Fly The *&^% friendly skies?

 

"The departure time for flight # , from  to  on  at  has changed. The flight is delayed so the crew can meet rest requirements. Your estimated time of Departure is . Since we make every effort to be on time, please be at your gate as originally scheduled as US Airways continues to make every effort to return your flight to an on time schedule.

Rest requirements?   Did you money mongers build that into the flight schedule.  Rembember, you are on MY dime. Oh right, this is the corporation government and peeps just don't matter.  

I'll think twice about flying with you next time.  

You Have An Important Message

"You have an important message from you doctor's laboratory."

OH NO! 

Thoughts run rampant as the mind imagines the worst.  But my doctor's lab never made this call before.  It must be bogus.  Just to be on the safe side, I will call them back.

"Please send me a copy of the bill so that I can pay it."

An unintelligible voice just keeps talking.

"Excuse me but I cannot understand you.  Just send me a bill and I will examine it and we can be in touch."

A week later.

There is a voice mail message on my phone.

 "You have an important message from you doctor's laboratory."

Another call to Solstas Laboratory to inquire about a bill I never received.

"Can you please send me a bill?  I can't pay something if I don't know what the charge is for." 

A week later.

"You have an important message from you doctor's laboratory."

Another call to Solstas Laboratory with the same inquiry.  Please...send me a bill.

A week later.

"You have an important message from you doctor's laboratory."

Enough of this nonsense.  The CEO or senior management doesn't have a phone number available.  How clever.

Another phone call to the bill department.

A pleasant voice answers and assures me a bill will go out.


I don't much like threatening calls.  This seemed like a scam.  I won't be using this service again.  Fingers crossed I get a bill this time.



I made several more phone calls to them with the same inquiry.

A Funny Thing Happened...

A funny thing happened when I was lunching in my favorite organic restaurant today. 

Well nigh everyone knows that women talk to one another.  About the things not so small and not so insignificant.  Not too many go into deep, intimate tales.  And that is womanspeak.

It all changed today.  With bar salad in hand, chocolate mint cookie that can never be eaten on a hot day and a glass of water, I found an empty booth by the window.  By some standards it is a dark and dreary day.  It wasn't dreary in here.The oranges, reds, yellows and gold flowers in vases and old pine floors exuded warmth. I was more than glad to be in this cafe.

With absolutely no expectations, other than a scrumptious lunch, the two fifty-sixty somethings sitting at the booth in front of me were conversing.  Full disclosure, both were stunning men. Variegated gray hair, on the short side.

I had no intention of listening in. At first I wasn't sure what they were discussing.  The restaurant was nearly empty and all the machines were silent.  There wasn't even any cell phone chatter. 

"I adore her, I love her.  It is different with her than my first wife.  Stella was Catholic, all about being proper, nothing unique, definitely nothing experimental.  I was freshly out of grad school when we met.  She had a lot of sexual abuse in her life.  It played out in our relationship."

My ears were open. Wider.

"I know what you mean.  That is why I like this group.  Men from all walks of life, straight, gay tell their story.  It is safe there."

This must be the Mankind Project I am thinking.

"So what happened with Stella?"

"I couldn't get to me with her.  But I sure do with Tasha.  She will try anything.  I don't mean kinky, I mean she heals me.  I heal me, ya know?"

"Yes, I do.  That is why I am glad I became a therapist.  It helps me as much as it helps them."

"I know.  I love Tasha on so many levels.  She knows it.  She has her share of issues, but they don't matter. With her or without her next to me, she is always in my head.  I am a better man with her. And I like our men's group a lot."

I had to pretend to be on my cell phone chatting softly.  An easy way to cover my laughter. That and I couldn't sit in that booth any longer.  I felt exposed. Ten minutes was enough. And I was more than happy to hear this conversation. I just couldn't keep a straight face. Especially with all the DETAILS.  I also don't think I would enjoy my mate discussing me with someone at that level.  The privacy thing and all.  And yes, I did eliminate some of the intimate details. Use your imagination.

Lunch more than put a smile on my face.  Menspeak. I like it.

In Residence

A day in the den.  A comfy studio.  Guest room.  Retreat.  I love it here.  I use a variety of watercolors, sponges, paper towels.  All for the effect.  The nail file is the straight edge of the day.

That's my new paint brush in the photograph above- sable.  I'm using it more and more.  It makes me work hard to create the look in my head.

In this watercolor, the experience is creating depth. 

Three watercolors are framed and awaiting hanging over the sleep sofa.  But it is a bit busy there lately. 

And by the way, the snoozer at the bottom is doing much better.  A urinary tract infection but you would never know it.  Such a happy little one.

Happy Monday!

 

A Day

What a difference a day makes.  This photograph was taken in the den.  The pillows were removed from the living room and the botanicals added there.  For fall. These pillows were made for the den anyway.  I flipflop things around seasonally.  Less so these days.

The den is a warm place. I am painting here now - watercolors.  Soon it will have some of lthe paintings up.  A cozier look.  Maybe a few seacoast things.

The dogs are where they seem happiest ~ snoozin on the sleep sofa. When I took this photograph just the other day, the dogs seemed fine.   The lower dog, age 10, now has hematuria.  Tomorrow the vet will tell us what to do.  Other than that, she is perky as ever.  A bit thinner than last year though.  The animal folks use the word, 'geriatric.'  Personally, labels are so passe.  That one sounds moribund.  She has a little condition.  I am hopeful it will be resolved very soon.  I want to concentrate my time on enjoying the present.  Now.

I enjoy thinking about my buddies.  Loving them, nourishing them.  Being a part of their world, and them in mine.  I am more than gratitude for them.

And they have personalities. The other dog likes being high up.  It isn't a Napoleonic thing as much as it is that she has come feline in her.  Surely, the blood lines crossed somewhere. She thinks she is Molly, the cat.

My little buddies are best friends.  The smaller one atop the sofa plays the role of mother.  Always nurturing. Competitive.  Nervous. She is also the QUEEN.  The larger one is the younger by a year.  She is the affectionate one. Clueless, too.  And strong.  The fullback.

It is hard to see them getting older.  They are a large part of my world.  Easier here in New England.  The worst part about all of this is that sometime there will be just one of them.  I can't imagine how they will manage without their buddy. Or how I will manage without them.

They are behind me snoozing.  It gives me a lot of comfort.  For now, as always, I will take it day by day.  What a difference a day makes. 

The Shield of Perspective

This wall was erected a few years ago to protect the streets and homes by the seashore.  You can see broken up remnants of a former wall in the water by the wall below. This wall is a kind of shield. 

So often in our lives we use shields to give us perspective.  Sometimes it is putting a halt to behaviors, or responses from others.  Sometimes we have to reflect on them, deciding how we want to respond.  That is, if we want to respond at all.  Most of the work is within. 

We can shield our own thoughts as well.  There are days we don't feel homeostatic.  We feel just out of sorts.  Often there isn't an explanation, although our trained brain searches for one.  We can untrain the brain and let things be as they are.  Meditation helps that a lot.

When we can, we want to stop the stormy seas in our minds.  These thoughts often are external ones, having little to do with who we are.  Unless we allow that. Most of these thoughts we had the day before and the day before that.  95% of our thoughts are repetitive ones. 

A new friend inquired how to simplify their life.  Working in an IT field, this fellow wanted out of the rat race.  He wanted to find that elusive peace.  

"But how did you do it?" he implored.

"I just did."

Day by day, breath by breath.  Sometimes we are off a bit.  It is only the naming of it that gives it form.  What would happen if we just acknowledged it and let it go? 

I'm off to enjoy a morsel of chocolate.  That, too, works wonders.

Namaste

Rough Seas

Why are waves white?  

"To explain the phenomenon, let us recall that sunlight is white (the sun emits visible light of all colours, which combine to give white light).

Foam consists of bubbles, which are very thin liquid films with air inside. Compared with a water droplet of the same size, a bubble absorbs much less light than the water droplet because it has so little matter. And the air inside the bubble is not a good absorber of light either. Hence, all things being equal, the light coming out from a bubble is brighter than that from water (which is just a large collection of water droplets), and appears white under the sun."

Source:  http://www.weather.gov.hk/education/edu06nature/ele_beach1_e.htm

Light appears with lightness.  Lightness of one's life, lightness of the self. The soul.

The other evening I happened to walk into an area where a few people were chatting.  A not-so-familiar face glazed me over.

"Hi, there, have we met before? I said.


"Yes, the other day when I was getting ready to run."

Ahh, this is the woman. I didn't remember the face so much.  I remembered her energy.   She was angry, like life had not been all she had hoped. Within minutes, her face gnarled as her skin tightened.  Her neck veins bulged. She injured her body kickboxing earlier.  She said she was so angry.  She was glad her son's fiance wasn't nearby, for it would have been her face.

The woman never greeted me in the few times we passed one another.  Her son's fiance wasn't to her liking. She said the young woman was too controlling. And angry. A resemblance appeared immediately.  I listened.  Mostly.

The next hour she spoke about how she didn't need anyone, that men just want a Barbie. She was more than hard.

She was like the rough sea.  Edgy.  On guard.  Thrashing.

I wondered if the sea worked out its frustration as the light permeates the foam. Masuru Emoto wrote about water droplets.  How they hold the energy of the universe, the energy of individuals. That they change dependent upon one's energy.  Soft and positive produce pristene, beautiful images.  Hard and angry produce distortion, macabre images.

When a neighbor mentioned her at coffee this morning admiring how much this woman knew, I couldn't help feel sad.  What good is knowledge about the external, when the internal is suffering so?

So close to nature, so far from oneself.  A lesson for all of us. The lightness is there for the taking ...when we have suffered enough.

Undocumented Hours

"The past few years have levied a strange burden of proof upon our backs, a burden to account for our hours and days, to prove to all who care to watch from the screens of their phones and computers that we are doing something worthy with our lives.  In the meantime, we have forgotten how to be content in being present.  We have not been transfixed and emptied since we first believed the lie that all of our experiences must be shared." 

                 Undocumented Hours.  Rebecca Parker Payne.

Drawers

An early morning walk after a brief, but heavy rain last night is a reflective time.  My thoughts drifted years back some twelve years.  It was the new millenium.  My children were spreading their collective wings.  After our family home was sold my son returned to the city a few hundred miles south.  Eventually he settled on the area where he was born.  We have some extended family there. Jobs are abundant there.

Moving into the city after college means you don't take much with you.  His father was supposed to shelter his belongings after our marriage completed.  I remember telling his Dad to be sure to hang on to all of our son's collections.  Especially the Darth Vader collection kit.  He would want that in years to come.

Saying that didn't happen is an understatement.  His Dad tossed everything.  But this post isn't about that.   It is about new beginnings.

When I visited my son in a townhouse he was sharing with three others, I had lots of concerns.  Crime was the first.  I was assured he was a man of the world and was cautious.  I still worried. I also wanted to ensure he was living in a comfortable place.  A place he could call home. 

Upon entering the hundred year old structure,arched doorways and curved wall reminded me of an earlier time.  Craftsmanship.  His new home was neat and clean, his signature marks.  Spartan mostly. 

Climbing the oak stairs to his bedroom on the second floor,he showed me his room down the long hall.  A mattress was on the floor.  Directly on the floor.  No frame.  The floor.  A lamp was next to it. On the floor. Turning around, it became instantly clear this was to be an open look.  No dresser.  Nada. He had a double dresser in our family home.  I had a triple dresser.

But Mom's need to look into closets.  Why?  It is a sickness no doubt.  Closets tell the real story.   It also tells you if they have enough clothes. So I opened the closet. 

Inside the closet was a two foot plastic looking dresser. On the floor. It kept his things clean and organized.  But Mom was bothered.  How could he not have a dresser?  Further questioning lead to the fact he didn't need one.  But Mom's heart still sunk.  How could my son not have a dresser?   It didn't feel like home to me.  It did to him.  Or so he said. 

Years later, I think about the dresser.  I think about my thoughts about what was necessary back then. All the things that just weren't necessary. They aren't necessary now. Our lives have some parallels.  His life is a full one.  He called it in.  Married to a wonderful woman.  An adorable son.  More on the way for sure.

After he was settled, I moved five hundred miles south of him.  I had released many of the things I had in my former life. Including the triple dresser. Simplicity.  That's the ticket. After enjoying years in the mountains my life was ready for more streamlining.  This time the move would take me one thousand miles north, easier access to visit my son, closer to his sister. An easier lifestyle.

Just before I moved, I asked a friend if he wanted my dresser. I was reducing again. My space in my new home was half the space I had in the other house. Limited storage.  Stuff didn't matter in the life I was creating.  I didn't plan to spend a lot of time inside.  The funny thing was that the dresser didn't fit in the life my friend was creating.  He is a minimalist. He just doesn't have room for it. He graciously declined.

The small dresser now stands in my bedroom in my new place. A third of the size of the one I had in my former life.  It's relatively empty. But my life is now two thirds larger.

Are You Better Off?

Are you better off?

This question is often asked around election time.  It annoys me.  Yes, it does!  It isn't just about the money.  It better not be.  Otherwise you are buying into a consumer idea of how you are supposed to be.

Now I am talking health.  Health is a way we measure how we are. According to the World Health Organization (WHO)  health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. It isn't merely the absence of disease or infirmity or poverty.  I've seen many wealthy people who are impoverished.  Impoverished of the soul.  They have no sense of self-worth.  I think that has worsened in modernity.

If you asked a tribe how they are they would not measure it by some economists's notion of what is healthy.  They would measure it by family, by foodstuff.   Economists merely measure money. Moolah. Eewlah.

Now don't get me wrong. We want to have enough to live in a safe, comfortable home, eat healthy food, have a good sense of euphoria. 

When you vote soon, ask yourself this question. Don't listen to the politicos; the power seekers.  They aren't interested in you.  Maybe there are a few delightful exceptions.  Most growth their monetary fortune off your back.

I am better off now than I was four years ago.  I am closer to family, making new friends, keeping a few treasures I already made (friends) and will continue to extend my heart.

What about you? 

The Lighthouse

Come
I'll show you
The way

Pulling you in
And toward
The light

Come
I can be your
beacon

Drawing you
To safety
Now and

Always
Though I may
Change

In form
I will
Find a way

To guide you
Home
Come


Let me
Show you
The light

Up There

Up there
A quiet
Envelopes

You are called
In to hold
The moment

For now
And always
Stillness

Becomes you
As white-washed rose
colors the skies

The boat
Like you
Is anchored

500? What?

When this blog was first started last year, before I took it offline for a while, there were over 4,000 visitors.  I remember well when this first began.  Then the readership had gone to nearly 500.  Well, folks, we are nearly at 500 now.  Again. 

In thinking about how I wanted to approach this landmark, I stopped along the road to photograph this.

Salt marshes are important. Wikipedia says, "A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic (salt-tolerant) plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs.^[1][2] These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh in trapping and binding sediments. Salt marshes play a large role in the aquatic food web and the delivery of nutrients to coastal waters. They also support terrestrial animals and provide coastal protection.<sup>[2]

Just next to this salt marsh, is a buffer.  On the buffer, pipes have been placed in the ground to drain the area.  Trucks frequent the road dumping topsoil.  Soon a large apartment complex goes up.

Washington, D.C. was built also built on a drained wetland along the Potomac and Anacostia rivers.  The warm weather finds it exceeding hot, buggy and humid.  

Can you imagine anyone wanting to live on this?  Will perspective renters be told?  There are major concerns about this in light of the West Nile Virus found near this area.</sup>



 

Yes, Virginia...There Really Is A...

l’s Road To Nowhere: The Coalfields Expressway

By Climate Guest Blogger on Sep 2, 2012 at 9:49 am

A mountaintop removal coal mining site in Fork Ridge, Virginia. Photo courtesy of SouthWings and Appalachian Voices.

by Mary Anne Hitt, via the Sierra Club

In the tranquil, misty mountains of southwest Virginia, the coal industry is trying to build its very own road to nowhere. King Coal’s latest scheme is to try and take $2 billion of federal funds — our tax dollars — to build the Coalfields Expressway through rural Southwest Virginia. Coal companies plan to use mountaintop removal mining to flatten the area to make way for the road, while they keep the profits from the coal they extract. While the coal companies call it a road, local residents are calling it a taxpayer financed strip mine.
Virginians aren’t taking this news lying down, though. Last Friday, when an official comment period closed, more than 4,400 Virginians and 81,000 people beyond VA’s borders had submitted comments to the Federal Highway Administration in opposition to this project — over 85,000 comments opposing this boondoggle.

These tens of thousands of Americans know that the construction of this “Coalfields Expressway” won’t serve the public. The route was designed to help a coal company, Alpha Natural Resources, access coal reserves. To make matters worse, the road will not only cause pollution and destruction, but it also bypasses local communities and threatens to remove the through-traffic that local businesses depend on.

The controversial highway project would cut through southwestern Virginia, using eminent domain to relocate dozens of property owners while bypassing local business areas and burying at least 12 miles of streams.
Local residents assert that while the project is being billed as a highway project, in reality it’s a taxpayer financed strip mine that is likely to be exempt from all of the permitting requirements and other protections provided for communities and the environment by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Action.
In addition to collecting comments, local residents organizing against the project recently testified at public hearings held in the Virginia towns of Wise and Vansant. Dozens of local residents turned out to oppose the project and the negative effects it would have on their community, water supply, and local economy.
“We’re worried that this project is going to cost taxpayers an enormous amount of money while leaving Virginians with a toxic mess and miles of bare stripped land instead of a useful road,” said Marley Green, a Sierra Club Organizer in Appalachia, Va. “We need both the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to take action to protect the health and safety of our communities.”
Already, $38 million in taxpayer funds were wasted on a cancelled portion of the highway. The total taxpayer price tag for the entire project is still unknown. The Sierra Club and Southern Environmental Law Center submitted comments opposing the project, together with our allies Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Appalachian Voices, Wise Energy for Virginia, and CREDO Action.

We can’t let King Coal destroy our streams and our mountains. Appalachians have suffered enough at the hands of the coal industry. The Coalfields Expressway will only lead to more polluted water and destruction.
This project is poorly planned, a threat to local streams and rivers, and a waste of tax payer dollars.
We urge the Federal Highway Administration to stand up for Appalachia, and complete a full study of the threats this road would have on local communities. There are smarter, more efficient ways to improve transportation options in southwest Virginia, and it’s crucial that we not rush into a giant gift to the coal industry without considering all of the impacts and alternatives.


Mary Anne Hitt is Director of the Beyond Coal Campaign. This piece was originally published at the Sierra Club’s Compass blog and was reprinted with permission.  Source:  http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/02/785391/coals-road-to-nowhere-the-coalfields-expressway/

Please...tell me...There really is a Santa Claus.  Where???

Orange You Tired Of Seeing This?

Dawn came early to the beach.  Excited, hopeful. 

An early walk, after the tourists have receded.  After the waves have deposited their ecology.  After human the remnants of a not so thoughtful people.  Scouring the sand for more of this, none in the landscape was visible.  A single entry.  Orange. Located between red and yellow on the visible spectrum.

In marketing, "it's the color tied most this fun times, happy and energetic days, warmth and organic products. It is also associated with ambition. There is nothing even remotely calm associated with this color. Orange is associated with a new dawn in attitude."   Source:  http://www.precisionintermedia.com/color.html

But it's not such fun times for the animals and plant life caught up in this netting. 

These granite rocks anchor the land and provide some erosion control.  And a resting place for birds. 

Orange you tired of seeing human debris?

Pack It Out!

A beautiful ocean!  Pristine beaches.

Strategically situated these recycling cans mean business. How sad we have to use them because we create so much trash!  This obliterates our view from the street.

What ever happened to pack it out?

I'd rather see this:

This concrete retaining wall does also blocks the view from the street.  It is a must with strong winter winds and tidal flooding.  See below:

These blocks are everywhere along the retaining wall.  Still, strong ocean currents move them about. They have had tidal waves as high as just over 9 feet. 

What will this glorious day bring?