December 17, 2010

 Today is a snow day--well, technically it's an after-the-snow day.  Still nasty out there even though things are warming a bit.  I can hear snow and ice melting on the air conditioner.  It's 'freaking' my dogs out.  They are still not use to the noises here.  It's been almost two weeks since we moved.  Talk about a major adjustment.  Moving is always stressful, divorce is worse--combine the two and through in looking for a job and we are all kind of freaking out.  But for right now, at this moment we are o.k.  I'm sitting here with my cheap hair color soaking into the hair and stinking while Elvis is looking at me from the bed like I have my priorities screwed up.  Maybe he's right--maybe I should just say "Screw the hair, just go back to bed".  But even on a snow day I have things I should be doing.  Our, the dogs and I, little apartment is really nothing more than a basement--in 1970's tradition and fashion--that consist of a small hallway with a pole, a 'laundry room' with an old full size washer and dryer and a pole.  It also has a monster of a water tank that has a separate 'heating system'.  I still haven't figured that one out yet.  The washer is next to a big utility sink.  Good thing because that's were it drains.  The water trickles into the washer--and I mean T-R-I-C-K-L-E--so that it takes almost one and a half hours to wash.  The dryer is a relic and though it works it is so dusty and 'mean' that I'm afraid the thing will combust if  I run it.  However, there is a little room to the side where the stairs are that lead to the main house.  In there is a make-shift clothes line that I use to dry my clothes when it's bad outside.  This is a common area and not part of my apartment and is only separated from my apartment by a tarp.  Yeah, the privacy factor here is not of major importance.  Off the laundry room is the main room which is basically a studio apartment.  You have the kitchenette along one wall-stove, sink, cabinets and roughly a yard of counter.  And there's a full size fridge but it's missing some of it's inside components like a bottom shelf and drawers.  But, hey, it works.  I also have my table there to use as an extra counter whenever that need arises.  It hasn't yet but you never know-it might.  In the middle here is my desk with computer and behind me massive marble top 'coffee' table that belongs to her--Ms. Anderson--along with the yellow crushed velvet settee and tatty brown vinyl recliner complete with duct tape.  Then in the far corner is a bed, my daughters hope chest and fully loaded bookcases--my books.  I also have a EdenPURE  space heater that works pretty good.  It heats the room sufficiently.  The bathroom is the worst though.  It's smaller than the hall but shaped like a hall.  The toilette is at one end.  A rather dark end.  When you flush you are required to hold the handle down until it empties.  Not to do so will cause other problems that I would very much want to avoid.  In the middle of the room is the sink.  This is actually fine.  The light--the only light that works--is above the sink.  So is the switch to turn it on.  Getting up in the middle of the night to pee has been an adventure.  And lastly is that awesomely wonderful stand-up shower.  I say 'stand-up' because you can NOT bend over.  There simply is no room to do that.  If you drop it, it stays there.  This is the smallest shower ever created.  The shower head barely comes out of the ceiling so the water has to hit the opposite wall before it hits you.  Plus the head needs a really good cleaning--I think anyway.  I'm not sure the rust will come off but I got some 'Lime Away' just in case.  Plus, you really can't turn around.  When you get in you stay there.  I have bruises on both my arms from trying to wash and constantly hitting the wall and door.  And now I'm thinking 'crap, I got to get in there to wash this stuff from my hair'.  This was not very well thought out.  There's only one thing for it--hold my breath and jump in.

November 12, 2010

  Take chicken and place in a big pot (once it's cut up) and cover with water, salt, pepper and cut up sage.  Cook until chicken is almost off bones, adding liquid in smallish amounts as needed.  Remove chicken from pot and allow to cool (so that when you remove it from the bones you don't burn your fingers--this is VERY important--I can not stress this enough!).  In the pot with the chicken stock put chopped onion, celery, carrot and fresh garlic.  How much of these things is up to you--I like a lot so I use a lot including the garlic.  Cook over medium heat until the carrots just start to become tender.  At this point add fresh sage, thyme and a sprig of rosemary.  Continue cooking.  While all of this is going on you should have managed to get that chicken off the bone.  Discard bones, grissel and skin.  Return chicken back to the pot and cook until all veg is fork tender but NOT mush.  About six to eight minutes before everything is done add your egg noodles.  Cook until just tender.  Remove from heat and add a quarter stick of butter.  Taste.  Add salt and pepper (if needed).  And that's my chicken soup. 
  Yes, I can make chicken soup.  Very good chicken soup.  I don't usually like chicken and rarely ever eat--until now.  But being broke and unemployed will make you look at the 'chickens' in your life in a whole new light.  Turns out there's a lot of things I can do with chicken that I actually like!   And now that my EBT card has finally arrived  (foodstamps) I will find out how many other 'creative' ways I can cook that bird.  And to think I use to have one as a pet.

October 4, 2010

  Divorce is never an easy thing.  It really is like a tearing of the flesh.  You spend so much time and put so much of yourself into another person then for whatever reason it suddenly isn't enough anymore.  Well, at least that's what it always seems like when starts to fall apart.   The truth is we get so distracted with life that we don't always 'see' or understand what our partner may be missing in their lives no matter how much they try to tell us.  We do, however, become painfully aware of what we are missing.  In fact, we become so side-tracked or obsessed with our own 'need' that we simply refuse to see our partners 'need'.  We just want our 'need' filled.  A lot of people turn to other means of filling that void--some with alcohol or drugs, some with gambling or compulsive shopping.  Others might use sex or have affairs.  Which was the case in my first marriage.  After that ended, I promised myself and God that I would never resort to that again and I haven't.  Odd, I haven't even wanted to.  Honestly, it only fills you with shame and self-loathing.  And if you end up marrying the person whom you had the affair with (I know, it rarely ever happens but it does happen) you pay for it every day of your life.  Even if nothing is ever said there is that constant reminder from the person you are with--that lack of trust and respect.  The cost is always too much.  And for my affair the price was extremely high indeed. In that atmosphere neither of you can really be happy. 
  But I don't regret having married again.  I actually did, and still do, love my second husband.  Though I don't think I was ever 'in love'.  I know after some time this parting my be the best thing for both of us but right now it just feels like a big gaping wound.  And I know in the days and weeks to come we will probably both end up acting like real asses but right now I just feel like my heart and lungs have been ripped out of my chest.  And I'm sure God will help me build a new life, one that He has planed for me, but right now I'm watching mine ride down the road in a bright red pick-up truck.

July 29, 2010

Death is not the end; it is the intermission.

"For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it

may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?"

~Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Requiescat

Strew on her roses, roses and never a spray of yew!

In quiet she reposes: Ah! would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required: She bathed it in smiles of glee.

But her heart was tired, tired, and now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning, in mazes of heat and sound.

But for peace her soul was yearning, and now peace laps her round.

Her cabin'd, ample spirit, it flutter'd and fail'd for breath.

To-night it doth inherit the vasty hall of death.

  ~Matthew Arnold

"...One by one they were all becoming shades.  Better to pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.  He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live."

  ~James Joyce, The Dead; The Dubliners

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

 ~Dylan Thomas, And Death Shall Have No Domion, first stanza

"...Now that she was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night after night alone in that room.  His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ceased to exist, became a memory--if anyone remembered him."

"He turned back the way he had come, the rhythm of the engine pounding in his ears.  He began to doubt the reality of what his memory told him.  He halted under a tree and allowed the rhythm to die away.  He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear.  He waited for some minutes, listening.  He could hear nothing:  the night was perfectly silent.  He listened again: perfectly silent.  He felt that he was alone."

   ~James Joyce, A Painful Case, The Dubliners

Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers--

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers--

Untouched by Morning

And untouched by Noon--

Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection--

Rafter of satin,

And Roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze

In her Castle above them--

Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,

Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence--

Ah, what sagacity perished here.

   ~Emily Dickinson,  as written in 1859

EPITAPH TO A DOG

Near this spot

Are deposited the Remains

of one

Who possessed Beauty

Without Vanity,

Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferocity,

And all the Virtues of Man

Without his Vices.

This Praise, which would be unmeaning flattery

If inscribed over Human Ashes,

Is but a just tribute to the Memeory of

"Boatswain," a Dog

Who was born at Newdoundland,

May, 1803,

And died at Newstead Abby

Nov. 18, 1808.

{This is Lord Byron's tribute to his dog, "Boatswain," written on a monument in the garden of Newstead Abby.  There is an accompanying poem but it is a bit lengthy and emotional so I did not include it.}

"...Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland.  It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and , farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.  It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Micheal Furey lay buried.  It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstone, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns.  His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

   ~James Joyce, The Dead, The Dubliners

All the photographs were taken at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia,

July 2, 2010 by Katy-jean Adams (c)

July 15, 2010

 ~ for Nana

i thank You God

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

 day of life and of love and wings; and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any--lifted from the no

of all nothing--human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e.cummings

Happy Birthday Nana!

Miss you!

{And if Saint Francis starts to crowd you

tell him to shove over}

Feds to File Suit Over Arizona Immigration Law

I don't really do political type post but I just wondered what everyone else thought of this and is there other info by another source. Just for the record I do understand Arizona being adamant about immigration because they do take the brunt of all this. I also thought that the Federal Government had promised to so something about this during the Bush administration. What happened? I don't know but I do know if I were a citizen of one of our bordering poverty stricken countries I would be risking my life to get here. Without a doubt.



Feds to File Suit Over Arizona Immigration Law

June 27, 2010

 "There were sketches of buildings such as had never stood on the face of the earth.  They were as the first houses built by the first man born, who had never heard of others building before him. There was nothing to be said of them, except that each structure was inevitably what it had to be."

~Ayn Rand; The Fountainhead

They say I'm a little off, not quite 'there', weird--actually, they say I have bi-polar but I never let any of that change the way I think, the way I look at things, or my view of the world around me.  It is absolutely fascinating!  And one of the things I find so endlessly fascinating are structures, buildings, houses, schools, churches (but those have a special place). 

 I love wood and nails, bricks and mortar, steel, glass, concrete!

Give me arches, domes, spires, stained glass, brass and chrome!

 I don't care if it's rusted, twisted, rotted, or abandoned.  It can old or new, ornate or simple, historic or common.  Give me Gaudi or van Alen, Gehry or Wright.  Make it Greek Revival, Federalist, Mid-Century, Ultra-Modern or an Anti-bellum plantation. 

 It could be the Jefferson Monument...

 ...or the apartment building around the corner.

There is something so wonderful and emotional about a place.  It's not just the bricks and mortar but the blood, sweat and total human energy that goes into it.  The stories behind them and the feelings derived from them.  It's having something that's 'concrete' evoked emotions of awe or fear or familiarity.  Experience and memories are born from these.  And I find it all absolutely beautiful.

 Yes, I may be a little weird and had I been any good at math I would have been an architect.  But, alas, I suck at math so I can only admire other peoples work and the beauty that time has dressed it in. 

 People are a lot like buildings.  A foundation is laid down,  over a life time we are built and eventually we become what we 'have to be'.