Explaining the Need for Armor

What is this, you ask? Well, there is a story behind it. I am a walking accident waiting to happen. I fall down, I bruise myself, I cut myself, I burn myself, also sometimes say things that set people off (not meaning too - I crave peace!) - in other words, full blown clutz-ness is my lot. I would rather project an image of timeless, beautiful grace, but.....

"H" does not allow me to have sharp knives. I would be frustrated with all my knives - so dull - except, well, being an independent woman, I purchased a sharp, super sharp serrated knife, AND a super knife sharpener and went to town sharpening all my knives to razor sharp beautiful cutting tools. Yep, did it - a serrated knife cut hurts worse than a regular knife cut I believe. So "H" bought me a coat of armor - for my hand.

Grandson gets upset if I pluck my eyebrows at a stop light - he is sure someone will rear end me and I will put my eye out. Or pluck it out.

This week has been incredibly hard - emotionally and physically. I had an allergic reaction which went to bronchitis and sinus infection. I have been laid up in bed. But first, I fell - big time - went downtown after dark to health food store to get grandson snacks for weekend and parked on a four lane traffic street. Getting back in my car, down I went in the traffic lane. I could not get up. My legs would not work. Somewhat concerned that I might get run over, I told grandson to wave my cell phone around (with the light on in it) but DO NOT get in the traffic. Poor child was petrified. Finally was able to drag self around to front of car and eventually get up. Lesson learned - do not park on the street after dark, especially the busy street. A few days later a 70 year old woman was struck only about 1/2 a block from there, and dragged for a while - they don't know if she's going to make it. I was very depressed about getting old, and thinking oh dear, I need to get THE back surgery, until I remembered that I have fallen for no reason since I've been in my twenties.

And I was scared, that I would be considered unfit to care for grandson if I was the sort of person to be crawling in traffic after dark.

Same weekend, the insane ex-son-in-law got in my face badly, when I told him he only had an hour with grandson (supervised visitation in place and I've been made the family warden). It turned into a HUGE family fight with me being the bad evil person. I have finally reached the end of the rope with this character - he will no longer bring BB guns to play with all the kids in my yard, (there have been three major screaming fights over his "right" to play with tasers, numbchucks, and ninja steel sharp discs with grandson and the neighbor kids). It is not his "right" to bear arms on my property.

I made it clear to my family that my intent has been to protect my grandson. And while he is in my care, I will do that, but weirdo will no longer yell and scream when he doesn't get his way (esp. in front of grandson) on my property or within 100 feet of me, or ever come in my house again. He shoved me over the BB gun argument. I should have called the law - I didn't want grandson to see him hauled off to jail - that is the only thing that held me back. Perhaps that was a bad example and subtly said to grandson that such actions are ok. He really should not be seeing grandson but that is not my decision to make, I am powerless and have often put myself in bad situations to keep him from being alone with this weirdo. Hindsight is always better than forsight. I have feared that if left to someone else the visitation restrictions would not be heeded, but I have been deluded in thinking I have any control over that anyway.

What I could not figure out, is how suddenly, in the family dynamics, I became the perpetrator, ex-son-in-law the victim, and the little boy, the liar. I have been one mad grandma - there is only one thing more scary than a mom protecting her kid, and that is a grandma protecting her grandson. I love all those grandkids sooooo much.

Caused a big frou frou fight with "H" - after five days, we finally began talking. I always want things handled NOW and he, besides, not liking confrontation, is a slower more logical thinker than I - which is probably a good thing. Thing is the confrontation of the weekend happened again in front of grandson with two men standing right there when it happened and no one called wierdo SIL on it, they stood there and let him threaten to kidnap my grandson, in front of my grandson.

Why do I share something so personal? Because chances are I'm not the only one facing such crazy problems in my life. I share partially to make some sense of something senseless. To garner support which always has been a blessing from my blogger friends - not only support, but many speak the truth to me if I'm wrong. Because when these things happen I feel very alone. And because I need to know I'm not crazy. No, really I know I'm not crazy, but affirmation is always helpful. I share because I'm not good at secrets. Damn secrets are killers of the heart.
Anyway, so its been a really really rough week - all that stuff together. It will be better soon. My faith helps.

Well, going to take my coughing self up to the corner, buy a supply of bananas for shakes, try not to fall down, and come back home to lie down and to read some more.

My group of friends is gathering for our quarterly "slumber" paintathon party this next weekend - our theme since all kinds of stuff has been going on (always happens around Halloween - crazy stuff seems to grow out of nowhere) is of battle - that of warrior women. We'll wear fatigues, boots, black t shirts and be fierce of spirit. We're mama lions. We would all die in a moment for family. Our stories bond us together. Hope I'll be well enough to join in. We will have young women, old women, nursing moms with newborns, pregnant moms, ready to birth women, all beautiful, honest, open women, beautiful to the core. Even with our foibles, our mistakes, our eccentricities, our constant striving to do right and take care of our families and our friends.

I purloined the following Battle Cries:

Self Portrait Pieces

Have Tent, will Travel

Certainly the mideast mindset is different from the western mindset. Adminijab (Iran) wants to buy uranium from us. Duh - why don't we just sell him a bunch?

Being down sick in bed with some sort of virus, the TV drones on because I am lonely and I drift into the United Nations Assembly and a 90 some minute ramble from Gaddafi, (Libya) dubbed by the press as "Daffy." Besides wanting to do away with time zones and move the meetings of the UN because where they currently meet could be hit by terrorists, he had personal troubles locating a good spot for his tent. Central Park was out, much to his chagrin - guess America is just not a good host country for tent dwellers. What have we come to? I'm wondering if his tent was too big for an RV ground.

He called Obama his "son" even though Obama and more than half the assembly, including our President left before or during his ramblings.

He blasted the UN and Europe. He asked for a couple of Trillion bucks for reparations for Africa, praising Italy for already paying their share. Like we really have two cents in our coffers to hand over to him.

All in all, I thought he used the podium to list all his grievances down to time zones and his ramblings sort of obscured anything constructive (if anything) that he wanted to get across. But then, humble housewife in the U.S., what do I know?

I do not agree with all of our policies, but I am sure thankful I live here, and not in Libya or anywhere in the middle east! I am not sorry to see him pick up his tent, where ever he was finally able to pitch it and go home. When he said the UN was prime target for terrorists, I wondered what he knew that the rest of us don't?

For some reason, despite playing with paragraphs, Blogspot does not want to delineate them for me....makes a harder read.

"Nevermore" quothe the Raven

Found this little fella at the dollar store - just too droll to resist. When I wake up for a 2:00 a.m. coffee, there he is. I almost expect him to smile with his little beak and mutter, "Nevermore!" I like tucking crazy little things around the house to make myself smile.

This humidity is just about to get to be too much - Saturday's am adventure at Grand Lagoon left me with either the flu, bronchitis or really bad allergies. No fever, thank goodness. Foolishly went on a spree of trying to eliminate dust from book shelves in the bedroom and all I did I think was to stir up the dust something fierce - even my high powered air cleaner that I keep in the room couldn't handle it all.

Hope I'm well for art demo by Sunday - should be. I'm up to 3,000 mg of Vit C a day. Woo hoo!

Have outside vines to handle that have grown up the side of the house and obliterated a window - I'm tired of no light in that room, but saving that for after art gathering in case the mold added to the dust and humidity shuts down the breathing mechanisms.

Weird year here - bugs ate EVERYTHING practically, what they didn't eat - the early hot summer did it in. I haven't seen the armadillo for a while, I'm afraid the neighbor trapped him. I was getting fond of the little fella - he was really after the bugs, slugs, and crawling things.

Psycho was bitten by something and his face swelled on one side quite badly making him look like a freak cat, I hate it when they get sick and their inner eyelids stay shut - they look quite possessed - more than usual that is - I doctored him and bathed him, flea treated him, gave him extra vitamins and special foods and prebiotics and kept him in for several days now he's back out again, and I see skin problems arising again - so I will have to put up with his crazy running and jumping trying to get out so he won't get sick again.

Trying to figure out the contradictory information in regard to Social Security, Medicare, etc., etc. What a maze. I have called "H's" insurance twice and received two different answers on how they handle coordination - I will try to finish that up when offices open up this morning.

So, everyone - have a great Tuesday!

New Bag

A bag I found for my daughter in Wyoming - I kind of like the tattoo with the fringe thing.....

Beloved Gulf Shore

The foreground is white sand - a bit darker than the usual sparkle, but it had been raining off and on.

The dunes were not as spectacular as they were before the 'cane of five years ago (to the day when these photos were shot, I believe) but they are still beautiful

Don't know what was on the minds of these little guys, but they seemed to be in a trance as they stared out into the world of water and sky.

This is a "barrier" island, not an island really, but an attachment to land, land which is mostly separated from the mainland by water. Condo after condo lined the "island" but there was a wonderful wild place that had been left undeveloped.

I so love our beautiful shore down here - the mood is always different. Wednesday, we drove down the beach road to an area I haven't visited since the big 'cane of five years ago. We eventually ran into rain, but after we had enjoyed a laid back period of time. I loved the overcast photos of the beach.

Has anyone been having trouble with blogspot? I am unable to add in Utube, cut or paste is non-functional, it's just quirky lately I think. Hoping it is not my computer.

National Treasure

Yesterday finished up watching the interviews with Whitney Houston by Oprah. The interviews were honest, at times uncomfortable, uplifting, tear jerking, and....I've ran out of words. In my book, completely worth watching.

Oprah several times said that Whitney's voice was/is a "National Treasure." As if it didn't belong only to her. And maybe it didn't. Doesn't. When someone is gifted in that manner, then does a burden or obligation exist to share it with the world? I think it does because that person will never be completely whole if that "creating factor" within them is not producing. And we will never be whole when that magic creative energy is missing from life. Creativity can be a heavy burden, witnessed by the death of so many talented musicians and artists.

Maybe its wishful thinking, I hope not, but I feel an energy, a realization that no part of a person should ever be diminished to make another look larger, a growth, an explosion, a "Big Bang" has happened and a new universe is created for Whitney Houston.

When Whitney quit the music scene, she quit. She explains those years in her interviews. For anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship or lost in a fog of drugs and for those who haven't, but have wanted to give up, or anyone who has ever liked her music, she is an inspiration and a true Phoenix arising, a gift returned to us. The interviews left me down, but ultimately up. And really happy that she is "back!"

I was never a huge fan of Whitney - she was (is) tremendously talented and I did (and do) think she had one of the most powerful voices I ever heard. Now - well, now, she has a depth added to that beautiful voice that makes her, in my book, a number one "soul sister." Her new CD I think might be part of a spiritual cleansing for her, and a putting away and putting in order of the last seven or eight years of hell and we're going to see a star - and I mean a bright, celestial powerhouse of light back in our musical scene.

Today H" gave me the CD she recently made - and despite a beat I found distracting, reminiscent of a disco beat - please, someone tell me I'm wrong, her singing, the lyrics, her delivery, the power of HER - makes this CD something I will listen to fairly often. And, most of all - Welcome Back to a beautiful strong woman, full of love and magic and beauty!

The French President's Wife

I've become fascinated with Carla Bruni after seeing a special about her on Sundance channel. She is quite a talented singer and seems to be a really well grounded woman. I know her husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, is not too popular for reasons unknown to me. But he has good taste in women. Most of the time Carla is pretty much without makeup and working hard in her studio when she isn't out being "The President's Wife."

She's endured, or perhaps enjoyed all the talk and spin surrounding her. Who knows. But what a woman . . . this one will bear watching.....someone with the class of a Jackie Kennedy with whom she has been compared.

I have no sound on this desk top computer, but it does not matter

Need I say anything? Anything at all? (Doc Lovely has many talents, painting, resculpting humans, piano, singing, poetry, writing)

Should We Let the President of the U.S. Into the School Room?

Obama's Speech Banned from Florida Schools - further news has come out - I guess Obama is not only speaking to college students but has also a scheduled live broadcast to students in elementary schools.

What a furor is going on in Florida over school children viewing this speech in the schools. The furor is further splitting our populace into those who are afraid of exposing their children to the President of the United States on one hand, and those who are sure that banning a live speech from the President in the schools to be nothing less or more than racism alive and well and politics AGAIN! At the worst, there are even people who are saying that we will end up in the ovens as in Nazi Germany!

A comment was made that government should stay out of school. Well, then should we close down "public tax payer funded schools" and move everyone over to private schools?

No one seems to know what the 18 minute speech contains, other than encouragement to stay in school and to work hard for an education.

The following is from The Orlando Sentinel -

Barack Obama's school speech: Pundits lambaste furor as stupid

Pundits this morning weren't showing a lot of sympathy for critics of President Barack Obama's address to schoolchildren this week.

"We live in the age of firestorms," Thomas Friedman of The New York Times said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The president will talk to children about the importance of staying in school and working hard. Friedman didn't look kindly on people who don't want to hear that message. Friedman said: "What it [the controversy] needs is for people to stand up and say, 'That's flat-out stupid.'"

What do you say to that?

On the same program, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw described the controversy as "stunning."

"It's so ripe for satire, it's unbelievable," Brokaw added. He called Obama's message appropriate and said the president exemplified working hard and overcoming adversity.


Even Rudolph Giuliani, the Republican former mayor of New York, said the controversy was "unfortunate."

"There's a lack of respect for presidents," Giuliani told "Meet the Press."

On ABC's "This Week," former George W. Bush strategist Matthew Dowd seemed stunned as well that presidents can't speak to schoolchildren about staying in school. "If he can't give a speech like that to the schoolchildren... without people freaking out, that's the problem we have today," Dowd said.


Also on "This Week," Katrina vanden Heuvel noted that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had given similar speeches and that education is a critical job for the federal government. She blamed the right-wing media for fanning the controversy. David Sanger of The New York Times said the furor had less to do with what Obama was going to say and more to do with what some parents think of the president as a leader.


George Will, however, was the rare pundit who faulted the White House in this furor. He said it's not the federal government's job to raise children and blasted the administration's approach to public relations. The president is ubiquitous in the media, Will said, and has become like elevator music.

On CBS' "Face the Nation," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wondered why it had been 18 years since a president had addressed schoolchildren. Duncan said listening to the speech was "purely voluntary" and it was "just silly" that some parents were keeping their children home Tuesday.

"It's just going to be an 18-minute speech," Duncan told Bob Schieffer. "And so that just doesn't make any sense."

The speech will not be canceled, Duncan added.

The Fox channel reports were very much different, rather extreme right wing for a news agency, appearing to reflect more of a tone of a talk show than a news channel.

I will remember this when it is time to vote: Escambia and Santa Rosa County School Superintendents have decided that Obama's message won't be played live at school but they might decide the speech will only be taped and played back should it "fit into a classroom lesson".

In Santa Rosa's case, this could be backlash for the Civil Liberty Union's successful coupe in banning prayer from the public schools. Or it could be blatant racism which is very alive and well down here. And, as well, probably is also the roaring fear loosed by the political wars between Republicans and Democrats.

My personal opinon? Again, I'm embarrassed. I love Florida. I am ashamed of the attitudes of some of the Floridians. Perhaps if the President would just pop into the schools and read a fairy tale or two, he would be more welcome. With a paler face. Grrrrrrrr. A few days ago, I posted in Facebook a statement of admiration for Michelle's beauty and the controversy over her hair styles. (of all things) And a VERY racist comment was made - it shocked me. I deleted it quickly and decided not to post anything remotely political on Facebook ANYMORE. Especially hair styles. I guess I expect change too quickly, I remember in my life time when people who weren't "white" could not drink out of the same fountain, eat in the same restaurant, etc., etc.

Next, I'm going to post my granddaughter's poem. It's a lament, really. Next post.

Happy Labor Day

THE ORIGINS OF LABOR DAY

This was interesting - some things I didn't know:

The observance of Labor Day began over 100 years ago. Conceived by America's labor unions as a testament to their cause, the legislation sanctioning the holiday was shepherded through Congress amid labor unrest and signed by President Grover Cleveland as a reluctant election-year compromise. Read about the turbulent circumstances of Labor Day's birth, browse NewsHour segments on labor and the economy, and explore labor-related resources on the Internet.


Pullman, Illinois was a company town, founded in 1880 by George Pullman, president of the railroad sleeping car company. Pullman designed and built the town to stand as a utopian workers' community insulated from the moral (and political) seductions of nearby Chicago.

The town was strictly, almost feudally, organized: row houses for the assembly and craft workers; modest Victorians for the managers; and a luxurious hotel where Pullman himself lived and where visiting customers, suppliers, and salesman would lodge while in town.

Its residents all worked for the Pullman company, their paychecks drawn from Pullman bank, and their rent, set by Pullman, deducted automatically from their weekly paychecks. The town, and the company, operated smoothly and successfully for more than a decade.

But in 1893, the Pullman company was caught in the nationwide economic depression. Orders for railroad sleeping cars declined, and George Pullman was forced to lay off hundreds of employees. Those who remained endured wage cuts, even while rents in Pullman remained consistent. Take-home paychecks plummeted.

And so the employees walked out, demanding lower rents and higher pay. The American Railway Union, led by a young Eugene V. Debs, came to the cause of the striking workers, and railroad workers across the nation boycotted trains carrying Pullman cars. Rioting, pillaging, and burning of railroad cars soon ensued; mobs of non-union workers joined in.

The strike instantly became a national issue. President Grover Cleveland, faced with nervous railroad executives and interrupted mail trains, declared the strike a federal crime and deployed 12,000 troops to break the strike. Violence erupted, and two men were killed when U.S. deputy marshals fired on protesters in Kensington, near Chicago, but the strike was doomed.

On August 3, 1894, the strike was declared over. Debs went to prison, his ARU was disbanded, and Pullman employees henceforth signed a pledge that they would never again unionize. Aside from the already existing American Federation of Labor and the various railroad brotherhoods, industrial workers' unions were effectively stamped out and remained so until the Great Depression.

It was not the last time Debs would find himself behind bars, either. Campaigning from his jail cell, Debs would later win almost a million votes for the Socialist ticket in the 1920 presidential race.

In an attempt to appease the nation's workers,
Labor Day is born -

The movement for a national Labor Day had been growing for some time. In September 1892, union workers in New York City took an unpaid day off and marched around Union Square in support of the holiday. But now, protests against President Cleveland's harsh methods made the appeasement of the nation's workers a top political priority. In the immediate wake of the strike, legislation was rushed unanimously through both houses of Congress, and the bill arrived on President Cleveland's desk just six days after his troops had broken the Pullman strike.

1894 was an election year. President Cleveland seized the chance at conciliation, and Labor Day was born. He was not reelected.

In 1898, Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, called it "the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed...that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it."

Labor Day: a good-bye to summer
Almost a century since Gompers spoke those words, though, Labor Day is seen as the last long weekend of summer rather than a day for political organizing. In 1995, less than 15 percent of American workers belonged to unions, down from a high in the 1950's of nearly 50 percent, though nearly all have benefited from the victories of the Labor movement.

And everyone who can takes a vacation on the first Monday of September. Friends and families gather, and clog the highways, and the picnic grounds, and their own backyards -- and bid farewell to summer.

Hope you are having a happy farewell to summer -
We worked all day around the house, except for a trip to the Bagel place for breakfast. "H" is going to daughter's house to watch ballgames since we only have 24 channels now. Which has worked out fine until football! Grass is mowed, I've come closer to conquering the weeds in the front - another batch of Ratatouille sits on the stove - I'm craving it. Weird, yeah.

Family in Mobile have a severe case of the flu. We have a lot of fear about the Swine Flu - I'm not getting shots this year though. I was over there - I'm hoping my 2,000 units of Vitamin C and and other supplements keep me well...so far our city has not had a lot of trouble with flu. I'm watching an infomercial about Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer - I want one......

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Headlines - should Obama have been allowed to talk to college students? I knew it - there is truly a dumbing down going on in the U.S. Since when did college age students not have the capacity to make up their own minds about issues or think for themselves? They are flying fighter planes, leading in war, many are working, living in their own places, raising families, participating in the community....WHAAA?

By proxy, I would like to apologize to college students for those who don't think YOU can think.

Cat n Woodstock

Ah, the sensuous abandonment of a queen size kittie rolling with abandon in the sun, on warm cement. She looks like something other than a kittie, but I can't think of what!



Just returned from seeing the new film about Woodstock - it was really great (but maybe that was because my early twenties were my traveling times through that era). The movie was flashback for me and made me so nostalgic - starts a little slow, but I think all in all, once it got rolling - it was wonderful.