of them recall just how bad it was because of the god damned drugs-from everything Fox has said to me the past few months, he knows it was very bad, he just apparently doesn't recall too many of the details. I will have to assume that it is the same as regards Roomie-both lads know it was bad, just details are fuzzy, and can we keep it that way? Can we just accept the obviously meant and profound apologies without having to hash through all of the details of just why those apologies are needed?

I wonder how Roomie's mum took that, although knowing her I suspect she took it very well indeed-she always was a rather amazing woman. I can be rather amazing myself.

And the area they live in is rather amazing, too. Over the years I lived there I'd watched a very small town filled with equally small people through the years gracefully, astonishingly, accept the reformation of many it's citizens who'd cleaned up their acts. Now my son and my former roommate have been re-accepted, and I'm glad for them. Very.

So now I can begin to feel the joy:) I'm crocheting Paul a scarf to wear while I'm gone, it won't warm up here till July, LOL, I'll be back by the end of March, God willing, so my husband needs a scarf I made for him to wrap around his neck and remind him who loves him. It's almost finished, and then I'll start one for my son, who has asked for one as long as a Dr Who scarf-nae bother, since long scarves are the only way to do a proper scarf!

I'll get on the plane and pray my way through take-offs and landing (gulp), and then I'll see my son, and my grandson, and I'll visit with old friends, and I'll visit graves to pay my respects, and I'll get my residency card, and I'll cram a lifetime's worth of master sewing patterns and notions that I can't get in the UK inexpensively for the return home. And I'll check on Mozart and Gonzo since I have to get my paperwork done at the consulate in Atlanta-Fox and I are going to spend two days up there.

Life!

Thank-you, God.

2011-01-28T04:29:00.006-05:00

Well, we've done it:)

The wedding went off well, we had beautiful weather, beautiful ceremony, beautiful reception. Everything was perfect, it was incredible how well everything went!

Our witnesses arrived on time to the house, we had a lovely visit with them and then went out the door at the appointed time, walked down to the Registrar Office, had a lovely ceremony-the Registrar was fantastic! She'd worked very hard for us before the wedding helping us plan a personal ceremony, and it all went off wonderfully! We said vows we'd been able to write ourselves (with the addition of the required Scottish vows), and a dear friend of Paul's read The Apache Wedding Blessing at the end:

Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be shelter for the other.

Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth to the other.

Now there will be no loneliness,
for each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two persons,
but there is only one life before you.

May beauty surround you both in the
journey ahead and through all the years,
May happiness be your companion and
your days together be good and long upon the earth.

Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and
remind yourselves often of what brought you together.
Give the highest priority to the tenderness,
gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves.

When frustration, difficulties and fear assail your relationship,
as they threaten all relationships at one time or another,
remember to focus on what is right between you,
not only the part which seems wrong.

In this way, you can ride out the storms when
clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives - remembering that
even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there.

And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your
life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.

It meant a lot to me to have those words said at my wedding! I also liked our ring vows:

With this ring I promise that from this
day forward you shall not walk alone

It's been a good ten days of married life:) We stayed home during our honeymoon, although we did ride the bus down to Dundee one afternoon. We took walks, read, watched old movies, planned the rest of the kitchen and bathroom renovations. We stayed off of the computers, and just talked to each other. Perfect!

And then we found out that I will have to return to the US to request my spousal residency. We aren't happy about that, but have decided to take it gracefully-I anticipate staying with my son, seeing my grandson a lot, taking lots of pictures, and getting things like my passport and driving license changed into my new married name.

I HATE FLYING, and am not at all looking forward to two more 24 hour trips across the water, though, and frankly am trying not to think about it all while making sure I have all of the documents I need to speed the residency approval once I get back to the States.

I'm also trying not to think about the state of the house when I get home-I'll have to reclaim the kitchen, lol!

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Has it really been 25 years?

I clearly recall where I was, and what I was doing the morning the Challenger blew up. I don't even have to close my eyes to see the little TV in the kitchen...

Crusty and I had been up for a couple of hours-fighting, as usual. He'd just gone into the living room and I'd gone into the kitchen to make his coffee, turning on the TV to drown out his voice. I saw the families in the grandstand looking at the launch, watched their faces as they smiled into the frosty Central Florida morning. I was thinking how great it was that someone was happy when the camera switched to a view of the rising Challenger.

I stood there listening to the voice overs "Go for throttle up" or something, and then the Challenger exploded, and the camera switched to a shot of the families, their faces frozen forever in shock and dawning horror. I've never forgiven the cameraman for doing that. I've never forgot the looks on those peoples faces, especially Christa McAauliffe's family.

I ran into the living room and snapped on the TV saying to Crusty, "Oh my God, the Challenger just blew up!"

We sat in front of the TV for two days, united in grief for the lost astronauts and their loved ones. Argument over.

Years later when we were posted by his company to Melbourne Florida, we frequently went out to Kennedy Space Center to visit. The space program was one of the few things we had in common, and we always stopped at the beautiful Challenger memorial at the Space Center to pay our respects to the lost astronauts.

Although it is called the Space Mirror Memorial, for us it was always the Challenger Memorial. Now, sadly, it includes the names of the men and women lost in the Columbia break-up as well.

http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/astronaut-memorial.aspx

While we lived in Florida, a friend gave us his pass to view the maiden voyage of the Endeavour. Fox was nine or ten, and I remember praying for the safety of the new shuttle as it lifted off, and that my son would not be an eyewitness to a Challenger like moment in history.

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How very strange life is. How every moment is fraught with fragility-this blog post goes from the total joy of our beautiful wedding to the grief of that day 25 years ago when the lives of the astronauts families changed forever in the worst possible way.

Life.

2011-01-16T10:25:00.002-05:00

In twenty hours I'll be married again. I still have a couple of things to do before the wedding-iron Paul's shirt, finish the flowers, finish the favours. Just enough to keep me busy the last few hours to go.

I woke up early this morning and instead of getting up I lay there thinking-am I sure, why am I marrying again, what do I expect from this marriage...Yes, questions I asked myself over and over the past eight months since Paul asked me to consider marrying him. I guess it was just a final review, lol!

Such a strange life I've led since my last marriage broke up. I look at all of the things I've been through, watched happen to the world, I think of the years Fox and I were estranged. So many changes especially in the last eight months!

And now I'm going to be Mrs Homemaker, again. The past five months have been a big help as we wound our way through the process of making sure we really did want to be married, and then all of the paperwork associated with a foreign national marrying a British citizen-we've had ample time to realise we can indeed share a tiny Scottish bathroom, agree to disagree, and the best part of determining that we apparently have no deal-breakers looming.

I lay there this morning thinking about how strange it is to be marrying a man who was able to retire young, and how strange it is to not be a young couple planning when the children are to come along, and how we'll pay for their education. Marrying at a later stage in life is so strange, I can't help comparisons sometimes between what life will be like with Paul as opposed to what it was with Crusty.

I was a good wife to Crusty, far better than he deserved. He is alive and has a good retirement ahead of him (as far as I know, he may have gummed up all that hard work I did, who knows or cares at this point) because I was such a good wife-I very occasionally wonder if he thinks about all of that?

I wasn't here with Paul as he went through his career-I don't have countless hours logged ironing his shirts, making his breakfast so that he could get to work on time and looking smart; no hours logged at the teas and luncheons, cocktail parties, weekend parties I would have attended, hostessed, gossiped about, made sure he and I looked smart, and showed good manners-some of all the things a wife does.

We are in the middle of our lives, God willing, not the start, and we both come bearing baggage from our pasts, but not a shared steamer trunk of memories that middle-aged people rely on to get through the first years after kids and jobs are gone.

I feel funny about that. There is no 'ex-wife and three children' lurking in Paul's shadows, I'm his first (and last:) wife. He did what he did alone, and I feel a bit strange about sharing the harvest, so to speak.

This all should be interesting. No-one really expected that I would fire-sale my place in GA and move countries, and no-one really expected that I would ever marry again after what happened with the guy I thought I was going to marry three years ago Christmas-heh, he never asked me to come to London. Now here I am in Scotland.

And in 19 hours, I'll be a homemaker again.

I hope to God I remember how!

2011-01-09T09:22:00.005-05:00

I've just posted an very brief update on Mozart and Gonzo's blog, sadly, their last.

They have been rehomed in North Georgia for the last few months and are doing well. Fox's schedule just didn't give him enough time at home with them and it quickly became clear they were better going to live with a family who have known and loved them since each came into my life. They are safe, they are happy, and they are still amazing, they just aren't part of my family any more-it hurts and I will miss them forever.

But hearing that Mozart relaxed and was playing with Gonzo within hours of arriving at the new home, and slept belly up right away has made it much easier for me to let go. I hadn't mentioned to anyone, not on their blog, or in person, that Mozart showed the trauma of his life in the wild for a very long time after he came IN in his not sleeping belly up; he slept curled tight with his back up against a wall or sofa back for years and it was only the last year we were together that he started to relax enough to sleep fully stretched out with his stomach exposed.

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Paul and I will be married in a little over a week. All of our paperwork has gone to the Home Office, been vetted, been approved, and sent back-we posted the banns on New Years Eve by notifying the Registrar. She is a lovely lady pulling out all stops to help us have a lovely wedding as quickly as possible so that I can quickly apply for the marriage visa instead of having the expense of requesting my tourist visa be extended, and then after a wedding in less unseemly haste, the expense of requesting a marital visa.

It's a lovely difference of about a thousand pounds-money better spent putting in the last of the double glazing on the front window and another wood-stove. Considering climate change we're seeing here in the UK, I'm for saving the money for the window and stove!

We had about an inch and a half of snow last night, and today have both existing stoves going (bedroom and study). It is not as bitterly cold as it was in the run-up to Christmas and New Years, but close. The photos below are of the icicles and snow we enjoyed:

Um, yeah, it WAS cold!

The snow isn't quite as high, and we are religious about getting out to clear the icicles as soon as we see them starting now. Paul gets out on a ladder and clears the rhones (gutters) while I shovel the paths and try to cut a few drainage channels through the snow from the garden walls to the downslopes-as a retired building conservation officer, Paul is meticulous about keeping water from the walls and building. Other people aren't as diligent, and there are burst pipes, collapsed roofs and walls, and interior water damage all over the UK. Not at our house, though.

Back to the wedding, am I practical, or what-I found my beautiful cashmere coat (gray, mid calf length) in a charity shop. I decided that wearing a dress or skirt was insane given the mid-January weather in Scotland. This is turning out to be the most brutal winter in over three hundred years-do you really think I'm going to walk to my wedding and reception in a dress and tights (what they call stockings in the UK), lol?!

So I hit the sales in Dundee last week, and found a lovely pair of gray slacks (called trousers over here), an equally lovely black cowl neck tunic knit, and a pair of very nice suede snow boots. I brought some of my fabric and patterns over in my luggage-I am one of those women who, when packing to leave somewhere, sees the sewing box and crochet needles as far more essential than dresses and shoes-so I am starting my white wedding blouse this afternoon.

Paul found his wedding suit in a charity shop too, and is wearing his old topcoat over it.

Monday after next we will wake-up, I'll put the finishing touches on the wedding flowers (yup, making those myself too) while he pops down to the reception site with the cake and favours. When he returns we'll dress for the wedding, and when the witnesses arrive-a lovely younger married couple Paul has known for years, and I have come to know and love-we'll all walk the quarter mile down to the Marriage Room at the Registrar's Office.

We'll be married in the Marriage Room, a lovely sunny yellow with period furnishing (the building is Victorian, built around 1860), Vivaldi's Four Seasons playing softly in the background and the floral decorations they kindly pull from a cupboard flanking the Wedding Table (which is where we sign the marriage paperwork).

Once we are officially husband and wife, we'll walk another quarter mile to the centuries old pub where we've reserved a large table next to the fireplace-our wedding luncheon. The favours will have been placed by the waitstaff before we arrive, but I'll hand carry the small floral centerpiece from the Wedding Table in the Marriage Room and place it on the table at the pub for further decoration; we'll eat the lovely trademark steak pie and veggie lunch their chef is preparing. We'll open the bottle of champagne, the waitstaff will bring out the cake, and then cut slivers of the cake for the quests share with us there, and some to take home too.

Fox will not be able to be with us (still trying to get his passport renewed, and frankly I didn't want him flying this time of year anyway) so when he comes to see us this spring we will be hosting a 'real' reception with around a hundred people. Another much missed guest and he will receive a parcel from us with cake, favours, cd of the wedding, and a hard copy wedding portrait, soon after the wedding.

I am making the flowers up from a half dozen roses to be picked up from the florist the Saturday afternoon before the wedding-two corsages (lady witness and Registrar), two buttonholes (groom and male witness), a single rose table decoration for the Wedding table where we'll sign our Marriage Schedule, and a single rose/heather/thistle/tartan ribbon 'bridal bouquet' for me.

I am also making the favours-sugared almonds and four different kinds of confetti in an organza bag with a hand lettered thank-you note and a wedding champagne bubble bottle tied on. I'll decorate each with a couple of paper roses.

Thank-you God, I am not expected to pull a cake out of my hat, too, and we've already ordered the cake-a traditional sultana with marzipan and sheet frosting with a wedding posie, our family tartans, and the date in silver lettering. Oh, crikes, I think I need to pick-up a packet of cake boxes so that our six guests can take home a piece of cake...I'd forgot about that!

I should have the materials for the favours by Tuesday, and I am going to get them put together as quickly as I can! Hopefully I'll even be able to post a few pictures.

2010-11-25T04:15:00.002-05:00

Strange to think this is the best Thanksgiving I will have had so far-Paul and I are together and very happy-Fox is talking to me again-Mozart and Gonzo are still in the family. So many blessings, so many wonderful miracles to be thankful beyond the ability to articulate!

It started snowing yesterday, we have an inch or two on the ground with much more to come in the next days. Paul and I have the wood stove in the parlour cranking out the heat. LOL, he calls it a lounge, but it's not, trust me-it's not a room we hang out in, it's a room where we warm our backsides, peer out the front window , and then head back to the real lounge-Paul's study!

Paul's study, a corner of which I have glommed for my own until we can have the window in our spacious bedroom fitted with a new double glazed window. Paul's study, which doubles as the lounge, guest room, and for this winter owing to the window situation, our bedroom. Every night we pull the futon out and every morning we fold it back up.

We have a lovely routine. We wake by around 0600. I start the kettle, he lights the stove in the parlour. I make toast, tea, and coffee (for a Brit, he sure likes coffee. For a Yank, I sure like tea). We check the website he and a friend started here in the UK after LATOC went dark:

We read the news. We check our diaries-any appointments today? We decide if we need to go into town, decide which are pressing chores (food, laundry, firewood) and which are not (painting the kitchen, bathroom, parlour).

I'm sitting in my corner of the study, watching snow flurries and sipping orange-pekoe tea. I have pressing chores today, the first of which is to dig out the huge two person shopping carry-all, and go into town for the semi-annual toilet paper run. We'll bundle up thick-snow, after all is cold, and wet. We'll trudge merrily through the snow to the Lidl, where I hope to find sufficient quantities of toilet paper to get us through until at least May; we'll load said supply into the carry-all and trudge back through town to our house.

Where I'll put the kettle on, and Paul will restart the fire.

I need to get the kitchen curtains finished today, and maybe the bathroom curtains as well-shouldn't be too much of a chore to get the bathroom ones done, but the kitchen set is turning out to be quite the chore.

And sometime today I need to call my son, to wish him a Happy Thanksgiving, and call the sewing machine mechanic to schedule a drop-off of my latest charity shop find-a 1970 made in Scotland-all metal Singer Straight-Stitch 449!

We have a bunch of charity shops in our little town and the managers know us by name, especially at the British Red Cross shop where we have found the most amazing things with which to furnish our home on a strict budget.

The latest find cost us £20 ($31.55) which is an exceptional bargain-the sewing machine is one of the best and most simple of the 'vintage' Singer machines, and can be converted to a treadle machine at the wrap of a belt-should the grid go down I will be able to provide for us financially by taking in sewing.

Mr. Lindsay will go over it with a fine tooth comb, and I will do a lot of sewing on it! I do have another sewing machine here-also a vintage Singer, a 1978 Singer 513 Zig-Zag, also a charity shop find, and brought into perfect order by the aforementioned Mr. Lindsay. But something about this simple little 449 straight-stitch really appeals to me. It also came installed into a sewing cabinet-OMGsh, £20 for all that!!

NOTE: The difference between an antique Singer, and a vintage Singer is that an antique is one of those lovely black beauties made from 1848 until 1920. The vintage are the ones that came after that, and go through to 1980. After 1980, lol, they are just old, and you rarely see them as they went nearly all plastic gears by then, and cost more to repair than to replace. UGH-planned obsolescence.

We are simplifying our life, and it is a wonderful life. Thank-you, God.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

2010-11-17T06:18:00.002-05:00

Update on Mozart and Gonzo-they will more than likely be moving to Southeast Alabama this weekend or next to live with...

MY SON FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday morning I woke up to find an email from my son's friends who have been keeping me updated on Fox these long and horrible years of our estrangement-Fox wanted them to give me his phone number so that I could call him if i wanted.

If I wanted!

It took me until last night to screw up the courage to ring, and I tried to time the call to coincide with his work schedule in hopes of reaching his voice mail. the friends suggested I take it very slow and carefully, so I was planning to leave a simple "Hi it's Mom, I love you, here's my email address" and then hang up quick.

He answered the phone. He said "Hi Mom!" We talked. He got a lot of amusement from hearing his new stepfather is a fellow I met online, and was concerned that Paul might be an "Internet weirdo" OMGsh, he cares!!

He asked me to email him pictures, he said he would do the same, and asked if I had a web cam so we could vid chat. he said he's coming over this spring or summer and looks forward to seeing Paul and me.

And just before we rang off, he said, in a matter of fact and natural way, "I love you too, Mom!"

2010-09-30T02:27:00.002-05:00

We've been crunching numbers, searching websites, making phone calls-I cannot, CANNOT, give up on Mozart and Gonzo!

It looks as though we may be able to work something out with a friendly vet in the States and get the cats over much sooner after all-never say never is a new phrase I'm taking as a mantra until the crates carrying my two precious furbabies comes through the door!

Poor Mozart and Gonzo, I hate that they'll have to take that long flight, but I hate even more that I dreamt of Mozart flinging himself back into the woods, and Gonzo sitting in the middle of the lane in front of The Tin Shack meowing...

2010-09-24T02:33:00.002-05:00

I made the most difficult decision yet yesterday-I had to admit I will not be able to bring Mozart and Gonzo over to the UK, and I began the hunt for a new home for my two beloved cats.

Oh God, it is shredding me. I feel as though I betrayed a trust-they both found me, forced their way into my heart, and now, due to finances and most importantly, the length of time it will take to get them over and through all of the many hoops the UK requires to bring un-chipped animals over, I am having to give them up.

If a domestic animal is not chipped already, the UK requires it be chipped and rabies vax'd at the same time-the timing on Mozart and Gonzo's rabies shots are such that it will be a year before I can even ship them.

By the time I can bring them over they will have been in foster care for nearly a year and a half.

If I'd known that this was going to happen I would have chipped them, I didn't because of all of the horror stories about the chips causing cancer.

I came across with two small suitcases and a rolling laptop bag-I sold everything I owned (and won't be getting the payments from the person I owner-financed even started until May '11.

And now my beloved Mozart and Gonzo will not be joining me in the UK.

Not a good day for me, but especially not for them. I may not be blogging for a while, I feel so awful about losing those two dearest friends on top of losing my son (still no contact from Fox) that I am not really up to blathering on about my happy new life in Scotland.

Oh Mozart, oh my Mozart!

2010-09-17T01:20:00.002-05:00

I cannot believe that it has been a month since I loaded two suitcases in the rental car and drove myself to the Atlanta airport, it feels as though I have always been here yet just arrived, too.

Of course I'd packed the night before, and knew the checked bag was going to be overweight just by hefting it. I went online (thank-you BlackBerry and AT&T, you got me through those last crazed American Dayz!) so when I found out how much the overweight charge was going to be (over $200) I stopped at Target on my way out and bought another bag-saved $100+ that way) and shifted the load.

I got to the airport and turned in the car, got on the airport train, and made my way to the boarding area. BTW, I cannot recommend online pre-boarding and baggage check-in highly enough-doing that made the entire 23 hour trip much easier!

Went through Security...again, online research made that ordeal somewhat less of one. I dutifully pulled my Zip-Lock 3-1-1 bag and laptop from my carry-on (OMGsh, the rolling laptop bag was a total lifesaver!), clutching my passport and boarding pass (with my other papers handy in the front flap of the laptop bag), I slipped off my shoes (another thank-you to online research, I chose to wear quickly removed shoes) and lined up with my fellow International passengers.

The line moved quickly. The agents were politely impatient with those of us travelling for the first time under the new laws after 9/11 and we inched along until it was my turn in the screening cage. I planted my feet on the marks, raised my arms as requested by the agent, and promptly set off a silent alarm.

"Single female of Middle-Eastern appearance with metal at the middle!" I heard the phrase repeated by several agents, and as I was directed to stand in a separate area from my fellow travellers I looked around for the interesting female...

Erm, finally figured out I was the interesting female when I was surrounded by several agents who briskly waved several wands at my middle, and I said to the one agent who dared to make eye-contact with me that I had a row of three metal waistband hooks holding up my linen slacks. For a nano-second I thought about lifting my blouse hem to show her but decided against it, probably a wise decision.

I passed muster and was permitted to move along to an area where I could retrieve my passport, boarding pass, laptop, and 3-1-1 bag, LOL, all the while thinking, Wow, Middle-Eastern appearance? Must be a slow Security day!

My flight was called, I boarded, and as we circled the Atlanta Metro area, I looked down at where I'd spent the last five years and yes, cried a little.

Not that I was nostalgic about leaving Atlanta, although the people of the area were actually rather wonderful to me, but because I knew this was Step One in my leaving the US for a completely different life...

Chicago was pretty neat. I had to ride a train to my terminal, wend my way through several sets of connecting hallways, plus find something to eat and a place to smoke a couple of cigarettes before getting on plane for Sweden. I managed all of that, finding myself listening to the sounds of Chicago-O'Hare Airport from the baggage area outdoor (but of course) smoking area.

My last experience on American soil. I called S_D of course first thing after the plane landed in Chicago, even before I found the smoking area, but standing outside listening to the taxi drivers bantering, the radios blaring, and the gossiping Airport Authority employees on break, was curiously nostalgic and I found myself thinking that it was somehow perfect that the last American place I was at, was Chicago.

People say that New York City is THE American City, but NYC is so cosmopolitan it could be any big cosmopolitan European city.

Chicago IS America in a way that I am unfortunately unable to articulate, I'm sure far better wordsmiths have found a way.

And then, off to Stockholm.

Because I'd done all of that online research prior to the trip, I knew that to avoid jet-lag I should stay up the entire 24 hour period before the embarkation. Which I did, so falling asleep on the long flight across the Atlantic was far easier than many people would believe.

However, first we had a drink and snacks, and enjoyed watching the CCTV that treated us first to the scenes of the baggage being loaded, the take-off, the flight...Yes, movies were available, but I chose to tune my personal screen (built into the seatbacks, amazing things those) to the CCTV.

I was able to choose from several exterior camera views of the flight. Um, I do not recommend the run-way shots if you are at all nervous on take-offs and landings. Also, once you get over the Atlantic, if flying at night there just isn't a lot to see. Our afternoon flight path took us over land until Nova Scotia, we then jumped across to Greenland, from there to New Zealand...but by then I was fast asleep and missed nearly all of the amazing view.

However, before I could become SOUND asleep, the lovely flight attendant forced me to accept a dinner tray (when you fly Economy, you have little choice in the dinner tray menu) of herring so strongly fragrant I thought I was going to need the airsick bag.

OMG, OMG, OMG! What had I got myself into??!! Hadn't S_D asked me how I liked my herring? OH NOES, would I ever taste BEEF again?!

In Stockholm I found the smoking kiosk (OK, I like the Swedes, very nice people, but oh wow, those smoking kiosks are really awful despite the ventilations) after buying a pack of Swedish Marlboros, then found my gate and planted myself.

I sat there listening to the comforting and familiar Scottish voices, I sat there watching the comforting and familiar Scottish, Welsh, and English faces.

I found myself thinking I'd found myself in a most peculiar position-The American Going Home To The Land Of Her Parents-in America I'd been told all too often that I had a faint British accent (acquired thanks to my dad's habit of employing 'folks from home' and his insistence that his children grow up speaking properly) yet through-out my trip I'd been told I had the most charming American accent...suddenly the woman with the famous Nerves Of Steel was becoming more nervous at the total insanity of just what the hell I was doing.

The trip across the North Sea Did. Not. Help. So bloody turbulent I thought the flight attendant was going to throw-up, or cry, or scream. Sleeping was at best more of a doze and an uncomfortable one at that.

And finally we descended too fast (oh, my poor ears) and then we were making our way through Customs.

Where I was grilled by a Border Agent intent on reminding me that I must leave Britain in accordance with my trip plans, and wanting to know just how I'd met S_D (she was singularly unimpressed when I told her we'd met online in a current events forum, and was further unimpressed by my answer to her "You didn't come to Britain to fall in love did you?" was "Well, it would be kinda nice" followed my a big cheeky gap-toothed grin...), she seemed to feel better when I told her the amount of funds I had to spend as An American On Holiday In Great Britain.

But finally I was granted a six-months visitor visa, and was dragging my two rolling suitcases and little rolling laptop bag through the gates to S_D.

I was intent on getting outside-that Border Agent scared the pure hell out of me and I was therefore totally afraid to greet S_D warmly. I tried to signal with my eyes that I felt we were being watched by every Border Agent in the Edinburgh Airport, and begged to get outside...not the best face-to-face beginning, I think.

But we've managed, lol. I think he's going to keep me. It seems I passed a serious test last night at a small dinner party with a couple he's been friends with for years.

I'm keeping track of the goings on in the US, and frankly don't want to have to go back to await a fiancee visa-things are becoming worse there by the day. Of course, as I've been saying for years, this whole collapse thing is global-things in Scotland are difficult as well as in the US. But where I was in the US is not a place I want to be ever again-going to sleep every night with S_D is a tremendous comfort I cannot ever again do without.

Waking up with him every morning is indescribably comforting in these uncertain times, having someone to talk to and with is just the most amazing thing!!

Now to get Mozart and Gonzo across-Gracie has found a furever home with her carer, but my little feline furballs should be here by Christmas.

I miss my son and grandson, but I did from Atlanta, what's four thousand miles when you are estranged anyway?

2010-09-11T02:47:00.002-05:00

First, news from the new homefront-things continue to go well with us.

We are having a wonderful time adjusting to living with someone else after so many years as singles-it is somewhat amazing to me the things that don't bother me, lol! The towels on the floor, the uncapped toothpaste, the incredibly messy kitchen after he cooks, and of course his personal laundry strewn from front to back doors.

All the things men do that used to drive newly wedded women insane-the tools in the living room, the hunt for the house keys...WHO THE HELL CARES, AND WHY IN THE HELL WAS ALL THAT SUCH A BIG DEAL IN THE LAST MARRIAGE?! (Well, it just was-I sure do not want the ex back, shudder the thought, I'll happily pick-up after Slow_Dazzle:)

I keep saying this in private email to a friend back in the States-I am incredibly happy at last. So naturally I have some things to think about, especially this morning.

The UK is five hours ahead of the US time zone I once called home (North-West Georgia), but it is the same morning there as I am typing this blog entry-it is the morning of the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Oh God.

I woke up that morning feeling surrounded by a palpable hatred of the US, seriously felt as though an entity was standing at the foot of my bed pouring out hate towards me personally but as I pondered the peculiar feeling I realised the hatred was really directed toward the US. I got out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown and went downstairs to start water for chocolate (never have learned the tea or coffee habit, I've always started my day with a cup of hot chocolate).

That hideous morning I never made it to the kitchen.

I came down the stairs into the living room and turned on the tv; as I walked toward the little galley kitchen I turned to look at the screen and saw the first tower falling, a huge red LIVE blazoned across the CNN feed. I fell to my knees knowing TSHadJustHTF.

I tried reaching my son, then working as a clerk at the local BooksAMillion, the phones didn't answer. I tried reaching several people that awful morning, but one person I didn't think to call was my cousin John, by then already dead along with his co-passengers on Flt 11...

The phone did ring-but it had rung while I was still upstairs and the phone switched off, and my friend Joey's last message went to voice mail.

The man with pancreatic cancer, whom I'd gallows humour joked to that he would be hit by a bus before he died of the cancer. He was in the South Tower (he'd told me the day before he had an appointment the next morning with his lawyer to finish the last details on his will), making his way down the stairs with his lawyer, calling to ask me to make sure that his will was carried out.

"Something's happened here, a couple of planes have hit the complex. I'm going down the stairs but it doesn't look too good, the smell of gas is really strong...Make sure the off-campus back-up went through, OK, make sure those scholarships happen."

They never made it out. The off-campus back-up did go through, though, and there are several young men and women who've had a chance at an education thanks to Joey. An orphan, a businessman, he tried to leave his small fortune to do some good, providing an education to other orphans seemed a really good idea to Joey.

Oh God, how I miss him! I think he would have liked Slow_Dazzle.

Times like these, I feel as though I bailed on the US. I swore to defend and protect the Constitution, and I've gone four thousand miles from that promise.

2010-08-31T05:03:00.002-05:00

Dazz is off on a business consult so I stayed in and am going to be getting some things done around the house...first thing is minding the fire.

We tested the newly installed wood stove day before yesterday-utterly lovely and heats far better than the old central gas system. We were very comfortable yesterday and last night, waking to a lovely chill-less house this morning! As the day is forecast to be as chilly as yesterday, I volunteered to give up the outing for the chore of keeping the home fire burning.

Besides, the poor man hasn't been off on his motorbike since I arrived nearly two weeks ago and I could see the longing in his face, lol! Ooooo, he looks soooooooooo sexy in his leathers, too!

So, the sweaters are in the wash, the 'investment cooking' of a lovely large casserole is split into portions and put into the fridge, and I'm keeping the fire going. Hmmm, let's see, what else...

I want to organize his cupboard, cut out some patterns because frankly I'm running out of clothing, and I want to start a crochet scarf for me-OMGsh Scotland is already experiencing a frost!! I also want to clean the cooker-the Scottish way to say stove-bloody hell bachelors can be blind!

Also hoping to run the vacuum, but I am not sure about the mechanism, I'll have to study it, Scottish vacuums look like American wet-dry vacs but I'm reasonably sure there does indeed exist a difference.

To Zippy, Sadie, and the rest of the crew, not sure when Mozart, Gonzo, and Gracie will be able to join us. I have to have my spousal visa and it is looking as though the process may take longer than expected to include the very real possibility that I may have to return to America for a few months-OH NOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Other than that, settling in nicely. It is very strange to be doing so, what is the matter with me that I'm not suffering more homesickness? I do miss Mozart and his fur-sibs, I woke up missing my Ginger Boy terribly this morning.

Something interesting, the church here rings the bells on the hour. WOW, now that is nice!!

2010-08-26T09:10:00.003-05:00

We have the plumber in-he will be removing all of the gas lines so that we can begin using the new wood stove for heating. GOOD-I'm bloody freezing and it's only the end of August. We've fired up the portable gas heater the last few nights to take the chill off, and it helps, but we'll need the heat on full time soon, and it will be a great help to have the gas lines gone. The cost of gas just keeps rising...

S_D hired a car for my first week here so that we could go around to the places he most wanted me to see, and it's been a lovely week. We turned the car in yesterday and rode the bus home from the town he hired the car in, and that was fun too! The buses are clean, convenient, and damned handy!

While we had the car we went around to several of the MUST-SEE sites, Montrose, Castle Dunnattor (where he called me a few months back and told he he finally had to admit he was falling in love with me), Elgin, the Highlands, and we paid our respects at his mother's grave.

In Dundee we visited the McManus Museum where we were privileged to view a Titian masterpiece, and hundreds of other magnificent pieces of the collections there. Scotland is an unsung art treasure trove, I've seen more great works in the short week that I've been in the country than I ever saw in The States. I only exagerate a little, truly.

We are now living the life we will be living for what I pray are years to come-we walk to the shops, all close by, and if we need to go into a larger town for supplies or entertainment, the best bigger town is a short bus ride away, at a reasonable price.

Life here is better for me given my preferences for something simpler-I don't miss owning a car, I don't miss the mega shopping centers I knew in the States, and I fer damn sure don't miss the NOISE! I don't miss the vandalism, the litter (OMGsh the Scots are clean people!), and I haven't heard one scrap of rap music since I've been here.

The butcher, baker, and a few very nice small groceries round out our food needs; the past few days we've finished furnishing the house for far under £300 thanks to all of the really nice secondhand shops, and that just amazes the hell out of me-we found such lovely furnishings for the house (a suite for the lounge, a room better known in the States as a living room) dining table and chairs, and a gorgeous chest of drawers for me.

We live just down the lane from a beautiful park, and less than a half mile from the loch where we pick blackberries for a snack as we walk around it for exercise. We'll go back in a week or so with bags to pick enough berries to put up for winter treats. I want to find the raspberries S_D thinks grow nearby, too-I've become hooked on the little red darlings!

The house is shaping up, LOL, S_D is SUCH a bachelor he had no clue the taps in the bathroom need replacing! We are having new carpeting put in the lounge-hopefully before the suite is delivered Wed week, and after the paint is finished.

The garden is going to be a fun project, we have room for veggies, a fantastic place for the compost heaps, and I even have a space for the rose garden and a small sitting-entertainment area. I've managed to convince (wasn't hard) S_D that we can set up a lovely hobo style campfire too-won't that be lovely for having friends over?

I've met some of his friends, all very nice people, too, and they seem to like me-WOW!! It's rather nice to be going about town and catch people looking at us and smiling. This morning we cleared out the garage to make room for stacked wood and as his neighbours passed they would look in and smile. He is well loved, and I think everyone is happy S_D has finally found a woman who suits him.

Weel, that's about it for an update. Things are going along well here I think. Thank-you to Sybernetics for leaving such lovely comments-don't be shy any one else who stops by, Anon's are welcome to leave a message:)

2010-08-22T15:16:00.002-05:00

I began my new life 18th August 2010, flying for nearly 24 hours across an ocean and a sea to join my incredibly wonderful Scotsman.

I flew from Atlanta to Chicago to Stockholm and finally, across the North Sea, to Edinburgh, where I went through a grilling from the Border Agency officer, a lovely young woman who looked me in the eye and said "You haven't come to fall in love have you?"

Well, not exactly-I was already in love, or so I thought...HOLY MOLY, I fall in love, more in love, with this man every day! He is beyond belief, I am happy-he is happy. Life is good.

And yeah, I know what day it is...525 years, and I'm here in Scotland-quiet, gentle Annie who always froze because Scotland was so cold, yet here she is, warm, safe, LOVED-RESPECTED. New York can keep the Psalter, and Elizabeth can keep my former husband. This is the last time I will recognize that or any other day of the last five thousand years I used hoping the day would finally come that he realised the truth, the day he would really see ME and not a dowry, lands, titles, gains, alliances, empires...Ciao baby, ciao. Quiet and gentle Annie died a LONG time ago, Ginnie too, died, and the men who died with you that June day, too...Done, my old dear, DONE

A new adventure begins...and it is beginning very, very well. I do the Very-Very Happy Dance finally partnered-very finely.

2010-08-17T13:57:00.002-05:00

TO MY SON:

I'm off. Freyson has my information, I've listed him (and Mary) to be contacted in case of, well, you know.

Do you remember Hurricane Ivan? How the tornadoes were all around me at the office and your dog and I took refuge in the bathtub? And how I texted you thinking I was about to die, and I wanted the last words you read/heard from me were that I loved you and 'Bas, and to be a good father?

'K, right then.

You already know what I have to say-six years haven't diminished my love for you and 'Bas, nor dulled my hopes that you will indeed be a good father.

One thing I did leave out during the 'cane, though, and I need to tell you this before I get on the plane that will be taking me thousands of miles from you...

I'm sorry I disappointed you as a parent. I'm praying for you, that you never endure that same disappointment from your son. But I'm asking you to remember that you can only do the best that you can do based on what you know at the time, and the sort of people you have around you giving you advice at the time. And then all you can do is hope that your child will one day understand that about you, and give you a chance.

In short, you are the sum of all your parts. Don't be too hard on yourself, and if 'Bas ever tries to tell you what a cock-up you've been as a dad, man-up, take it, and try to get him to talk to you-erm, he may not be willing in the time you hope he will.

I used to love flying. Privately, and commercially. That ended on 11th September, 2001. I miss stick time, but ya know, before Grandpa Gunn died I told him I was going to go back and try to get my adult license. He warned me off it, saying the corridor I'd be doing most of my flying in was going to become too dangerous. Turns out he was right.

And now I'm on my way to Scotland. Funny how things work out, right Son?

Any road, I love you, I'm sorry for the things I've done, I forgive you for the things you've done, and I hope that one day I speak to you again, in peace.

You'd really like the man I'm going to marry. He is the epitome of "...a guid clean Scot" your Granddad Gunn was always on about. Who'da thunk it?!

As for Pop, swear to God Son, I know I have his blessing. I would have liked to have yours-I would have liked you to have been at the wedding, done the hand-over. I'll miss you.

And..."I'll Love You Forever", "My Beautiful Boy", in my heart "You Are So Beautiful", and always will be, because "Hope Floats".

LOL, Your Bri, she got every one of those, and I think you should know that for all her faults (ahem, like you're faultless?), the first book she bought your son was "I'll Love You Forever", and she tried to learn both songs I used as lullabies, but truthfully, holy moly, she never could get the hang on John and Yoko's ode to their son...she did a little better with the Cocker tune, though:)

Fox, do not let 'Bas grow up without music, please. PLEASE!! He should have enough in him of me that he should be able to sing and play violin (at least until he ruins his hands the way I did)-please encourage him.

Ta my son, I'm away.

2010-08-03T08:36:00.004-05:00

God willing, this is my last blog entry from American soil. I am moving to Scotland where I will be married to the most amazing man on Michaelmas. We will live in his house, in his little farm town on the northeastern coast near Arbroath.

My hands are shaking-what a surprise!

I met him through my peak oil forum. Love in the 21st century, after I'd resigned myself to a loveless life (read meaningless, empty, devoid...). He is a retired conservation officer-buildings and infrastructure, who better to fall in love with slowly over two years than a man who styles himself Slow_Dazzle, and posted these amazing buildings, intriguing links, and tantalizing tidbits about himself?

He overdosed on Doom at one point, and dropped off the board-I missed him dreadfully and longed for his return without wanting to understand that I'd fallen in love...another member started a 'Where's S_D' thread and I jumped on immediately-"I love S_D!" Horrified at the bold statement, I hoped no-one noticed my vehemence! I went on to remind everyone that he'd gone to paint his house-surely I wasn't the only one who remembered his statement the day he terminated his account and went off to paint his house...

He tells me that he decided to return when he saw my post.

I still wanted to avoid the awareness that I was already in too deep-when he began 'private messaging' through the forum, I tried so hard to be ultra cool without even knowing I was doing so. But...yet...deeper down the rabbit hole I flung myself until one morning I woke up and realized I was reaching for the BlackBerry before anything else, to see if he'd emailed during the night-by that point we'd exchanged private email address' and were burning up the inboxes.

Until one day he rang, and we spoke, and I fell completely, and so did he, and now I will leave The Tin Shack, the USA, and every thing/place/person I've known for the last 53+ years to undertake what is to me the most amazing adventure I have ever had in the whole of my five thousand years.

Poor, poor Slow_Dazzle! Sometimes I think he knows very well what he is getting himself into, and other times I am absolutely positive the only clue he has is that a woman who loves him utterly is tossing away a lifetime to travel thousands of miles to be his wife.

Perhaps one day I will tell him who and what I am-will he believe me? Doubtless, once he has met me, been around me for a briefish time. But...

Will I learn, will I know who he is? That is my question-who is this man who has healed my shattered soul, restored my spirit, made me whole again? Who is he? Can I have found somehow another like myself?! He hints, innocently, at years as long or perhaps longer than mine!

I have loved before. I have lost love I thought was a once-only, a tragic loss that shredded me so completely I was willing to live in a Tin Shack clinging precariously to the side of a North Georgia mountain. Five thousand years I waited for that one to trust me, to believe in me, yet he did one time only then never again. I believed with my entire being that one was my One, did I not hear the voice of God on it?

Yet...he betrayed me. He used me for chi, and left me hanging on a cliff clinging to a tree root that over the shortest time gave sickeningly until I was a broken heap over the rocks below. How does a person get over that final betrayal? The answer I thought was that a person does not ever get over, or past, or through; one only gets through each day to face yet another dismal eking out of merest survival.

Yet the heart heals. Amazingly. The heart heals. The process began I now think, thousands of years ago-with each realization that my One didn't, yet again, trust me, respect me, I was wounded, yet began the healing process, until finally my heart and soul was able to accept that God's Hope floats.

At one point I think Slow_Dazzle was shocked that HE was falling in love...he tried to break it off, and I hurled insults, abuse, anger, hurt-I went too far, and we didn't speak for days. He reached for me, though, and I flung myself into his arms-I will stay there now.

He has had cancer-twice. I'm not stupid and I know the chances of losing him too soon are higher than for most. I plead with God, DO NOT TAKE HIM AWAY! How much time is enough, how long does it want before it's OK to take him?

Over my lifetimes I have been married many times, usually to the same men, over and again. But never to this man, this wonder of a man, who makes me truly say "Forever, oh God, please give us Forever!"

I am in the middle of preparing to leave; making arrangements for the dog and two cats, packing what little I want to take to Scotland, arranging to meet my son's friend to leave the gun and a letter for the child of my soul, my Fox, the son who's estrangement from sent me away from Southeast AL to find solitude and anonymity in North GA. I contacted the friend, who contacted Fox, who is disinterested. My heart breaks while it simultaneously is soothed and healed by the man I wish could have been Fox's father.

Slow_Dazzle is not perfect, which of course makes him so, I laugh mentally as I count his 'faults'. He boxed as a young man, he rides screaming fast motorbikes (at our age, although at any age screaming motorbikes combined with my soon-to-be-husband and/or my beloved son fill my whole being with terror-two Mother's Day nights ago my son was t-boned by an idiot in a car and terribly injured. Naturally he refused to see me. Naturally.

S_D has had 'ink' removed, he sports one tatoo now and murmered something about having it removed as well.

He also has several degrees from UK universities-his intelligence is breathtaking!

Pop would have loved him. Fox? Yes, Fox will too. I pray with a fervour matched only by the fervour with which I pray that S_D and I have at least fifty years of this life together, that Fox will open his heart and finally know a real father, as I will finally know a real husband.

God is good. The Enemy slams shut a door, and God opens an entire world:)

2010-03-28T14:16:00.003-05:00

Just a quick update:

Horrid Christmas, lonely.

New Years a bit better, a forum friend gave me a small (ha!) dog she'd rescued from the road in front of her home about two hours north of me. The dog is doing quite well, a runt Boxer/Lab mix. Mozart and Gonzo are adjusted well too, although Gonzo takes a bit too much delight in pretending to be frightened-I think she is trying to get Gracie (the dog) into trouble. Now I scold Gonzo, and the game has lost it's appeal, lol!

I worked for the Census Bureau from just before Christmas to the last week of Feb, nice while it lasted.

My son turned 28 day before yesterday-I've not seen him since Easter 2006. It hurts too much to think about. I emailed his friend but haven't heard anything back, I heard from the friend just before Thanksgiving that Fox is OK, guess I'll have to go with that. Son, if you ever read this, I love you, and I wish you were here. I've left a light on...

Hopefully my next update will be to tell any one who might be watching the blog that I've found a real job-one that doesn't shred the soul, and returns something positive to the world.

Till then, if you're looking for me you can find me at the Lifeaftertheoilcrash.net Doomer Forum. We are on the accelerated downhill slide now folks. The economy is in irreparable tatters, and the ship is sinking. Every day brings a news item regarding the latest outrage or impending climate doom.

We ARE so monumentally screwed!

2009-11-05T11:08:00.002-05:00

Things continue to be a bit dire only more so than during my last post. I've sent resumes, made phone calls, begged even.

I tried to pawn a few things-seems I'm not the only anachronism, lol, the guy at the pawn shop got a real laugh out of my attempt to get a few dollars from my five year old computer.

Sigh. I even emailed my son's friend to ask him if he would ask Fox to pay my storage room for a couple of months. That has not generated a reply, so I think I know where that is going...

Yesterday I sucked it up and snuck down to the unemployment office-a 40 mile round trip that yielded only more depression. I should know something in about four weeks. But I have to check in starting the 15th to assure them that I am looking for work.

Just every day since the 29th of September, but hey, that's life nowadays. It's so great to be 53 and completely alone. Jeeburs, I'll never catch up, will I??

So, Life just hasn't been all that swell for years and it doesn't look to be getting any better anytime soon, dammit.

One of the little hand-outs they gave me at the unemployment office cracked me right the hell up-"How To Tell If You Are Stressed About Being Unemployed". Really.

Well, if anyone is reading this, keep a good thought for those of us looking to restart our lives.

2009-10-30T14:19:00.002-05:00

A quick update from the nice free computers at the local library...

Gonzo, Mozart and I are getting along although it has been now 32 days without a job. I keep sending the resume off, but no-one calls back.

I have to believe there is a reason, but holy moly, things are getting scary.

I come down to the library every Monday, Weds, and Friday to check the online ads and my gmail account hoping that something has turned over and I might find a job.

The cats and I are OK on food but the lot rent for the Tin Shack is coming due on the first-I have now $1.40, and no-where to turn.

Don't know what else to say. If you are a praying person, I would appreciate prayers. Things are tough everywhere-is Obama insane thinking that a recovery can happen without jobs? I lost mine to a younger and less paid girl-how is she going to make it if I wasn't making it all that well even though I live in a Tin Shack, and barely had Internet?

I read Catastrophe and The Big Squeeze, two books written recently about the nightmare we are going through. Catastrophe was a little (lot) slanted, but a number of the points were valid, and therefore scary. The Big Squeeze just made me cry from page one to page last-we are so screwed.

If I can find gasoline money (I am now on a quarter tank, with no money coming in-hey, if I had anything worth pawning I would, but I can't even afford a converter box for my old TV) I'll try to keep this blog updated.

Lord? I know you hear me, I know you have a reason for this, but Lord, I miss my little life, such as it was without my son. Could I please get a break here about finding a job??

2009-10-08T15:54:00.004-05:00

OK, things aren't going well for nearly every one on the planet.

There have been over 49 large earthquakes in the South Pacific, Asia, and other spots on the Pacific Ring of Fire in the last 24 hours.

Several credible sources (Google 'em, I can't afford to be screwed by some fat-cat whose last name is best known as being the daddy of that swell mainstream media outlet intent on charging for access to information) say this earthquake activity is "most unusual" and the FoxsMom Doom Meter is inching into the red zone.

Especially when I look at the global doom unfolding-the economy is about to see another hit from ARM mortgages going into default, additionally, reverse morrtgages are expected to become a huge problem-SOON.

Less than one job opening exists for every one thousand job seekers (of which I am one "...alms, alms for the poor...")

Panflu is hotting up, several people have died today alone and the news within the next week is going to be rather alarming even to those who have thus far skated by singing the ever popular meme "Wash yer hands, it's mild, just wash yer hands...". Sure, and that's why you are all of a sudden urging people to get that adjuvent loaded (although they swear it's not, but damn, what's thimerisol after all, if not something added? It's mercury, btw) vax, it's mild. Um huh.

In Detroit yesterday approximately 50K (yes that's right, I typed fifty-thousand) people tried to get in on 5K (yes that's right, I typed five-thousand) available applications for federally assisted housing money.

OK, so far Doom wise we've got:

Earthquake doom
More mortgage meltdown doom
Job doom
PanFlu doom
Housing doom

If that ain't DOOM-IN-YER-FACE, what is? But wait! There's more...

The fine city fathers and economic developers of a tiny Montana town named Hardin damn near lost what little they had left when a company claiming (but covertly claiming, they coyly never named names) to be an off-shoot of Blackwater and tried take over the town.

No, really, I can't make this stuff up. They rode into town in three black Mercedes Benz suvs emblazoned with the non-existent Hardin PD logo that supposedly somehow had morphed to include a Serbian aristocratic house emblem.

Luckily they were eventually exposed as two-bit chumps looking to scam a small Montana town that just so happens to own an empty semi-state of the art small prison...The self-styled CEO has a warrant out for his bad self in WY, and oh yeah, he's done time in a California DOC 'guesthouse'-read that as prison.

And oh yeah, the Mercedes Benz vehicles were leased and the payments not been made.

So add contractor doom to the growing doom list. We are so screwed.

And I still cannot find a job. Times like these I'm glad my children don't talk to me, or else I'd be having a terrible time keeping it from them-money is soooo short, I'm running out of it and lot rent (includes electric and water), cell, and Internet are due on the 15th. I am probably writing my last blog entry in a while...

If it is, hope to see you on the Flip Side.

Keep those hands washed, kids, and stay close to a doorway or sturdy table in case of a 'quake so big it reaches YOU.

2009-10-04T06:18:00.002-05:00

Wow, the world went through it on the 29th, right? Quakes, tsunamis, unemployment through the roof...

At 0720 where I sit this morning the sky is only now beginning to lighten. More rain is predicted for today and we are on a flood watch until tomorrow. The last flood here has left several area rivers so polluted we are being warned off so much as sticking a hand in them. Nice.

Since being fired Monday afternoon I have been doing a lot of tidy ups and winterizing projects but I need to find a job or else someone else will be reaping the rewards of my work.

When I was married and would try to prepare for a season change Crusty would become impatient-he really hated any kind of prepping against anything. We lived in Central Florida during Hurricane Andrew and he got a huge laugh out of those who were concerned.

He made me feel as though I was stealing from him if I bought extra food and water. Swell guy. So glad we are divorced.

I have been missing my children especially the last month. The past week more so. I wasn't kidding when I wrote that losing my job meant losing the only place I had to be.

In the end, it's a toss-up on why I am anxious to find a job-money for bills etc, or to have a place to be.

I want to be careful about the next position, but I don't think I can afford to be too careful considering my money situation. I simply don't think I have the time to be all that choosy.

And frankly I don't have all that much interest in leaving the house to go through what I went through at the old job. Jeez, I think I am traumatized by it all.

I went to work that first day so excited to be working for a Fortune 400 company. Wow, health insurance, a job where I could shine, make friends even.

OK, I never used the health insurance. Any time I shone, my co-workers made a point of slamming me, so the friends thing didn't work out all that well.

Today I will do some more things around the house to winterize. I'm clearing out some of the clutter, too. It's hard to motivate myself to do anything beyond read and crochet, though. Friday I found the Fall decorations, and I wasn't all that excited to try to put those out.

I've been depressed for years, I know that. But hopeless, well that is somewhat a new thing for me, and knowing that it happened at my job hurts.

I can't even begin to articulate how awful it was there, how disappointing that I was punished for excelling. Figuring out just how damaging it all was makes throwing myself back out there almost impossible-I've been putting it off.

All I ever wanted from life was to be a homemaker for a family that appreciated my efforts-others have that, why can't I? I am a good person, and I was a good wife, a good mother.

But I am sitting here on an early Fall morning trying to convince myself to get back out into the world because it is the only chance I have of surviving, the chance of finding friends, meaningful work...

When the only work for myself I ever saw as meaningful was as a homemaker. I think we are the souls who keep the world together, and God knows the world is not all that together now.

And I face its crumbling alone.

2009-09-29T10:31:00.002-05:00

Yesterday afternoon close to the end of the day I was taken to a conference room and informed my services were no longer required.

I gasped and said "Oh my God!", then I said "OK" and I was walked out of the building.

Four years (three years, 11 months and four day) wasted.

I hated my job, the work was OK but the business mission was not what I wanted out of life. The only reason I am at all upset is that how it was done was so wrong, but then again, the company existed due solely to the consumer spending spree that brought this country to financial ruin, so naturally the way I was fired was wrong.

It is a blessing whispered the little voice in the back of my head, truly, this is a blessing-you hated your job.

I got in my car and left the only place I had to be for the last four years without looking back and five miles down the road I was asking myself why I was so calm. Was I in shock, should I pull off and wait for the tidal wave of screams and tears that surely accompany being fired?

Why wasn't I shaking like a leaf, as I was Friday after the nut job co-worker went off on me?

Why hadn't I argued, pleaded, begged, anything at all to keep from losing my job??

Why wasn't I throwing up, screaming, crying, cursing the gods, anything besides calmly driving up the road out of Alpharetta towards The Tin Shack?

I pondered that the rest of the way home.

Although I usually don't make calls while driving, I called a friend once I cleared town and left him voice mail asking him to call me when he got the message; he did, and immediately offered me a job as a helper on his construction crew-HA, can you see me out there picking up nails? I may be doing that if I don't find something.

I got home, booted up the computer and commenced the job hunt. Two hours later, I've got a couple of interviews lined up for Wednesday, and I click over to the forums I frequent to look over the "Oh S*it, I've Been Laid-Off" threads. I mention in a couple of posts that I've been terminated (what an ugly word, especially when applied to one's self) and am the comforted recipient of several "It's going to work out" posts and private messages.

Finally, I turn off the computer after about three hours, and go to bed, where I lie there for only a few minutes still bemused by my seeming lack of real concern over my newly unemployed status.

It is the morning after, I am still calm. I do a personal inventory-can I feel anything?

OUCH, bloody well can, I pinched myself.

Do my legs, hands, mouth still work?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Hmmmm. OK, so I get on the Internet to check job sites, fire off a few more resumes.

I call the car company, yes, they'll stop the auto debit on the payment, get it mailed as soon as you can says the nice gentleman I speak with. He's obviously heard many of these calls lately, and is still able to be compassionate AND businesslike.

I call the bank to order a stop payment on the car-I'll have to go down there instead.

I make other calls all morning, arranging this, informing that. What a list of things must be attended when one becomes jobless!

And all the while I'm thinking, why am I so damn calm about this-I try talking myself into terrors. I say things to myself like-WTF is the matter with you, you live paycheck to paycheck, and your last one is not going to last long at all!

I remind myself that I am 53 years old, I won't be getting a reference from my now ex-boss; and I go on and on trying to whip myself into a foaming tear about my predicament.

But all I can think of is I never have to go to that place again, I never have to deal with any of those people again.

And interestingly, my mind is quite clear this morning. Much, much clearer than it has been for a long time. I've not felt like myself in a very long time and I am feeling more like me this morning than I have in years.

2009-09-28T17:44:00.001-05:00

I lost my job today.

2009-09-26T17:28:00.003-05:00

WHAT A PERFECTLY HORRID WEEK ON TOP OF AN UNFORTUNATE COLLECTION OF PERFECTLY HORRID WEEKS!!

Early on Monday afternoon our director sent us home with the advisement to return the next day after daylight to ensure our commute roads were clear.

I made it to work the next day by 0930 although I had some concerns about a bayou I cross (who knew that Georgia has bayous this far north?) and it took until Friday afternoon for the water level to drop away from level with the roadway. Yes, I said level. Why they didn't close that road is beyond me.

By the day after that the sun had made a brief appearance and things went back to normal-think SNAFU. Really. But I digress.

I am living in an official disaster zone, and it is disconcerting to say the least-it all just crept on me and frankly everyone else in the area.

I need to do somethings around the house, and this drought breaking/record breaking rain has been going on really for nearly three weeks. I took my holiday from my birthday until the 8th of September and dang me if it didn't rain nearly every day!

I took the time off to get the windows caulked, the house cleaned top to bottom, the bedroom converted to a storage room, the last pruning before Autumn sets in.

Oh well, so much for that idea, and I buried myself in Peak Oil research, good books, and my latest crochet project-a scarf/shawl done entirely in single crochet.

As it's been raining since the last day of August, I've read several books, learnt quite a bit more about Peak Oil than I thought I could (Have you seen A Crude Awakening? Google it.

I went back to work on the 8th-OH GOD PLEASE HELP ME FIND A REAL JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have three co-workers who think it's OK to play the race card if they're called on clocking in and immediately going on a ten-twenty minute break.

Hello, the President is bi-racial, the race card shouldn't work anymore honey, it's been punched off for the last time.

So Friday they pull the old "We can't get along with her" (meaning me, the only white) and are pissed they aren't getting away with it because they made the mistake of pulling it while our director was in the next work area.

I'm going along doing my work, reorganizing something I'd found out of date when suddenly the one who sucks up to the management team (while bringing them treats and pulling that 'sassy mammy' crap, she is openly contemptuous of them the minute they leave the room) says to me that I've got a chip on my shoulder and if I have a problem with her I should talk to her about it.

WTF??

So I tell her I do have a problem with her saying I have a chip on my shoulder when I don't even know what the er, hell, she is on about. The next thing I know three very pissed off black women are on me about how angry I seem, stomping out of the room (HUH??) and one of them says they only care about me and that I must be upset about something...

Well, no, I wasn't but I am now, dammit.

I try to patiently explain that I am just trying to get my work done without making a mistake, but I make a point of telling them perhaps we need visit HR and get this straight because I don't want a hostile work environment...

I also make a point of going to my supervisor-also black, and who frequently tells people "it's a white man's world", and "now that we have a black president whites are gonna get a taste of what it's like to be the minority." Uh oh.

I'm not prejudiced, but I'm maybe getting there, so I consult a mental health professional on my way home work last night, who advises I find a new job. No, ya think? In this economy, me, a 53 year old white woman. Righteeo there Doc.

So I live for the hours after work, and I live for the weekend, and I live for the day Dr. King can stop rolling in his grave, and I live for the day all of the people who've died for racial equality to stop being a dream and start being a reality won't have died in effing vain.

Jeez, it's like the people I work with don't want equality, they want revenge. They are proving all of the racist stereotypes, and I don't know what to do except spew this out to my friend who mercifully doesn't charge me for consults.

Who tells me the world has gone truly mad, and I should find a new job so I can keep prepping for TEOTWAWKI.

Oh yeah, this is great.

The rain started again about noon today and I watched in disbelief as the meadow 20 yards from my house began to fill with water. On go the boots and rain coat, out the door I go to check on my neighbours-do they know water is feet from their back door; they hustle uphill to their friend's place on a level with mine and we watch the growing pond form as we shout across flooding lawns and gardens (did I mention that Monsoon One wiped out my winter square foot garden?) "Should we bug out??"

Which is stupid since we live on the highest point in town, and to get to any higher ground (about ten miles south west) we would have to go down through an even lower point than our meadow.

I come back inside and since we still have power I search the Internet until I find a Google Earth map of our neighbourhood and start plotting a way off this ridge on foot. Plus I pull the inflatable rafts from car and house BOBs (bug-out bags) just in case because now I am noticing the water is creeping up my foundation-the Tin Shack is on a cinder lock foundation, and I'm damned glad I parked the KIA on the highest point in my yard...

Then it hits me, and I pull the boots and rain coat back on, and get my neighbour to go check the end of the meadow with me...

We had a blockage from debris picked up in run-off. We cleared the blockage and the water drained off within ten minutes. Oh thank-you God, because frankly I could have used hip waders in there, the water had to have been four foot deep, deeper in some places.

We'll be taking turns through the night to ensure the blockage isn't repeated.

Oh, I love climate change.

2009-09-13T20:12:00.001-05:00

Winter is coming, I can feel it although the temp outside is 75. A chill in the air.

Winter is coming.

2009-08-15T06:46:00.003-05:00

I came home from work a couple of hours early yesterday. I have Pandemic A/H1N1 2009 for the second time, the first time being back in March.

The first bout with the 'novel flu' was somewhat unpleasant although it was so weird in presentation that I didn't really know I even had the flu until I realized I had a low-grade fever. I managed to become unwell enough on a Thursday that I had to go home and stay there until the following Tuesday but it wasn't until Saturday that I understood I was experiencing the weirdest flu I'd ever had. Weird is the only way to describe the damn thing, every mild symptom easily ascribed to something else-until the fever. All, that is, except the dizziness that sent me home in the first place.

At aged eight months I suffered the panflu, in 1957. I didn't have flu again until winter 1974, when I was so sick I passed out on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. A huge Irish Setter I'd rescued from the pound went insane barking, which roused my drunken step-mother to drag me back to the couch-the extent of motherly nursing instinct in the bitch.

I nursed myself amid accusations I was faking. I then avoided flu again until the winter of 1994, a whopper flu that laid my son and me up for over a week but strangely left my military contractor husband completely untouched.

That flu is why I no longer trust doctors-mine, when Fox and my fevers went over 103 for the third day, diagnosed a virus and prescribed antibiotics. Since I know antibiotics are not prescribed for virus, I never went back to her, and have only been to a doctor for STD testing when I caught Crusty with the hookers.

From Monday afternoon this past week I began feeling that horrid "Hmm, I may be about to have diarrhoea, but this is weird, no real intestinal cramping, just that sense of something not right..."

Tuesday a co-worker called out. Wednesday she was back and told us she'd had 'tummy troubles' that were much improved although she still felt 'funny'. I was feeling the same thing and as the week ground to Friday that feeling increased until Friday morning, when I realized something was wrong and I needed to go home.

Another co-worker left, and I was about an hour behind him. I stopped at the pharmacy for my sinus pills and scurried home.

On the way home it hit me that I was probably going through swine flu for the second time.

The symptoms are so weird-dizziness, mild intestinal cramping, very low fever, extreme sleepiness, mild sore throat and hoarseness-a deepening of the voice. The first time I had dripping nose and heavy cough so bad I thought I was going to cough up a lung whole but this time the dry nose and zero cough really had me fooled.

Late on the evening of 23rd April 2009 I turned off the computer and prepared for bed. I had the TV on to a news station and the scroll caught my attention, sent me racing to reboot the computer. Something along the line of two Southern California children being diagnosed with a novel virus.

I scoured the 'Net and found what I'd feared for years-a novel flu that had people in Mexico dropping like flies. Mexican ERs were overwhelmed, doctors were pleading with their government for honesty and assistance.

The American health institution CDC reacted in an utterly heretofore unexpected and frankly terrifying way-"No need to be concerned, wash your hands, people are not dying in Mexico, this is not a big deal, no worse than normal seasonal flu, wash your hands..."

In Mexico doctors were desperate to find help and get the word out to the world-we have a serious problem here, please send help. The help never really came and while the official toll is less than 200, it is highly likely thousands have died in Mexico.

The doctors were sending emails to England's BBC that people were dying of cytokine storm-young people who were previously healthy and were not the 'usual' flu victims. Those emails have since disappeared from the BBC site.

CDC convinced Mexico to keep their borders open, and within days the flu was everywhere. Slowly the case count rose, and with it a mounting death toll. One that continues although you won't know that from the CDC, ECDC, and WHO. To find out who has died, or at least a rough estimate of the death count, you must spend hours digging through online obituaries for deaths among young people, of pneumonia and organ failure.

I have been glued to flu forums and the forum I participate in on it's epic swine flu thread that has been going strong for over three months as we try to figure this one out. We share holistic health care info, we argue the vax; we share prepping tips and links to the latest news.

I read The Stand and The Coming Plague, the first of course Stephen King's horrifying story of a military engineered killer flu, the second an equally horrifying non-fiction examination of how we are going to create a super bug one way or another, and countless millions will die-off.

I've been a Doomer for most of my life-when your life is endured rather than enjoyed and maximized, you become a Doomer. When what earned you praise from your parents on Monday earns you a casual backhand on Tuesday, when the same unpredictable behaviours are the only predictable from almost everyone around you from parents to teachers, neighbours, and pastors, you become a Doomer; if the unpredictability of Life is reinforced over again, and it was for me, Doomerhood is yours for life.

You learn interesting things, like how to read a situation in a half heartbeat, how to turn anything at hand into a weapon, how to become invisible, how to run and not be caught. you learn how to prep mind, body, and pantry, against devastation that can come in that half heartbeat.

You learn that if you believe in God life is a lot less horrid even though bad things still happen and people still go from sane to savage in half heartbeats; you learn that sometimes you really do have to figuratively drag yourself over glass shards to get to safety-but safety is there if you will only hang onto that thought.

You learn there is an unfortunate majourity who do not want the safety because then they would be responsible for their participation in it. They throw their own children into the cook pot because "no-body said Life is fair" justifies eating their own child to buy themselves five more minutes of sucking air time.

Being a Doomer can save or destroy you.

But not even being a Doomer can save you from this flu, although because you are a Doomer you are prepped and things will be slightly less uncomfortable for you and your family should you have heeded the warning calls-and there have been plenty.

I read an article last week that the CDC hopes to be able to find predictors as to who will get this weird flu so severely that they will die.

We want, we need, Life to be predictable, and it's not. But most illness' are predictable, outcomes predictability is what drives the art of modern medicine-"You have this, take this, and because we are doctors and have studied this, we know this will alleviate/cure your particular case"

But they can't do this with Pandemic A/H1N1 2009-they do not know why A and D get mild cases while B, C, and E require life support, and why of the three on vents/super vents, only patient C will eventually walk out of the hospital alive.

In 1918 at least 30 million people died of a flu known as Spanish Influenza. The medical profession still has no idea why the toll was so high, or even how high the toll really was-estimates range from 20 to 70 million, pick a number.

91 years later we have a flu circulating that is presenting as worse in its first wave than the 1918 pandemic, yet we have CDC and WHO holding back sounding any real warning-as a consequence few people have prepared with extra food and water in case supply lines fail due to sick transport operators. People are dying, will continue to die, and I have to wonder if this is Mother Nature's housecleaning.

I have the flu. My doctor says to keep him posted via phone-ins. It is again too late for me to take Tamiflu, which would have been prescribed had I called him sooner as I am in the currently accepted 'potential critical' group with my stupid little heart thing, and my stupid barely there asthma (there, I've said it, yes, I have asthma. Shoosh, don' tell).

So I left work Friday afternoon after begging my supervisor to send the sheriff and an ambulance to my house Monday if I have not called out and am more than a half hour late for work.

Because I am alone in the world, and should I become seriously ill and unable to call for help, at least someone will find me Monday morning.

2009-07-25T09:13:00.002-05:00

Certified insane, I should be really.

I just signed off on the papers for the Tin Shack-it is now mine after a meager $2500 paid out over 20 months (on top of the lot rent).

I'm going to run a photo copy of the paperwork and have a little mortgage burning party. The guest list will consist of me, the cats, and maybe the mobile home community manager, and of course the guy I bought the Tin Shack from.

Feels weird, I am a home owner again. Oh S*IT! What have I got myself into this time???

I'd done some reno, cosmetic, I assure-now comes the hard part! Now it becomes quite, very, seriously, serious.

MUST DO FIRST:

Level 1968 Commodore 10x48 trailer (why call a sow's ear anything less?) and raise to 2'6" for service access (why make it hard for any repair person who has to climb under there?)

Install moisture/vapour barrier underneath, repair underbelly

Replace skirting (some metal, some cinder block) with all cinder block-remember the vents and service access) face with 'levelstone' look rock

Replace roof (including trusses) then build freestanding roof-over to extend out from front of house 8'

Rewire, replumb, running the wire and plumbing along interior walls

plumbing where baseboard hits wall

electric along chair rail height:

place outlets at same height-I'm not getting any younger

add dedicated circuits for heat and air, computer, entertainment center,
bath and stove vents-both to vent to outside

plan all electrical work to have 'at exit' shut-off switch to cut off all
but climate control and refrigeration to prevent phantom power use and
fire hazards

NOTE TO SELF: SCREW in cover panels to create easy access for (gulp) repairs

Pull wall paneling, replace insulation, install US made sheet rock

Replace all windows with insulated windows

Build functional exterior shutters (board and batten style)

Replace both doors, peepholes only-no windows!!

Move privet foundation plantings to make room for 6'x40' screened/covered veranda

Paint exterior: light-medium grey with white trim

AFTER THE BASICS ARE COVERED:

Replace entire ceiling system through-out house

Build corner entertainment center between back and side windows:
4'Hx12"D book shelves from back window frame to corner, expand for components
at corner then back to 4x12 under side window to front end of frame

2'Hx8"D cd/dvd storage atop bookcases between both window frames

Build office area between kitchen counter edge in LR to kitchen side edge of back
window frame:

6'Hx12"D with center pull-out keyboard and mouse tray

louvered door for center monitor and keyboard area

Replace kitchen counter eliminating curved counter (eats up too much LR floor space)

Replace kitchen sink eliminating weird angle

Install small 'diamond' positioned window over kitchen sink

Install Premier 21" range (made in USA, does it get any better?)

Install Edgestar countertop dishwasher with dedicated plumbing in extra space left from losing the huge existing range

Install smallest possible sidexside fridge-NO icemaker or water dispenser

Finish pantry area flanking front window by getting the high gloss black chicken wire and high gloss white lath doors on '6Hx19"Wx8"D and 6'Hx24"Wx12"D pine cabinets already there; mug hooks for mugs and potholder collection

Install 30"D pecan or walnut stained eating counter at windowsill height between the two pantries flanking the window

Install 8"D shelf across top of window frame between pantries

Install top loading washer/dryer combo in utility room

Replace old tub with walk in/glass door shower stall

Replace that completely horrid vanity with slim vessel or pedestal sink-NOTE TO SELF: find installer without attitude to install new sink, damn I am tired of hearing men bitch about installing specialty sinks!

Tear out existing closet in bedroom, replace with a unit stretching across entire back wall extending no more than 24" from wall. Leave existing window (which will have been replaced with insulated one) and use area under window as drawer area.

Yeah, that oughta do it.

Oh jeez!

2009-06-27T03:51:00.004-05:00

I used to be funny, and articulate. I used to be able to do just about anything I wanted to do. I used to be hope filled, and I had a sense of humour. I used to be able to make connections with people, I never had trouble making good and lasting friendships.

Over the past few years I've become withdrawn and unable to string together a coherent sentence. I have no friends, not one.

As is usual for broken souls, there was no final blow that crushed me but simply a long and linear cascade of painful disappointments. The weight of griefs has bent me completely; my options and opportunities crushed, stolen for the most part but also faded away in some cases.

It has always seemed to me that I was pushed by the people in my life into a cruel and different dimension, and it started early.

I tried therapy several times thinking surely it was something I was doing wrong, some nuance of everyday life that I somehow lacked understanding of. I thought therapy would help me see and learn to manage my life-I blamed myself first and sought to correct the mistakes I was making in order to go forward with more success.

Therapy invariably followed two patterns.

In the first the therapist would tell me what I was relating was so rare as to have not possibly been my personal experience. Any proof I would offer to back up my story would be dismissed as fraud. I would then be offered medication. Not being interested in a medicated response to the world I would quit that therapist.

The second pattern would end with me also being offered meds, but also with the therapist been rendered as shell shocked as I was. My documentation, and the therapist's independent confirmation of said documentation would leave the therapist as helpless as I was to deal with the problem. I had several look me in the eye and say they couldn't see anything I could have done differently. One or two wanted to write a book, and a few flat out told me I deserved a medal for not having gone 'postal'.

Meanwhile, all I wanted to do was be the wife, mother, neighbour, friend I knew God wanted me to be.

I've known all of life that God had no intention for me to become what it seemed everyone else wanted me to be; my dad wanted me to be an FBI agent so that I could arrest his second wife (my step-mother), my step-mother wanted me to be a thief and liar so she could pin her felonies on me (something she actually almost pulled off at least twice before I graduated from high school), my siblings wanted me to be away period.

My exes wanted me to be a paycheck they could fuck but had no interest in supporting what that took-if I tried to go to school they sabotaged the effort just as they sabotaged any job I took. I guees I was supposed to be a machine who worked 9-13 hours a day and then came home and catered to their every need and whim without needing anything including a thanks or occassional Christmas/Valentine's/Mother's Day/anniversery/birthday rememberance (it really is the thought that counts-DUH!).

My children seem to have wanted me to be a silent ever-flowing ATM and nothing else, both are apparently dining out on lying through their teeth that I was a "drunken, abusive parent". I don't drink (I did get drunk on very cheap cold duck when my divorce was final, my son was 19, guess that makes me a drunk?), and would someone please explain to me how telling my children 'no' when they wanted to play on the freeway constitutes abuse?!

When I was six years old God offered me the hope to make it through to the other side. I grabbed onto that hope and I was able to make it through to age eighteen.

It's taken until age 52 years and ten months but I've lost that hope. Oh hell, I've lost all hope.

Losing your family and losing your earning capacity will do that to you. Your sense of worth is completely tied to those two things-family and the ability to provide for them.

I lost my family because a sociopath decided that my "no" meant his permission to destroy me had just been granted by the cosmos.

My job is in jeopardy because my anger at the steer manure I see rewarded got the better of my ability to do my job well-I'm making stupid mistakes because I am so completely pissed and disheartened by the outrageous antics successfully pulled off by my co-workers.

They come in and immediately go for coffee. They spend more time 'networking' than actually working, a well known form of networking that includes name dropping, raised eyebrows, arch tones, and if those acts don't get them want they turn to arm-twisting and outright threats. Which work.

And of course they are rewarded. I can always tell when someone wants whatever work I am doing. People avoid me in the halls, cut me out of the email loop, cough and change the subject when I come in to the room. My boss begins frowning at me when he sees me, and then after a few days I am called into his office to be written up, usually for something I had no idea I was responsible for.

And it happened again this week. But this time I actually deserved it and so didn't argue or try to defend myself, not that I would have anyway as it never ends well anyway. I have given up trying.

My boss wants me gone, why bother trying anymore? He believes bullshit instead of what is really going on before his eyes, and I've lost any hope that he will see what is going on in time to save his or my job.

He is on vacation, and while he's been out there have been several successful power plays that go directly against his plans for increased and smoother production. I wonder if he has any clue that his job is probably in more jeopardy than mine is.

I'm not sure about his boss, I have a feeling his boss just wants the job done right. That was the feeling I got from the 'counseling' session I went through yesterday afternoon.

I got the feeling that he was surprised that I didn't react the way I am 99% sure he was told I would react; I really got the feeling he was surprised that I could document the mistakes I made this month and that I had been talking with my supervisor in an effort to remedy the problem. I also got the feeling that my documentation that the previous month was essentially error free came as news to him-I've suspected for three months that my supervisor has been reporting someone else's errors as mine, his reaction and the later behaviour of the someone I suspect knew her errors were being reported as mine have confirmed my suspicions.

(OH JEEZ, seven cost errors, I have caused the accounting department a bit of extra work! I hate making extra work for others-and that is why my current co-workers hate me. They spend an inordinate amount of time making extra work for others, and the current 'in' crowd have an especial grudge against me in that regard as I transferred away from them the last time my work ethics threatened their jobs.)

So. I've lost my family and I worry quite reasonably that a group of harpies who are trying to protect their paychecks are going to take the last thing I have-my job and work reputation.

Yeah, no pressure.

And, oh yeah, I know what today is. I'm not Job, I want my family back. But they don't want me. OK fine, I'd like to move on now please.

PLEASE!

2009-06-07T11:45:00.002-05:00

I gotta get over to Mozart and Gonzo's blog so they can catch people up as the furballs have seven followers!

As for me, the handyman is coming by in a couple of hours to rip out the old kitchen cabinets and install some good old fashioned farmhouse shelves over the sink. I'm hoping to get him to build a pantry over by the freezer, we'll see.

The cherry tomato seed I planted in an unused hanging pot seems to be doing nicely. Again, we'll see, but I have such hopes that I am looking into planting more container veggies. I'm even looking into planting a potato eye or two.

Both sets next door neighbours moved across the lane into bigger houses, it's much quieter without them on my side of the lane.

It's been hot up here, rainy, humid. I planted some roses and have only had to water once, same with the tomato (only one of three seeds survived, sigh). Nice change from the drought we've been enduring the last three years.

I'm still on about TEOTWAWKI happening sooner rather than later; between Peak Oil, the economic crash/crunch, and the damn flu, things have been rather doomish since September '08.

I wonder if my former classmates think about me as they are laid off despite their bright and shiny 2004 UoP business degrees-my thesis was titled "The New Working Poor-Priced Out Of Life" and most of them laughed tao at me for thinking there was a PTB war on the middle class.

Of course time has proven me right, Thursday the CountryWide exec was indicted for mortgage fraud and running a (say it with me...) Ponzi scheme-no, really???

I think about Crusty, who let himself get caught with hookers because he wanted to punish me for not letting him get one of those sub-prime loans for a beach house.

Haha, Hurricane Ivan took out his beach house.

DAMMITT the sorry bastard got an SBA loan of close to 100K to rebuild his friggin beach house-I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pissed off about that!

I'm trying to rebuild my life. Not easy. How do I explain to people that my son hates me when I don't really understand it myself? I miss him more everyday, and try to keep from going insane but frankly it is not easy.

I read the book The Road, and could not stop thinking that will be my son and my grandson.

I watched an episode of Criminal Minds featuring a pig farmer who kidnapped young people, one of the victims looked so much like my son I had to turn off the TV.

Life is harsh when you are alone. I am alone. I hate it. But I would not turn back time if it meant having to be with Crusty; I love my son, but I will not put up with the physical and emotional violence he put me through, not to mention the two paid for cars he trashed...

For now, this is as good as it gets, I guess.

2009-05-09T16:14:00.001-05:00

Yesterday my grandson turned five. I was not there.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. My son will not be here.

Hope floats.

2009-04-30T07:40:00.002-05:00

DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!

It's my blog and I can shout if I want to!

Last Friday at work I broke a tooth. No pain, but I hied myself to the dentist who took impressions (of what, the painfully jagged edges??) and told me the new guy would be ready in a week, his office would ring.

K, well, if you follow this blog (btw if you do, leave a comment, I've become convinced I am invisible) you know two important things about me-that I don't get a lot of phone calls I care about so I rarely check my voice mail, and 2, that I am worked obsessed and try to schedule appointments for the weekends. I chose my health care providers by three criteria and weekend hours was high on the priority line.

So the new tooth comes in early and the dentist's office leaves me a message which I get later than I should have. He has two appointments available, one on Thursday morning and one on Saturday.

K, so I call during a break and I get Thursday off and I am getting ready to go in when the phone rings...

Bottom line, his office will call back if they can get me in today but my first thing in the morning appointment is out because he's had an emergency case come in. And oh btw, since I chose the Thursday appointment they gave the Saturday one to someone else.

So I'm on standby for the dentist. Swell.

I never take personal days. I schedule most of my appointments for anything before/after work or on the weekends.

So I will use the time I have unexpectedly to clean house and make sure I have sickroom supplies in case this damn flu hits as hard as it looks as though it may.

Oh, I just love the 21st century! Well, maybe I do after all. They didn't have disposable vinyl gloves and isopropyl back in 1918, did they?

2009-04-19T18:52:00.003-05:00

Things change daily, but as of now I am still employed, and striving to keep it that way. My hours have been cut-I only put in 43 hours last week,lol! I was putting in 60.

I try to keep busy with the extra daylight hours I now have courtesy of the hours cut. I made a killer purse, and am about to start another; I started another scarf, and I am spending a lot of time figuring out how to make The Tin Shack more winter proof.

Re The Tin Shack winterizing, the work done last spring and summer paid off enough this past (passing?) winter for me to be inspired to do more this spring and summer. I know, I am on a tight budget and so have to look carefully for the bargains. I also have to use ingenuity and improvisation.

For example, I am redoing my exterior door frames with found materials; I made draft stoppers using trouser legs and the old bath towels I almost tossed-WHAT WAS I THINKING?? I mean those poor things were poised over the bin when I noticed the cats had dragged an old pair of slacks out of the Goodwill box. Really, what was I thinking?! I cut the legs off the pants and stuffed one of the towels into the cut leg-WOW!

The draft stoppers worked really well, so well that I dragged out the rest of the pants and made whole frame draft stoppers-yeah, my doors are a warped mess-that I stapled to the frame, which clued me in that the frames needed replacing, so I started looking for construction leftovers from a friend in the business.

This weekend I was going to get uber serious about the Goodwill boxes but my previously mentioned friend decided to drop over unannounced to see if my garage sale power mower would fire up after my abuse of it this winter-no cover, no draining, nothing. I parked it at the end of the driveway in October and beyond a daily check of it's whereabouts, didn't really think about it until early Saturday morning as I passed the kitchen window and saw Jack out there on the lawn with his helper spraying WD40 all over the cables...

By the end of Saturday afternoon my entire front yard had been spring-cleaned.

Jack mowed and I felt guilty about going back inside so I got the rake and started raking.

That led to straightening the 6x6's lining my drive (another construction left-over of Jack's) which led to trimming the privets, which led to more raking, which led to a new compost heap, which I will have to make a point of telling Jack is a compost heap because he has a nasty habit of carting off my compost heaps thinking the heap is just a heap of leaves I forgot to cart off. Hmmm, it may be time to build a real compost bin.

OK, now halfway through raking the driveway Jack finished mowing, and went over to his ex-wife's to fix her roof-they aren't really exes, they just can't live in the same house and she divorced him a few years ago. He makes a big thing out of calling her his ex with benefits. He gets Sunday dinner and the honey-do lists, laundry, a place to spend the holidays, and probably the other kinds of benefits that are really none of my business...

But after Jack left I kept working, and by the time I went in last night the yard really looked good. So good that this morning after Breakfast Club (with the previously mentioned couple who are Baptists who go to breakfast before church instead of after the way we Anglo-Catholics do) I hit the clearance rack at the Wal-Mart Garden Center.

I got a six pack of petunias ($1.75 for six) and three bare root roses (an incredible $3 each, I was thrilled). I love the clearance rack!

The petunias needed a pricey ($3.75-OUCH!) sack of Miracle Gro potting soil, but I am mollified that I was able to get enough out of the bag to plant my little cherry tomato seeds in the third of the hanging baskets I had left over from last summer.

Everything is planted. The petunias look great on the double shepherd's hook, the tomato doesn't look like anything yet. And the roses are planted along the front walk.

So, I guess I'll do the Goodwill boxes next weekend.

2009-03-15T18:21:00.002-05:00

I'll probably be offline for a while, a case of frugalalty vs spending the money to have it take over 30 minutes for McAfee to permit my computer to boot-hmmm, hard choice, right?

I plan to use the library a lot but not to go online, I don't think. So, if you want to get a message to me, you'll need to contact someone who knows f2f where and how.

To my son, this is not a drill, get outta there, and if you leave the 'tude there, you and yours are welcome here. It ain't paradise, but then what is, right?

Things are just so bad now, and it would be nice to have family around, but, well, you know. I love you son, always have.

I'm hoping we have about another year of things limping along before it gets really, really bad, once it gets really really bad then travel will be so difficult you may not be able to get here.

I was also hoping I was wrong, but we know how that turned out. Everything I said would happen did, is, or is looking clearly as though it is about to, so if you're coming now would be the best time.

Your birthday is in two weeks, and I wish I could be with you, I wish you wanted me there.

To the rest, fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be one hell of a bumpy ride.

I bought seeds today, hope I get to plant and then harvest them.

Take care, hope to see you on the the other side of all this.

2009-02-22T19:17:00.003-05:00

Cold and windy up here tonight. Yesterday was so beautiful I stayed out in the yard all day.

This morning I went to breakfast with one of the neighbours, then I came in and overdosed on Doom. I spent most of the day looking at bicycles that fold, and rucksacks that roll up and fit down in the bottom of the toteback that doubles as my briefcase, and reading the posts at my fav Doomer sites.

Oh jeez I have a bad feeling about all of this. The Ring of Fire is hotting up, lots of mid sized 'quakes. The New Madrid is also hotting up, lots of small ones but right on the line.

The weather is so unpredictable I don't bother much anymore. I want to grow tomatoes and a few other veggies this spring, and I think instead of starting seeds I am going to buy a plant when the things come available at the Feed 'N Seed down the street.

I'm making a rucksack to carry in the tote because I have lately been thinking I may have to walk home WTSHTF; I looked at folding bikes, but I think I'm going to forget that idea because the little voice in my head says the car might not survive the whatever it is that I am suddenly worried about, so I wouldn't be able to get the bike out of the trunk.

I'm going to start scouting the thrift stores for a three wheeler, used to have one but I gave it away. Stupid. WTSHTF I won't be able to get gas, either through lack of money or lack of supply chain, and the bike, especially if it isn't all shiny bright, would be a good way to get around.

I don't have enough guns, and I don't have enough ammo, and I damn sure don't have enough of the things I know I will need to survive in the post EOTWAWKI era, like a treadle sewing machine, a butter churn-hell, I don't even have what it takes to buy and keep a dairy cow. Chickens are cheap but I hate the little bastards, and besides, the coyotes would get the hens while I was out at work.

I do plan to try to keep working as long as I can, and I keep hoping we'll all figure out a way to keep this a simple Depression instead the collapse of the Western Civilization so many people are starting to realize will happen sometime in the near future.

I really hate all of this, I truly hoped that I would be wrong. Now the rest of the country is on-board, and everyone is admitting what I saw back in the eighties.

In '98 my soon to be ex, already bent because I wouldn't let him get us into a subprime mortgage, was further incensed when I wouldn't let him have Fox's tuition money to invest in the stock market.

Oh yeah, I saw all this coming.

I just wish I were not a stranger in a strange land, on rental land, and alone. Everyone has someone-family, close friends, church, community.

I have two cats, a tilting house, and a very thin shred of optimism that is fading.

The rucksack will hold the contents of my tote, and some basic supplies like ez carry food, 1st aid, clothes, a mylar blankit, a compass, and a weapon.

Oh yeah, I just love all this EOTWAWKI stuff. Damn. Dammit.

Have you read The Road? Oh jeez, what a Doomer nightmare!

Fox, please. Please. Ed knows how to reach me, and I wish you would ask him for the number. Things are just getting too wierd, and I am really hoping yuo can find it in your heart to get you and your loved ones out of there.

Viggo Mortensen is playing the father in the movie. But while I was reading The Road I was seeing you and your son.

2009-02-07T08:38:00.003-05:00

Every now and then during the last five thousand years life has got a bit dicey.

Like now-life is so damn dicey it is positively discouraging. Not 'cash in the chips and blow this Popsicle stand' dicey/discouraging, but damn close.

My last lifetime was so sad that I came back loaded with grief, and this one hasn't been at all better, not really. At least last time I had money. I used it pretty well, too, I think, especially in those last years after the war. I gave most of it to the DPs so that my family's sacrifices would not have been in vain.

Let's see, what have I manged to do that the friggin Nazis kept me from doing last time?

I managed to find (only with God's help) Johnny, who turned out not to have changed much-still a self-righteous and prideful git who walked out on me on our honeymoon and later worsened everything by dropping out of med school shortly before graduation-HUH?? He gave it up to be an actor-WOT??!@!

We married in June of '39-deliciously happy although we knew TSwasabouttoHTF; Johnny, Eric, Richard and the rest of the lads I'd grown up with had gone to Spain for a bit. They came back thoroughly frightened, hiding it well, I thought, but fully aware that things were afoot that boded great unwell for all.

They busied themselves between wedding plans with preparations for the coming War. They seemed seriously silly, making rules about our actions while they were Away At War...

We married June '39 and the Nazis invaded Poland on 1st September. The lads were called up on the 3rd. Oh Johnny, OH!

I was forbidden to join the Wrens. The most they would permit me to do was roll bandages and knit socks. Oh big woo, and the Red Cross asked me to please fund the knitting, but give the needles to someone who actually knew how to use knitting needles to produce something functional.

As a group, we managed to make it 'till '42, then Nigel and Julien were killed in Africa of all places, at a place called Al Et something or other. I know for a fact both came back almost immediately.

We married in June of '39 and in September the Germans invaded Poland.

The last time I saw Johnny was 5th June 1944. A Panzer division took him and some of his men out on D+2. Somewhere near Cherbourg.

I lost the baby, our son, the boy we owed a good life with parents who loved him and were there for him in a modern world that eschewed horrors like fostering out sons and daughters to maintain alliances and peace. Well, in this life, I managed to meet Johnny, become pregnant on our short honeymoon, carry the baby to term and deliver. Our son hates me. That turned out real well, huh?

Richard died on the bridge around noon on D-Day. I think I miss him the most. He was my best friend, we had a joke-"Call me Al, and I'll call you Betty. Consider me your personal and forever body guard." I almost fell over when Paul Simon sang that and it was the only album I bought that year and I was thrilled when it won the Grammy.

(Of all of us I think Nigel and Richard fared the best this time around. Nigel died of lung cancer just after 911; Richard is still out there working in personal protection. He hasn't married-life is so sad, his fiance outlived him in that life and he outlived her in this one. It's not fair, really. But Nigel had a life so complete that when he died his only concern was for me, and Richard says he's happy and he really means it. It worries me that he is alone, though, like me, and I hope that he will come Home one day and let me care for him-he says he is seriously considering it.)

Eric went down with his plane on 21st December, 1944.

This lifetime Eric and I were reunited with our older brother from several previous lifetimes except the last; both of my brothers turned out to be the same total gits they have always been.

Harry hurt me so badly at a time I needed him most that I stopped talking to him ten years ago, and Brother #2 Ian is an actor. Aaaaaaaccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk since he acts in total C flickers that have absolutely no redeeming qualities while managing to be loaded with completely gratuitous sex scenes straight out of cheap bodice rippers written by college drop-outs on Xanex. I haven't spoken to him in years, either.

(BTW, pinhead, if you are by some insane chance reading this, F U, and if you think I've forgot the way you acted at Grant Street Dance Hall you can F yerself, 'cuz once I realised what I was remembering, that was and still is the SECOND most painful memory, the first being what your worthless BFF did.

Lemme tell ya about brother #2. Last life time he died in his Spitfire over Belgium, a true British war hero. OK, I knew he was a git, most everyone did, but hey he was M'Lord, and as M'Lords go was actually pretty good to the folks just the way Uncle Ian taught him to be back in the day. His Git'ness got away with a lot just by pretending to be a swell guy. At his memorial every one in the village and those who came up from London said the same wonderful things. So the pitiful few of us that were left in '45 kept our mouths shut. If I'd known what an ass he would become in this life I would howled the truth from the nearest rooftop-my dear brother was a total git who never intended to be a hero so much as he wanted the bloody scarf that would earn him the momentary devotion of the nearest socially acceptable female. My dear lamented brother died chasing the scarf.

OK, where was I? Oh yeah, personal assessment.

I died in '49 of the consumption. I caught it from a DP child. After the war Richard's fiance and I devoted ourselves to trying to make our losses mean something better than the simple futility of it all. We thought if we kept to the ideals most of the lads went Away with that we would be able to make the deaths less worthless.

But the rationing was still going strong, right up to the moment I died. The consumption was a true vampire and the rationing made recovery for someone like me impossible-weakened from grief and mild physical deprivation I wasted away before her eyes. She could be imperious, and I nicknamed her Duchess for her sure determination that her will would prevail.

She stayed with me to the end, faithful friend, nurse, my BFF, and when she died this time so very F'ing too young, Richard and I were destroyed. Completely destroyed. She was and always has been the epitome of all that is good about Life, and the world is certainly a bleaker place without her.

For me, in this lifetime, it all came tumbling down in 2003. That was the year I found out Johnny had remarried, had another child, and I realised the right thing to do was let it go, and get on with my life.

My husband has got on with his. Crusty has got away with unspeakable evil. My son hates me, and so does my daughter. My job is a total dead-end.

I came back for my family, and they don't want me. Now what?

2009-01-24T09:25:00.002-05:00

I am a serious 'holic':

workaholic
newsaholic
weatheraholic
forumaholic

Please make note of my reluctance to call myself a work/news/weather junkie. Eeeeew, who wants to be known as a junkie?? 'Holic is much more socially acceptable.

Yesterday afternoon my workaholism was officially placed into involuntary rehab-although I am the quintessential Employers dream-salaried-the so-called youngr&wisr PTB (Powers That Be) cut me off.

No longer will I be permitted to come in at 0600 and work until 1800 or 1900; no, I must cool my heels until my newly assigned assistant drags in at 0730. When she lunches from 1200 to 1230, I must also, and when she departs at 1600 so must I. And with only rare exceptions, weekends are also now OUT for time to get things done at the office.

OK, no problem, maybe I can find a second job. I'm thinking maybe laundry and housekeeping work that has been sorely delayed around The Tin Shack, LOL.

RighteeO, now I get to feed my other 'holisms, namely news and weather. YIPPEE!

Once upon a time I favoured (heavily) CNN for must-have-news. But ya know, MSNBC has really done magnificent things with their site, and I am now clicking on that link first thing after the "Jeez How Much Longer Is This Boot-Up Gonna Take?!" permits me to avail myself of the lightening fast Internet speed of my Internet provider. I could spend all day on the MSNBC site.

With only one annoying exception. OMGosh, when are they gonna cut the Today Show death trap?? I am really bent when TTS hijacks me to the hideously slow/totally useless fluff site, but I have those r*tB*st*rds-I just snap up to the MSNBC logo and click back to reality. Hmmmm, that logo is getting smaller and harder to find...

I have two primary weather sites, TWC of course, and NOAA. 'Nuff said:)

I am trying to break my very serious forum addiction (Hello, My name is Fox's Mom and I am addicted to on-line forums), recognized when I spent at least 80% of my recent holiday (twelve days, sigh) toggling back and forth between three of my favourites. Frugality, TEOTWAWKI, and Tin Shacks.

Signs of the times, I guess, how to save money while prepping for the end of the known world in a Tin Shack. Kind of a Low-Rent Survivalism, huh?

Maybe I'll sign up for the Cat Lovers forum instead.

Have a great weekend!

2009-01-17T18:40:00.002-05:00

So far I still have a job. Dunno for how long, things are bleak all over.

Yeah, word for the day, month, hell, maybe year, is: BLEAK

I went back to work and have been there pretty much straight through, with quick/brief time-outs to run home for what amounts to a nap-quick shower-change clothes-feed cats-go back.

I thought I'd discovered the perfect quick lunch/snack in low-sodium Ritz Cracker & peanut butter sandwiches until I read the MSNBC news post that the FDA is advising people not to eat peanut butter until they figure out how widespread the salmonella contamination is.

Figures.

Life is rough and becoming more so. I'm finding it quite difficult not to want to shred Crusty for everything he did to ensure that Fox and me would have a terrible time in the coming onslaught, the one I warned him was coming back in '98 and he was furious with me for keeping him out of a sub-prime mortgage and investing the retirement fund in the stock market.

I try very hard not to think about it, but frankly, times like this, when I am sitting here in a near freezing tin shack clinging to the side of a North Georgia mountainside, well, it is damn near impossible.

We were in good financial shape-if he'd been a real man Fox and I would have been OK after the divorce, but of course, a real man wouldn't have needed to use threats of physical violence against me and Fox to keep me from grabbing the kid and running. A real man would have listened before Fox was a glimmer in his father's eye when I said-"No, you're getting too serious, I don't want to marry you, or even date you; a real man would not have pointed a loaded .41 mag to keep me from leaving, and a real man would not have needed a Q'Lude to drug me into bed, but there you go, Crusty was not, is not, and never will be, a real man.

He used to try to say he was a bad machine, a mad dog. Right. Not a viable excuse.

IT IS COLD! My toes are encased in tights, thick socks, AND fake-fur lined boots, yet are still cold.

Last night I huddled on the bed under several blankets while the radiator struggled to keep the house at 50F-oh yeah, thanks ever so, Crusty, you rat s*it bast*rd, where ever you are.

PS, you dirtball-I'm still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay happier sitting here worrying about my job-rent-car-Fox than I ever was married to you!

Ain't life grand?

2009-01-04T20:34:00.002-05:00

Well, holiday over. I am back to work in the morning-if the job is still there, sheesh!

The news from anywhere is pretty bad. Not much of anything coming up, well, optimistic. So considering everything, I am more than a little worried about my job being there for me in the morning, and I worry like this every night as I try to drift into sleep.

Friday night I had the "Oh hell, what do I do if I lose my job" middle of the night shakes so badly I didn't fall asleep until 0400.

All the positive self talk in the world is not helping (blah, blah, blah, yadda, yaddah...).

Knowing I am one of millions worried does not help one whit because this little bit of misery is vehemently opposed to loving company-"G'WAN, Gid'oudda'here!" I'm just not into feeling better seeing others suffer.

So, we'll see. Obviously, I was unable to find other work over my first holiday in nearly three years. I don't really want to because I like my work but holy moly do I have say that with this economy even if I hated my job I would do everything I could to hang on to it.

Happy New Year, here's hoping 2009 turns out to be fine.

2008-12-29T19:36:00.003-05:00

Early into November I hit "SUBMIT" on my personal web page of our company's HR site-it's how we request time off. Not even a full second later the whole building shut down and my co-workers joked as we stood outside during the subsequent evacuation drill that by actually hitting "SUBMIT" for the first holiday time I'd requested since April 2006 I'd crashed the system.

My holiday began just after 6pm on Tuesday the 23rd of December; follows my account of it so far...

I rejoined the human race a few hours ago; whew, it's been a long road home! Actually I've been working on the return for a bit but it became quite a serious effort two weeks into the month of November.

Regular readers will recall the post wherein I confessed I'd been, been, been-damn, what does one call it when one's fiance wakes up with frostbite and calls from an ocean away to say "Er, um, ah, well, you see..."

(Was it my recently enlarged crooked smile Sam, the one you said warmed your heart, that turned your booked tickets into someone else's? Sorry for that, you can be a bit of a snob, but not that much. 'Sides, you and I agreed you would spring for my dental work in lieu of a wedding present, didn't you? Or was that meant as a joke, too?)

I've not been outside the house since Christmas Eve, which was to have been my wedding day oddly enough. I'd not bathed, or tidied, or done much of anything besides drift from couch to computer to freezer for something edible and nukeable until yesterday afternoon when I finally could smell myself and forced myself into the shower.

A few hours ago it occurred to me the reason my mouth felt nasty was because I'd not brushed since Christmas Eve so I did that.

A well intentioned friend, knowing that I work more than anything else, sent a Honeymoon Basket to my office, scheduled to arrive Tuesday afternoon to ensure its inclusion on the honeymoon.

I took it home with me Tuesday night telling my co-workers and my little supervisor that I was going to eat my self into a stupor and thereby miss the actual having to live through what should have been my wedding day (and night, let's not forget that, hmmm?)

I finally opened it Wednesday afternoon upon my return from an insane little outing to the grocery during which I put the most completely stupid items into my cart and therefore ended up back at The Tin Shack with a bottle of Merlot of all things. The Kroger house brand, fer crying out loud-try as I might I could not find a French wine on the shelf, and I wasted a hell of a lotta minutes searching the wine section of my LOCAL supermarket for one like the bottle I found at Bruno's of Dothan Christmas 2003, dammit, which actually managed to be the bottle drained to the bottom at the home of my son's then fiancee (who just happened to have been born and raised in France, so they woulda known a crummy bottle, ya think?)

I also ended up with a bag of Kroger Cheesy Rolls, second on my 'comfort food' list, which I discovered to be chock full of little pepperoni slices, so I had to throw the bag out. I don't eat pork even when it is mixed with beef. Yes, it's partly religious (God said "Don't eat this meat" and I'm gonna argue with God?) and partly that stupid little (and I do mean little) heart thingy I have going on that requires me to keep my total sodium intake at or below 1500 mg a day.

So I've been watching TV, eating a bit, not drinking-bottle's still corked, sleeping A LOT, and generally keeping my heartbroken little self away from the rest of the human race in an effort to not spread my un-cheer.

I've seen just about every Christmas movie available to someone who hangs onto cable access by the barest fingernails, and the infomercials one can see at 0300 are truly dangerous if one has a functioning credit card left these days.

Luckily I don't so I am fairly safe, although a coupla products were interesting enough to tempt me very briefly to throw on some deodorant/clothes I am willing to be seen in public wearing and run down to Walgreen's for a prepaid credit card.

Luckily the temptation passed very quickly. Something about bathing, brushing, dressing that had no appeal for me, or was at least too much to be worth whatever gimcrackery it was that momentarily caught my interest.

That November day that I hit "SUBMIT" I'd realized how unlovable I've become, how pathetic, how stereotypically 'crazy cat lady', how completely unfun, how (to quote someone Crusty sicked on me back in '94) boring.

I decided I am in need of an intense period of self-evaluation, introspection, and maybe even a little self delivered head smacking.

The past six days have been interesting-I actually thought I would be in a fever of home improvement and other projects but I've, as previously noted, been indulging in nothing more than aimless Webbing and TV watching.

To my credit I did start a new blog called "YOUR ARMS REACH" (found at http://yourarmsreach.blogspot.com/ to encourage my fellow Man to save the world one neighbour at a time, and frankly I am hoping it is a movement that will take off in the New Year.

So, I guess I'm not all that messed up after all, and the six days of aimless Internet and TV have been more productive than I want to admit. More interesting, I've only need my sinus meds twice a day as opposed to the four I need during the work week.

Even more interesting, I've decided I'm not so much boring as I am bored with a meaningless life-not that I ever chose a meaningless life in the first place, but when you lose everyone you care about, and you lose your home, and you lose your faith in just about most of your fellow man, and you lose interest in just about everything no matter how damn hard you try to make your self get interested, well, you become bored.

Funny that. As I type that I am undeniably bored I can hear Sam I Am telling me only stupid people get bored. He was right, you know, but in a way, he was wrong, it is possible for an intelligent, funny, interesting person to become bored-it happens when everything that makes life interesting and therefore not boring is drained out of your life.

God, help me, I am going to try to become interested in living again. It's just that home and family including a husband with couth were all that I wanted out of life, and I lost them, didn't I?

BTW, I tossed the Honeymoon Basket. Most of the stuff in it was made by companies that use Chinese food products, and I have a personal rule about eating melamine. It's DON'T.

2008-12-27T13:57:00.003-05:00

A 2009 CHALLENGE-ARMS REACH

I participate in several forums online; last night on one of my favourites a fellow poster took exception to my suggestion that we start working on next Christmas by filling a shoebox or two a month for a child in our own town first instead of one in another country. Her response included the "I've travelled in other countries and seen the poverty there is far worse than here" line that truly angered and dismayed me. Follows my reply.

"Yes, I've lived outside the US also.

Among other countries I've lived in, I lived in Guatemala during the last years of the civil war and was horrified at the poverty there-it existed openly amidst great wealth in the hands of an increasingly small and ever more powerful upper class. I also witnessed the beginning of the end of the middle class there and was equally horrified to see the same begin in the US when I returned in late '96.

I have seen neighbours here in the American South quietly die of untreated dental, heart, and other disease due to lack of health care-people who had 50K+ salaries and good insurance until they were downsized at an age that made them almost unhirable; I've seen neighbours make their life savings last and last until finally the money ran out and their utilities were cut off and they died of hypothermia-right here in America.

I've seen mothers prostituting themselves to feed their children and to keep a roof over their heads-yes, right here in America-after a bad divorce left them with nothing.

I've seen parents abandon their children because they could not feed clothe or house them after losing jobs that paid barely enough to bare minimum care for their families but not enough to put so much as a dollar aside because that dollar went for day old bakery bread so the stomach would be fooled into thinking it was momentarily filled.

I've seen neighbours kill themselves after their retirement fund was 'devalued' and they found out their supposed home equity was gone now that their property value dropped to a quarter of what they paid while their taxes stayed the same or were even raised.

Having lived on the Gulf Coast, I've seen people who worked hard every day of their life lose everything including family members in savage storms that came back again and again-some of those people are still in tents or FEMA trailers.

I've seen, with my own eyes, Third-World conditions right here in the USA since my return from Central America, and those little pockets of despair are growing-right here in the US.

As a contributor to OXFAM and Doctors Without Borders, I thank-you for your contributions to global need; as a fellow world traveller and an American I ask you to look around your country and your town and see if you can do more within arms reach to prevent the horrors we've seen elsewhere from happening here.

I don't know how many people read this blog, until now it hasn't been important to me except that the hope has always floated that one day my son would post a comment and I would know that perhaps he doesn't hate me anymore.

But now I care, very much, and I am asking that if you have for some reason chanced upon this blog, or you are a regular reader (comment poster or not:), that you would join me in this challenge for 2009.

ARMS REACH can change the world one person at a time-your world, my world, everyone's world.

Reach out only as far as your arms can reach to touch one person and you will have touched the entire world. In a time of once unimaginable evil ("Santa Massacre Leaves 10 Dead" Fox News; "Sex Slavery and Child Exploitation Thriving In America" MSNBC; "2nd Playground Beating Child Dies" CNN) we still have the choice if our arms reach will be for positive or negative.

Anonymously adopt a school child-supply the rest of this years school supplies and decent clothing; pay for a high schooler to participate in a sport or arts activity-schools have to charge for that now and many teens have been priced out of the very thing that could have a profound impact on their life direction.

Figure out a way to have a profoundly positive impact on your community and post it here so that your idea can be shared, can be spread to other communities. Crochet or sew for babies, sick kids, healthy kids with no grannies; teach a child to make things; find someone in the grocery whose cart is filled with the bargain foods and whose face is pinched with worry-drop an envelope with twenty (or ten, or five) dollars inside and with the instruction to "Pay it forward someday" printed on the front into the cart when they aren't looking.

I believe in this country. I believe our citizens can save the world. I believe that salvation begins within arms reach.

"Save only one life and you will have saved the world."

Join me. Let's do this thing!

2008-12-24T07:24:00.002-05:00

Christmas Eve 2008.

I left work last night around six-for the first time in a very long time I didn't pay attention to the time. I didn't because I was bone weary, ready to start my first holiday in nearly three years, and honestly a little pissed off at the kid who thinks he is my supervisor.

As I will be out until the 5th of January, I had to do my end of year evaluation before I left.

The first time I did one of these I was excited and looking forward to a real one on one with my supervisor, and I was not disappointed.

Since then the process has been an ego-driven exercize in futility. Pencil whipped by some, and used as revenge by others, the evaluation process is one of the worst aspects of my job.

Up for another promotion, I needed a fair and honest evaluation. What I got was an obvious attempt on the part of Pinhead Boy to derail my promotion.

Too bad he blew it. Sigh. I wonder which one of us will have a functioning badge on the 2nd. I am only slightly tempted to pop over and check on the 2nd as I am hoping to be finishing off some much needed home improvement projects on that morning. It will be interesting, though, to see if I get called in over my much needed and anticipated holiday.

I don't suffer from the vanity that I am indispensable but I am an adult who has had some experience and I know that the potential for disaster looms large for Pinhead Boy. He is blissfully ignorant of his danger.

I highly doubt he will call for help-he is rather thick and thinks he is going to be able to justify firing me while The Boss and I are both gone at the same time. He is like a teen-ager who is rubbing his hands in glee that Mom and Dad are going off and leaving him alone with all the grown-up goodies.

I intend to spend a bit of quality time with my evaluation-line by miserable line and then I am going to find out how to lodge a protest that will not be dismissed as sour-grapes. I wish I had enough money to leave my job and open my own business. I know just what I would do, and I am damn good at it. I am tired of working (like most others) for idiots.

I could love my work if not for idiots.

Well, we'll see how it goes while The Boss and I are off. I'm pretty sure the collapse is going to be monumental, and I am most sincerely hoping it doesn't affect our clients because I really do love my job.

I'm not completely stupid and intend to find a job offer I can't refuse over the next ten days. Gods, wouldn't it be novel to have A Real Job? One where I could actually do my work without having to go around total idiots who refuse to recognize their own faults and then make the needed changes so that he/she could guide me to complete work success?

Happy Christmas, I'm off to see if I won the lottery:)

2008-12-21T09:51:00.002-05:00

At 2145 hours on the 21st of December 1985, my father died.

Well-intentioned comfort is offered: "Time Heals" "It's a blessing, he is no longer suffering"

Bah, humbug!

My Pop wanted to live no matter the difficulty; in the 23 years since he died I've missed him more with each passing day.

Mind, he was no plaster saint-he had some serious faults and failures in his life. He did, though, unflinchingly face my brother and me before he died and took complete responsibility for those of his failures that profoundly impacted Harry and me.

Of course there was a need for all of us to find forgiveness towards Pop, and I have come to believe that I am the one of all the children who was most able to find that forgiveness, I who was the most profoundly impacted.

My father perpetuated the lie that his second wife was my birth mother-a hideous lie that caused me to long for death rather than go on as her child. We called her Alice Capone and the day I discovered the truth was the happiest of my life. My father called her Dirty Dort and he had many reasons for giving her that nickname. She was truly the awful wicked stepmother and why he kept up the lie until he died is beyond me. But at least he told the truth with his dying breath-frankly a drama I could have done without, but oh well, at least the truth came out.

Harry and I got to the hospital at the same time that afternoon, each having thought the other had the day shift. Instead the Guatemalan man Pop had hired years before as his valet had faithfully stayed with Pop until one of us arrived. He told us he'd not called us because he knew how tired we were from the constant vigil at Pop's bedside since our adopted cousin had taken Pop to hospital Thanksgiving night.

Typical of the old man, after we'd cleared off Thanksgiving night he'd sent his valet home, and had then promptly gone into respiratory distress bad enough to force the understanding another hated hospital stay loomed. He waited until close to midnight then rang our adopted cousin instead of us because he didn't want us to be the ones who checked him in. The prednisone and theophylan were causing some mental confusion and he'd told us in a moment of lucidity just before his death that he hadn't wanted to take the chance that his confusion would cause him to blame us as the bad guys who'd dumped him in hospital-how John felt about that one I'll never know because we stopped talking after the funeral and never made it up before he was killed on 9/11.

Pop's doctor stopped us in the hallway to give us good news. He would come off the heart & lung support in the morning, and if all went well we would be able to take him home Christmas Eve!

Jubilant, we went into the CICU room Pop was in, and then totally ignored the last actual words our father communicated to us-"Turn back on the air!"

Intubated and tied down to prevent another tube pulling incident, he asked for paper and pen. A burly nurse held his arm down at the elbow, and Pop scratched out his last words.

The burly nurse gently reminded Pop he was confused (which Pop did not take well) and the air was still on. Furious, my feisty little father shooed us off to have dinner, and while we were gone, he died.

The fury and lucidity in his eyes were complete, I'd not seen my Pop that fully 'here' for nearly a month. I knew something was terribly wrong; he knew I knew and tried to support my momentary assertiveness against my idiot brother and his supremely idiotic wife but with the nurse supporting them, they won, and we allowed ourselves to be shooed out.

I've often wondered if Pop checked out mostly because he couldn't stand the thought of spending the warm months at my brother's in company of the total pinhead wife.

We left the hospital and made our way to the church on Olivera Street, the closest one to the hospital. We gave thanks and then went to dinner at one of the nicest Mexican restaurants on the street. Reservations are required, but the maitre'd took one look at us and made a gracious concession.

We were seated at a lovely table, and tried to enjoy the mariachi music, and then the flamenco dancing. Unfortunately during the premier act our father died.

The three of us were in a jubilant mood until 2145 when we all looked up for the air conditioning vent to see if we were under it as we'd all been suddenly struck with a cold chill.

We looked at each other and I looked at my watch "9:45 pm" I said. Nothing more was said, but we all knew our father had died. We grimly tried to force down our meal, just arrived, and the attentions of the staff who for some reason were paying us particular attention.

I sensed their awareness something was wrong, and I knew they thought they had somehow disappointed us. I finally stepped away from the table and went to the maitre'd, telling him our father had just died in hospital. The flamenco dancers immediately stopped their performance, the mariachi began to play mournful music, and the staff put a sort of barrier around our table by positioning serving carts between us and the other diners as we tried to finish our meal and depart without creating a further stir.

We paid the bill, and then stopped at every cantina between the restaurant and hospital. The return journey took us until 0300; at every one of the cantinas the barkeep asked what was wrong, and I quietly informed him/her the horrid news, at which point the raucous crowd
would quiet, making their way one at a time to our table to express condolences.

My brother became more drunk, at one point causing me to wonder if I could get John out to help me control him because eventually we were going to have to go back to the hospital and claim Pop's body. At the last cantina before the hospital the barkeep sensed trouble as we came through the door and met us so close to it that I felt a breeze on my back as the door closed.

"Que es eso?" he demanded to know, trying to make it clear Anglos were not welcome in that particular little sliver of alcoholic amnesia by blocking us access to a booth a bare arm reach from the bar stools with his body and belligerent tone (not to mention the Spanish).

I elbowed my way from the back and quietly replied in my flawless Castellian accent that our father had just died in the hospital across the street. He then refused our money and the wake thrown that night in that little cantina for El Pistolas, my Pop, was everything my father could have wanted from his long and warm years of acceptance amongst the Mexican Americans of Southern California.

Finally we arrived back, and my brother was now less drunk somehow, although I could tell he was near breaking down, and I thought it best we attract less attention by not signalling we somehow knew before the doctor had a chance to inform us.

So, when we walked through the back door of the ICU unit and the nurses all turned to us with horror in their eyes, I shooed my brother and his wife right back out, telling her firmly "Get him outta here, I'll take care of this!"

The head nurse cried as she told me how hard they'd tried to bring him back-45 minutes of trying, but he'd flatlined at 2145 and never came back.

They gave me his things, called down to the morgue to bring out the body for the family to view, and sent one of the nurses to escort us to the viewing room.

It's different when one dies surrounded by loving family in a quality hospital-the family views the body lying on a warming table, covered to the chest with fresh linen and a lovely blanket different than those wretched hospital waffle weave blankets. The staff is quiet as they bring the family into the room, comfortable and well-appointed with soft chairs and couches, piped in classical music suitably constrained.

The staff expertly assess the survivors-will they need to sedate, or can they leave the family for one last bit of privacy with the loved one before the business of transporting the body to the funeral home? Then they leave if they can and the good-byes begin.

They apologized that the body wasn't warm, after an hour of trying to find us they'd gone according to instructions and had already begun the freezing. We waved them off, they left, and we stood there stunned at the sight of Pop, dead.

He looked dead, it was so clear to me at least that Pop was gone. His skin was grey under the tan, and when I laid my hand on his shoulder to steady my self as I bent down to kiss him good-bye, his shoulder was stiff and ice cold.

"We're orphans now" I thought, and we left the hospital without our Pop. I thought of my children snug in their beds down in Orange County, did they know Grandpa was gone? I thought especially of my little boy, who needed my Pop and had just lost him.

2008-12-14T18:50:00.003-05:00

I should be doing any number of things other than blogging. OH well.

So, I'm surfing my fav bar trying to remember why I bookmarked this or that site, and I click on one of the TEOTWAWKI ones, and next thing I know my toes are tingling (you know the feeling, it's the same one you get when you are standing on the roof looking over into the back yard, or on the Grand Canyon South Rim at one of the ridiculously low 'barriers' the Park Service must know are not going to keep any tourists from falling over given half a chance) and my stomach is churning.

The End Of The World As We Know It actually comes around fairly often, usually on a personal scale but occasionally on a state, national, and even global scale-ARE YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES PREPARED FOR DISASTER??

Jeez. Oh yeah, we're prepared. Whatever.

The cats have 'evac paks' and I have the route to theirs and mine mentally mapped so well that if TEOTWAWKI hits in the middle of the night I actually stand a chance of getting to the cats and our bags so that we can bug out...to where I've no clue. Oh yeah, we're prepped alright!

Every Fall I try to get a kit in the car, too, ya know, 'just in case'. My car kit usually includes a sleeping bag and food of the dehydrated kind, and some camping basics like a kwik lite BBQ, paper towels, stuff like that. Back when I had a family I tried to have more things in the car that would comfort my folks during the disaster, but since I have lost everyone I don't trouble myself overmuch-as long as the cats have kibble and I can cook something when I get tired of the beef jerky I'm good.

I grew up in earthquake country, and learned about disaster prepping early on 'cuz 'ya never know' when The Big One will hit, especially if you live close or right on top of the San Andreas fault.

And of course, growing up knowing the USSR was pretty close to dropping The Big One on us any day (Duck and cover, duck and cover) meant the obligatory nuke drills, and the also obligatory viewing of "The Day After" movie once it hit the airwaves-ensuring most sane people who were paying any attention at all were going to an uneasy sleep praying to be at Ground Zero...Personally I will never ever forget the pictures 'they' showed us tender youth of the horrors Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dealt back in '45-"That would be us, courtesy of the Reds!" intoned Mr. Box, our eighth grade history teacher. (Wonder how he felt when Detente happened?)

Still, 9/11 was The Day The Earth Stood Still for most of us, even though most of us had gone through the terrible assassinations of Kennedy and King and Kennedy-TEOTWAWKI moments to be sure.

And of course, if you lived in Florida for Hurricane Andrew (which we did), that was truly a TEOTWAWKI experience, because most of us (up till then) thought we would all dodge That Big One at least in our lifetime, although of course we prepped-plywood across the windows, bottled water, etc.

Driving north out of the state for good a few months later I wanted to shout across the median at all those people heading south into the state "Get out while you can!" and I felt pretty guilty about how lucky I was to be getting the hell outta that particular Dodge.

I managed to be in Central America (during a civil war no less) when Opal wiped out the power in our SouthEast Alabama homestead town for two weeks-the neighbours told us via snail mail that the tornado came up our driveway but then turned at the last minute into the pasture instead of taking out our little place of the Redneck American dream (a tin shack we'd remodeled and owned outright).

Whew-forehead wiping time, or so I thought when we returned in August of '96; the boy and I had missed not one but two more silver bullets by postponing our first and then second flights-one of which crashed into the Everglades, and the other in Mexico (never told Fox we'd been scheduled for that Mexican flight, matter of fact, I may not have told him about the one that crashed in the Everglades we'd booked for, either).

Who knew we'd survived Andrew, Opal, the war, and two plane crashes only to have TEOTWAWKI occur courtesy of Crusty? And man, did that one pack a wallop.

Disaster strikes no matter where you are; no matter how well you think you are prepared, you are frankly fer shure gonna have forgot something for the evac pak.

Maybe it's time to invest in one of those fanny evac paks, ya know, just in case...

Um, yeah, I feel much better now, umhum.

2008-12-04T17:29:00.003-05:00

I've joined the 21st century. I have VOIP.

I gave up a home phone the day before 9/11/2001. Who knew the world would be shaken to its core the very next day?

I went out to Cell One and got a prepaid phone 9/10/2001 because I'd finally managed to get the house phone shut off. I had to stop paying the bill, and our credit with them was so good it was four months of non-payment before the phone company got the message.

I'd had to resort to such foolishness because the rat bastard Crusty refused to transfer the line into my name, or even have it shut off-I've finally figured out he had serious control issues.

I've lived happily with simple cell service for over seven years; I had a phone in the apartment when I was a storage facility resident manager but used it only for the business. I used the cell phone for everything.

But Monday afternoon my cable/Internet provider called and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Tuesday after work found me shopping cheap telephones at the local Wally; Wednesday after work found me puzzling over the instructions for setting up the Caller ID menu; this afternoon found me leaving work early to come meet The Cable Guy.

Icy rain fell after he finished the exterior work and after about a half hour inside I was back on the road to Walgreen's for batteries to power the Caller ID feature on my new phone.

So. I have a house line again, and not just the local Ma Bell for me, oh no, it's VOIP. I wonder how long I will wait to make a call-I haven't anyone to call just now so the new telephone will sit in all its um, modern splendor, until I have need to make a call.

Feels strange to know there is a phone in the house. I have to get used to the idea.

The cats are unconcerned; I'd changed my cell phone ring to one more like a 'real' phone so they are used to the sound of a phone ringing. But I wonder what they will do if it ever rings while I am out.

I wonder if I will know what to do if it rings.

2008-11-26T18:28:00.003-05:00

All downhill from here. It hurts, ya know?

Once upon a time, long ago, and far away, I was eloquent. Articulate. I had friends, and friends had me.

I had a son who was everything to me and the years during which I lost him stripped away everything from me-hope, faith and of course, love.

"What do you want to be when you grow up Bianca?" Asked the one person in flesh I knew with all my heart loved me completely.

"A granny!" I declared, and my one true love whom I called Sam after the book he read to me to make me stop being contrary (Green Eggs and Ham "Would I could I, Sam I Am?"), replied with all the solemn wisdom of a boy two or three years older than me.

"You have to be a mummy first, I think, you can't be a granny unless you are a mummy first."

I was of course horrified at the thought of my one and only cherished dream tied to a period of lurching about in trailing wrappings, having just watched the Boris Karloff version of "The Mummy". Almost as horrified as Sam I Am was when I told him in a fit of three or four year old love that when I grew up I was going to marry him.

Alas, Sam I Am lived primarily in southern Wales. Grew up there, all the while romancing me with The Beatles, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Credence Clearwater Revival, The Beach Boys, and later Jethro Tull and Led Zeplin. Sam I Am has the greatest taste in books and music.

("Those were the days/my friends/we thought they'd never end/we'd sing and dance/forever and a day...")

I thought he would show up one day and stay forever, no more leaving, no more good-byes 'til next time. No more jet aeroplanes and laughing rows over pronunciations of aluminum and aeroplane-"Dear God Sunnie, you're British, how can you not speak King's English?? Now, say it after me-Al - lu - min - i - um..."

"Aluminiminum..."

Sigh.

All the while knowing in my heart that Sam I Am was not the man God ordained for me at the dawn of time, but oh please God, can't you change your mind?? I trusted Sam like I've never in this or any life trusted anyone.

Mr. Do-The-Right-Thing, which explains his childhood horror at the thought of marrying someone God meant for someone else, and never ever to know that decency endeared him all the more to me.

Ah, temptation, and Sam I Am dedicated songs to me over my local radio using up his precious hard earned pounds, then would go silent for weeks, then pop up out of no-where to tell me he just had a feeling I needed him, which I did.

"Mr Postman, wait and see if you've a letter, a letter for me" I waited for the postcards and the blue airmail envelopes, the messages from Sam I Am when he gave in; I never stopped listening to the radio on the chance that Sam had given in and stood patiently feeding coins into the phone box gulping mouth.

Fourteen and smart enough to ask me for the phone number and call sign of my favourite radio station (KEZY Anaheim!), then call so that I and anyone else listening would know that a boy in southern Wales, GB, cared enough about ME to ring the station. My first and last name unusual enough that when he called (and his calls were timed to ensure the largest audience to our local pop station) there could be no doubt who was the intended-it made my day, my night, my week, my life.

We would have children who would love me because he loved me, would respect me because he did, would honour me because he did, who would believe in me because he did-he would be my partner and we would raise a strong, united family.

He changed his mind, went to college over there instead of over here. My step-mother stole my college fund, and I joined the Coast Guard.

Angry, I married a total jerk I met while on active duty; Sam I Am graduated from college and went on to med school.

I divorced the jerk and tried to get on with my life; Sam I Am finished his residency, became a surgeon.

I met the guy God ordained for me at the dawn of time-oddly enough also from Wales, and headed for med school, Sam I Am stayed out of the way while I lost the man God ordained for me at the dawn of time; I married another jerk whom I divorced in September 1998, then came back saying "I can't go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands!"

Back and forth, off and on, we long distance (and all too rarely up close and semi-personal) tried again. For several years. Finally he asked me to decide (like I hadn't already!), and I said "Yes, Please!"

He said he'd try to talk to Fox, we'd be a family, he'd be a good step-father to Fox, and we would all live happily ever after.

For the first time in nearly ten years I let myself hope and believe, maybe a little. I kept it to myself, mostly, telling a few people at work, but keeping out of the blogs because frankly I just had a feeling that writing about it in online would jinx it.

Silly me.

Sam I Am's cold feet got so cold he has frostbite.

Fox still hates me, and I forgot to thaw the little turkey breast I got because ya know, Thursday 27th November 2008 is just another day.

Like 25th December will be.

Like the rest of my life will be.

I've known since October 28th, the day I was supposed to pick Sam I Am up at the airport.

Keeping it out of the blogs didn't protect it one damn bit.

2008-11-25T18:47:00.002-05:00

I. Am. Not. Doing. Well.

Today it was once again proved to me by my co-workers that I should just STFU.

We lost two 'team members' yesterday and our work load is increased tremendously. Everyone is in a spin that would make the Taz proud, and they finally managed to totally, completely, fully piss me off.

I became very very quiet. I intend to stay that way. In part to preserve my job (at least through this wretched -welcome to my world all you fellow New Working Poor-economic downturn) and in part to preserve what very little is left of my sanity.

However, I have this DEEP need to exact some kind of revenge-a sure sign to any one left who cares enough to know me that I am really in danger of walking away from this bunch of loonies.

I could rant on incoherently, but to what avail, ergo what's the point? I am so everlastingly and utterly burned out on my opinion/judgement/feedback/information being sought only to have it totally ignored, worse, derided and contradicted.

And three days later when I'm proved right told I should have been more assertive, or told, well, "uh, I needed to hear it from someone else."

So when today the child who thinks he is smarter than everyone (and was recently caught ignoring our boss in favour of the wonky Accounting 'team') deigned to ask me a question in an email, I answered, and oh yeah, hit 'reply to all' and that he shouldn't believe me but check my facts. I added a smile, do I get points?

Wonder if my badge will work in the morning.

Nothing got logged, nothing was done the way we should have done it including all of the stuff that should go into the shredder but went into the trash because I was being a prima dona according to the resident PITA and they didn't used to have to do all that...

Yeah, I do wonder if my badge will work in the morning, and I hate myself that I care and am tempted (but not enough to get in the car and go back there to clean up after all the real prima donas) to get in the car and go back there to clean up after all the real prima donas.

Oh God I miss my son, I miss having a real life, and I am pretty pissed that those little shites got me again-I should have just gritted my teeth and put up with their stupidity because I'm right and they know it and the real reason they were such PITAs today is that they know they were wrong.

I hate that I care, did I say that already?

The rebellion started last night when:

One of the two caught doing stupid stuff decided that she would contradict my instructions to one of the temps, and then compounded this error by going around me to her partner in crime, who jumped on the bandwagon and when our mutual boss didn't catch on (because he is too busy putting out the fires caused by the caught two and their partners in crime who were walked out the door yesterday morning) and thus gave tacit approval to their antics, the rest of the 'team' joined in.

Well, I wonder if my badge will work in the morning.

2008-11-22T17:48:00.002-05:00

When does something become the last straw? How many last straws does a body have?

I've been so busy at work that I've not been online for a week, and when I got home this afternoon I decided I would boot up and check out the news.

Bad choice. I should have listened to the little voice in my head that said "Nah, not today. Google something fun; window shop the new fashioned way. Do anything but go to the news sites..."

Damn.

How does a person keep reading the news when the first headline that comes up regards a teen killing himself on webcam?

The young Floridian, a college student, posted that he'd taken a drug overdose. He trained the camera on his bed then laid down and slowly died on webcam.

Viewers were posting IM messages deriding him as a fake, or that he'd not ingested enough of the antidepressant found later in his body.

Many people watched for many hours as a young man slowly died on webcam.

Finally, after several posts that he wasn't moving-breathing, one of the viewers contacted the kid's Internet provider and asked them to contact the police.

Who came, broke down the door to the kid's room, and determined he was dead. They turned off the camera, and later the vid and comments were pulled from the website that had hosted his suicide.

wtf?

So, how many last straws does any one of us have in them before doing something like this?

How many?

2008-11-02T09:45:00.002-05:00

Whenever did Absorbine Jr manufacturers decide to put the ointment into a plastic bottle??

I've not bought it in a few years but recently realized I needed to start stocking a reliable multi-purpose antiseptic again and so yesterday tucked a carton into my hand basket. When I got home and opened the carton I was surprised to see the container is plastic.

Then I flipped the damn thing over to find the Triangle Seven-loaded with bisphenol-swell. The stuff is useless if the critics are to be believed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

If you clicked the link and read the article, you can see the critics of the product are impressive-Yalies don't like the stuff, and that's good enough for me! Check out the citations, this is not your pop-science wiki, but a very well written report on the chemical by reputable (and peer reviewed) sources.

Jeez I am so glad I bought a ton of glass bottles for my grandson-hope his mum continued to use the glass after I moved up here! Everything I've read says the worst effects come from exposure during early development.

So, back to the store goes the Absorbine Jr. I'm going to have to find something else-more than likely I shall now (instead of later) have to become a home chemist as regards medicinals. I was kinda hoping to hold off on that, I've only just now learned to make my own 'beauty' supplies.

And I'm going to have to be careful about what I buy and use for disaster prep-glad I was never much into canned goods as a suitable stock-up material.

Gods, how very damn depressing all of this is becoming; natural and man made disasters on increasing and people all over the world are so tense it seems to be it won't take much to set them off. See what turning away from an agrarian society does?

If ever there was a time for pulling the wagons into a circle, now surely feels like Time!

2008-10-26T13:32:00.002-05:00

The situation has become quite dire, and grim is not an overstatement-the government and the Wall Streeters have finally caught on. Please do not bother looking at the mainstream news media unless you already know how to search the back pages. Check out not so mainstream news media outlet-Google Drudge Report, Life after the Oil Crash; hell, Google TEOTWAWKI, that oughta cover ya.

(BTW, have you noticed that right about the time the average Joe figured out the real news is buried on page 14 on the bigger newspapers, the newspapers went online and you all of a sudden couldn't find anything worth more than bathroom paper at the local newsstands? 'Coz it's just so much easier to bury stuff online than it is on the hard copy...)

OK, Junior, it's Mom here, and I want you to know that Ed and Chris both know how to find me should you decide you want to bug your little family the hell outta there. I've got a little bit of a doomstead going on up here, and could frankly use your help getting the last few things done-the renting near neighbours have for the most part bugged out and I'm sitting here with the locals, whose children are straggling in in larger numbers every day-it hurts and simultaneously warms my heart to see them reuniting and forgetting past problems in face of the economic collapse that is probably gonna hit week after next.

Then it will get bad, really bad, son, and I hate to think of the three or four of you walking from there to here. (Your babymama knew this was coming and I hoping/praying with all my heart she is begging you to get up here...I told her years ago that I would make room for you all no matter how pissed I am, and I'm hoping that she remembers that part about no matter how pissed.)

I so very badly wanna be wrong, and who knows, I may be off by a few months (OH PLEASE GOD, PLEASE!!)but son, it is coming, and where you are living is going to be hit so hard-of that I am completely certain, and I am not alone in this. As I wrote above, everyone is catching on, and that is a good and bad thing.

Good that people are waking up, bad that real panic is probably only a few days out, and I really do not want to think about your little son out there on the road as you make your way north during a time of extreme civil unrest.

I am hoping the bailout buys us more time, but...

Forgive me for sounding like a nagging mom, but Fox, HURRY!

PS-Frye, you too if you need/want to...bring yer gear.

2008-09-30T05:25:00.002-05:00

I tell myself this cannot be happening, but it is-I have NO gasoline in my car and so cannot get to work.

I went looking on Saturday and Sunday but couldn't find gas.

I went looking on my way home from work last night but when the fuel gauge warning light came on I came home and parked.

I have enough gasoline to go perhaps three-five miles with some measure of confidence, but no more.

I live about sixty miles north of Atlanta and I am sick and tired of hearing reporters on the TV saying "Just an hour north of Atlanta gas is free flowing..." Oh steer droppings!

Last night the neighbourhood men fanned out with five gallon gas cans trying to find enough gas to get people to work but returned after two hours empty handed.

I cannot afford to miss work, no-one can. But I am going to have to call in and explain that I can't make it in this morning. I have an important meeting at 1030. I had two solid hours of prep work that could not be done ahead.

This is insane, how can we have let this happen? I knew this was coming and could do very little to prepare, living on less than 'paycheck to paycheck' since the first of the year. I've cut back, cut back, cut back, cut back, cut back-where do I cut back now?

Knowing I am not alone in this is no comfort to me at all-I hate thinking about the suffering going on right here in my little area! None of us deserve this, we didn't have ludicrous mortgages, no Hummers in my neighbourhood! No credit card debt, no loans, no zip. We paid cash or didn't buy.

So why are we in this mess right along side the selfish trash that had to have a balloon mortgage to feel 'middle class'??

This is insane! PUHLEEZE do not tell me that the gas shortage has nothing to do with the mortgage meltdown unless you are completely comfortable with the exposure of your incredible stupidity.

Oh man, this is BAD...

2008-09-28T20:22:00.002-05:00

Whew, what a weekend!

Friday night I got home to find the freezer had arrived. It was sitting in its crate on the little porch just waiting for me to drag it in the house and try to imagine what it will be like to have a real freezer sitting in my kitchen.

Visions of power failures dance through my head...

Saturday morning the handyman and I trekked down to Home Depot where we got the things I would need to finally put my kitchen back together (ahhhh, 'Adventures in Remodeling'); thanks to the freezer and its attending needs, I couldn't afford most of the things I needed. Oh well.

I am now the proud and profoundly grateful owner of a small chest freezer-between it and the food I put it in I am flat broke. But it was soooooooooo nice to be able to cook a real meal-the fridge is back in its proper place, the range is working, and the dishes are unpacked. And washed. And used tonight for a real meal, the remains of which I will put in the freezer tomorrow after work.

I've finally unpacked my kitchen. I started on it about noon yesterday and finally ran out of steam a couple of hours ago. It's been sitting in boxes and on the kitchen table for over a year, but today I finally moved in. Everything needed to be washed-pine pollen and dust. The plastics still need a good washing up but I still haven't figured out just where to put that, so I guess it's a good thing I finally gave out before I got to those items.

I walked outside after dinner tonight and looked at the kitchen light shining out onto the front yard. The porch light is a bit too strong, and I made a mental note to change it for one of the CFLs. The solar lights are working so the path was lit up and looks so pretty against the privet I've tortured into shape against their habit of billowy streamers trying to pry loose the screens.

I miss my son. I miss my grandson. These are so frightening times we are living through, and I wish my son and his family were here where the air is still fairly clean, and the humidity fairly low; where neighbours still act like neighbours.

We've got together and worked out a few things, the handyman is going to do some home improvement things for me that I can't do myself, and in return I am going to put up meals for him to microwave, everyone has agreed to be on the look-out for gasoline and fill their five gallon cans for each other if need be, another neighbour is sharing his produce with me in return for me canning some and freezing some for him. I'm doing some sewing and painting for another neighbour who is frail. People are bartering skills and wisdom all over the neighbourhood. We've teamed up and are watching the area against garden and clothesline raiders-it has been happening on the edges of the neighbourhood, and we watch out for each other's gas tanks, too.

And the President of Venezuela is making friends with The Bear. Why are so few people concerned about the Russian nuclear cruisers and gunships harboured down there, why is there no outcry about the aircraft?

I turned six during the Cuban Missile Crisis. My grandson is four, and we are having another crisis, several really.

Hard Times. God help us. Please.

2008-09-23T18:56:00.002-05:00

Jeez, does it ever get better?

We have a temp who has been listening to his new BFFs, who will drop him the minute they get what they want-me in trouble. They think they succeeded today, and it may be until tomorrow that they find out how wrong they are.

But then again, I wonder if I really even care. The only reason I keep going back there is because I am not interested in living out of a cardboard box, so I guess I care a little.

Still, how f'ng stupid are some people-and why do I always have to be the one to point out where and how these ejits are manipulating themselves into bigger trouble than they need to?

The current trip is to make our boss think no-one can work with me, when in reality they are trying to work it so that my temp-now trained and damn good at what he does-will be posted into their work area-to pick up their slack, but he doesn't know that yet.

If they get their way-and I am very tempted to let them have it-he will figure it out and it will too late for him

Oh yes, these little new BFFs are the last of the problem children, and they are using all of their little tricks that worked for them in the past.

We'll see.

On another wild hair, have you tried to get gas lately?

2008-09-21T19:51:00.001-05:00

Summer ends, Autumn begins.

I love Autmn. The many cliches, all true for me.

Yippee, FALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

2008-09-18T17:07:00.002-05:00

Thirty-one years ago this very minute, I was dying.

Eight units of blood later, I was still dying.

It took another week before the doctors who delivered my first living child pronounced me "out of the woods" and sure to be the next contestant on "Who's Gonna Get The Worst Case Of Post-Partum Blues?"

She is born and it is nearly a week before I get my first look, my first hold, of my first born living child.

By then I am pretty sure it was already too late for my daughter and me, she'd been held by her father, who was sure he was about to be a widower raising a child alone; she'd been held by Alice Capone, who showed up a day after my daughter's birth, in response to the "We really don't think she is going to make it..."

Step-Mum held court in the hospital nursery, milking the soon to be grieving mother/grandmother for all it would get her.

("Nana", how grotesque was that? To this day the only "Nana" I can bear is the dog from Peter Pan.)

Two weeks post delivery I crawled into the car with my husband, daughter, and the Steps.

Home we went, to the chilly Yerba Buena Island housing unit we got due to the new daddy's active duty service in the USCG (oh yes, stupid me, I married a guy I met while on active duty, how cliche-I really thought I had to marry him after we'd had sex)

The Steps decamped, and the husband's mother descended, and at one point I locked the baby and myself into the bedroom.

To her everlasting credit, I was the horrid one, and she was the injured victim-a sweeter soul than Eleanor I've met only once, and that one is my BFF since ninth grade.

My poor mother-in-law, and she was soooooooooo nice about how really incredibly rude I was!

Thirty-one years later I can only hope that she had a good life, still lives, and happily; the last time I heard of her was in the very early nineties when her latest daughter-in-law called to tell me she really understood why I'd divorced my first born child's father.

No, really. Cathy was too good for Tom, but that is my very biased opinion, and really, Tom was not nearly as warped & twisted as Crusty. Well, there was the time he 'accidentally' knocked me down a flight and a half of stairs when I was seven months pregnant with our first born-relatively unharmed I jumped up and ran back up the stairs grabbing his oar (Tom rowed for the University of Hawaii, he also played football for them) from the display and using it to break three or four of his ribs.

Both taken to hospital, he had to be persuaded by the SPs that it simply wasn't done to knock one's wife down the stairs and then try to have her arrested for breaking one's ribs in response.

Welcome to the World, kiddo.

She moved to Hawaii to live with her father in 1993, and today she is thiry-one years old.

2008-09-09T18:07:00.003-05:00

Happy Birthday Pop! (9 September, 1921) I miss you. Nope, you were not perfect, but you were not terrible, either.

I hope you have made the acquaintance of Blake Green, since I really believe that between the two of you passed on dads, you guys shuffled the papers on Judge Little's desk until at 09:09 on 9 September 1999, he changed my pending divorce into full on.

Hard to believe it has been nine years since that! Even more strange to remember where I was at the exact moment the papers were signed by the good judge-I was at the rest stop on the FL-AL border agreeing to be Crusty's next of kin in case something untoward happened to him as he was posted back to permanent duty in a dangerous place. Not to mention that he had the sort of habits sure to make that place even more dangerous, but it really wasn't my look-out anymore, thank-you God, Pop, and Blake Green.

I drove down to the border in my 'hoopty car' (dunno why the kid called it that, it was pretty tired and had about another unsafe 250 miles left on it's master cylinder) and Crusty met me in his brand new Lincoln Town Car.

He gave me what was left of his freezer and dry foods (which I threw out at the fireworks stand on the way back into Dothan-it make me sick to look at, and I knew Matt was still not nor ever would be hungry enough to eat it either) and then he asked me if it was OK for him to list me as his next of kin.

I agreed, and on the drive home, decided if he croaked I was going to have him cremated at a pet crematory, put his ashes in a Folger's coffee can-he drank Maxwell House-and then I was going to plant said ashes in the town cemetery encased in tons of concrete. I'd top it with a tombstone reading "Don't Go Here" and not another word-no name, date, or any thing beyond the warning to let it be.

I'm pretty sure Crusty has a different listed next-of-kin after nine years.

And Happy Birthday, California. (9 September 1850)

I think I kinda miss you, too, but not in a "Gee, I wish I were there" kinda way.

2008-09-06T04:14:00.004-05:00

Tick

Tick

Tick

Tick

Tick

Tick

Wake up to realize thirty-four years are the past...

My step-mother (who had default custody after my father moved out in '72) had by Fall of '73 moved in her boyfriend, claimed she and my father were divorced, that she had married her boyfriend, who came to the gas station I was working at and dragged me literally by the hair to the high school across town where he was a teacher. He forced me to register for my senior year, claiming that he'd adopted me and therefore had the right. I hope one day to have the time and money to have my high school diploma re-issued in my real name.

After graduation I went camping for three weeks with my boyfriend. We toured Yosemite and King's Canyon, where the flora and fauna triggered a whopping asthma attack in said boyfriend causing us to cut short our trip and start back down to Orange County.

While on the road that day we listened to the radio and so heard President Nixon resign. Having named my cat Leon Jaworski, I was hardly politically indifferent, but hearing Nixon quit his office brought me to the total awareness that I needed to grow-up and do my part. The boyfriend and I looked at each other and in that look were the words it would take us another couple of months to speak aloud-"Ciao baby, it's been real, but..."

Almost immediately after our unpacking his car my step-parents had me packing the family station wagon (a '73 Ford, go figure) for our tour of the Wine Country.

(Excuse me, even in '74, who the hell takes their 17 year old on a tour of the Wine Country?)

While on the road back to Southern California we stopped for lunch on Cannery Row, and while trying to ignore the fact that I would soon be back in a massive mobile death trap courtesy of their state of drunkenness, I watched the marine traffic through the huge plate glass windows over looking the bay.

A United States Coast Guard small boat raced out of the harbour, and in the seconds it took for that brave little vessel to clear my line of sight, I knew how I wanted to spend the rest of my life-knowing as I somehow did by then that while God proposes it is Man who disposes and I therefore needed to find a palatable way to provide for my-self.

You see, dear and gentle reader, I also knew the Wine Country Tour, the 25' Bayliner boat sitting in the side yard, the late model fully loaded Ford station wagon, both steps very fashionable wardrobes, the mortgage payments, and more, were being funded directly from my college fund...

The day after we got back I called the recruiting station up in Santa Ana. Because I was a week or so shy of eighteen the recruiter told me I had to bring a parent with me to be tested both mentally and physically, and I did have to endure the presence of the steps for those initial steps to the Rest Of My Life, but despite my near desperation to have it done I waited until the day after I turned eighteen to sign the recruiting paperwork.

The recruiter then told me to return to the station ten days later (with a small suitcase containing no more than two changes of clothing and the bare minimum of personal grooming aids) to be sworn in and leave for basic training.

SIXTH SEPTEMBER, 1974, SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA

"Raise your right hands and repeat after me..."

"...I solemnly swear to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

Tick

Tick

Tick

Tick

Tick

Tick

Wake up to find thirty-fours years are The Past

2008-09-05T19:58:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time a six year old girl went out into her father's fig orchard to ask God if it was OK for her to go into a convent and spend the rest of her life praying for His children who were hurting.

But He answered by giving her two choices, and neither was a cloistered life of continuous prayer.

He offered her life as an opera singer and showed her what her life would be like if she chose to sing on a public stage.

(The Lord knows all of his children!)

What the little girl saw was how lonely she would be in spite of the many people who came to hear her sing.

Then He showed her the second choice and that is the one she chose. She chose it because at the same moment she knew He was hoping she would chose thusly, she was awed at how perfect the second choice was for her!

I don't know why He did not show her that she would lose (if even only for a short time) all the people He meant her to be surrounded with-her beloved and loving family. Perhaps He did not show her that horrible time because he knew it was but a 'might be' and not a 'will be'.

Maybe He did not because He knew she knew that Life is after all, Life, and that sorrows come amid great joy; that she knew that she would lose some of her loved ones because that is part of Life, that some leave us for one reason or another...

I'm not Job, nor Jeremiah, nor especially Jonah. I am me, and I want my family back. I do not want to live in a cave, and I do not need to be given a time out in a whale's belly to contemplate the errors of my ways.

I am like Joshua! My house, even if only a house of One, serves the Lord!

Am I like Joseph?

Have I the strength of that great One? Joseph turned the utter horror of being betrayed by his own loved ones to God's purpose-being in the right place to help his starving family (the very brothers who sold him into slavery down in Dothan!).

Do I go ahead to prepare the way for those who hurt me so badly if they should be in need?

Forty-six years later, the little girl would still make the second choice, and spend the next forty years in hope and love for the knock at the door...

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How I have longed to gather you as the hen gathers her chicks under wing! But you would have none of it!"

Once upon a time...

2008-09-01T16:00:00.002-05:00

It ain't over yet, so nobody get too excited.

Gustav could still cause serious flooding in Louisiana and Texas; Hurricane Hanna looms and is beginning to look like a serious threat to Savannah, Georgia. Tropical Storm Ike has just been named and looks as though he might just head into the Gulf behind Gustav.

And what would be Josephine is trying her darnedest to form off Africa.

Hanna is looking like she might do more damage than Gustav has done so far, making landfall between Savannah and Charleston (as one who lives in North Georgi, I can tell you with reasonable confidence that with a Cat 2 hurricane, Savannah and Charleston are so close together that it really doesn't matter if the storm hits either one-both would feel the full fury of the storm.) likely by Thursday or Friday.

I've said so many times before that you, dear reader, must be bored to hear it again-oh well-I am a climate refuge.

I left the Gulf Coast region after Katrina but really because of Ivan, a year earlier.

What I've not mentioned is this impending sense of doom I feel, and have found many share.

The two groups of evacuees (Gustav and Hanna) will strain resources, perhaps to the breaking point. Shelter operators are now talking on CNN about the very real possibility that the two groups will meet in the middle, so to speak, as they all head the same direction-AWAY FROM THE COASTLINES-and will present a supply nightmare disaster relief providers have lately been having nightmares about.

Imagine the post apocalyptic nature of it, sheltering two groups of natural disaster evacuees. The eeriness of it is surreal to imagine really, but having indulged in many a "Disaster Flick Weekend Binge" I can tell you that you should see the movies I've seen where not one but several natural disasters threaten the very survival of Man.

And ya know what? All this feels like one of those movies, the better done ones, we're not talking "Killer Bees" here, although maybe we should...seen any honeybees lately?

I chose this area, been trying to get here for decades. Now I am here, little money for prep, no family around me to help with the prep for what more and more people are now 'getting', that climate disaster is going to very soon present most of us with very real merest survival challenges.

Yeah, I know, "Jeez, get over it, lady! It's not that bad! Jeez, what an old panic queen!"

Yeah, ask anyone who will be forever grateful to the Coastie that plucked them and their families off those roof tops three years ago, anyone with the horrific misfortune to have been in the Super Dome..."Hey, you're like over that silly little thing, right?"

So here I sit, watching the weather do things it has simply NEVER-EVER done during this and several past lives-become increasingly violent, and completely unpredictable.

(Not to mention the crazy behaviour of the general populace-this I have seen before, and it ALWAYS indicates fear and total panic due to an impending sense of doom...)

All indications here are that the coming winter is going to be harsh. Cold, very cold. Most of this past summer I have really only run the AC to keep the humidity down, it simply hasn't been all that hot. My cats are already putting on heavier under and top coats; the squirrels tails are more bushy than I have seen in years.

And for the first time in my life, I am thinking about learning to can the veggies I grow. Usually I freeze but this year...

2008-08-30T05:51:00.002-05:00

Well, it happened, I've turned fifty-two. This past week. It's been an interesting week:)

I'm playing with a full deck now, according to a fellow 52er, and as a full deck player I feel I am entitled to a whole hell of a lot of respect. I appear to be getting it, too, as work yesterday went along nicely, and that has gone a good way towards improving my mood and outlook-not that I am stupid enough to believe things will ever improve there to the point that I look forward to each new business day. I don't. I literally have to drag myself there, and the disappointment that creates is depressing to say the least.

But oh well, I seem to be getting through it and that realization is a help. Crusty wanted me to have to drag myself to work so that I would know how he felt everyday-not going to ever happen. He had me to try and help him see Life does not have to be such a flippin' tragedy-I have no living breathing optimist standing next to me, dammit, but in spite of Crusty's very best efforts, I am still willing to be optimist for myself.

Speaking of the sorry piece of East-Euro-trash Crusty, Hurricane Gustav has him set for being on the worst side of the storm when it hits. I am trying VERY hard to pray the storm falls apart before it hits the Gulf Coast, but frankly I really think it would be bloody perfect if Gustav hit Crusty, but just Crusty and his house, and just about anything he holds dear except living beings, and washes every bit out to sea. Most important, if the storm does hit Crusty (and only Crusty, please God) I pray with my whole entire heart and soul that that sorry excuse for a person DOES NOT GET ANOTHER TAX-PAYER FUNDED REBUILT BEACH SHACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot tell you, dear and gentle reader, how very outraged the notion of Crusty and his ilk using hard working tax-payer money to rebuild a house in such a disaster prone area makes me.

I mean, COME ON! If we as a people can be angry about welfare cheats, how is it that we turn and pay to rebuild the ultimate welfare cheat's follies on the beach?

Growing up in Southern California I watched in amazement as people built houses (expensive, and in clusters-a certain recipe for disaster!) along sand cliffs-excuse me, sand cliffs? WTF were they thinking?? Certainly not "I say, it certainly does not make sense to build a home along a sand cliff that has traditionally and annually crumbled during the SoCal rainy season, now does it my dear?"

And they built in arroyos-dry creek beds for those of you raised elsewhere. HUH?? DRY CREEK BEDS? There is a good reason you do not build a camp in a dry creek bed-like when it rains that dry creek bed becomes a raging mini-river waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than you could scream "OH S*IT!"

We live on a geo-physically unstable planet. Meaning-some places are nice to visit but you certainly wouldn't want to live there.

And I am certain I do not ever again want to spend my hard earned money supporting your surely drug-induced arrogance

So, if you live in a disaster prone area, I say, except for immediate humanitarian aid, you are and should be, on your damn own.

As in rebuild at your expense, not mine, you cheating idiot wanker (and oh yes, I damn sure know what that bit of vernacular means).

NO MORE FREE RIDES FER PISSANTS!!

I am a climate refugee. I did not ask my fellow Americans to support my habit of living in danger zones. I got the hell outta there, and have been working hard ever since to pay my own way. It has not been easy. I actually need some help but I am not about to ask for a free ride, and I really think a free ride is what these morons are asking for when they go back and rebuild.

Why is it different for Them-because they built ridiculously expensive beach 'McMansions' and that somehow makes helping them cover their stupidity more right than helping some poor kid who made the colossal mistake of not being born into an upper income family, so they couldn't afford college or even staggering amounts of student loan debt loads, so they had to take a low paying job, which made every day a struggle and they couldn't afford to relocate, or even pay for the gas to get the beater loaded up and outta there...

Jesus weeps.