Thursday Thirteen

1. Yesterday while I was in the city, I looked up and saw a convertible with the top down.

2. I thought a very large asparagus was driving, as all I saw was what looked to me like a green asparagus spear.

3. Later, on the other side of town, a girl with black hair on top and green hair the rest of the way around her ears appeared in the parking lot at A&N.

4. Her hair looked like feathers, and not asparagus, however.

5. I decided I was seeing things and headed home!

6. Here's a neat video about one of the major problems with today's society. (It's about the news, not asparagus.)

7. The sun is shining, the trees are budding, the world is spinning on its axis. It's time for the asparagus to grow!

8. I don't really like asparagus, but I just learned it acts like a diuretic so I might have to go buy some.

9. I did a story several years ago about a woman with an asparagus farm over in Craig County. It takes years to get asparagus to form a decent and profitable crop.

10. I have absolutely no idea why I am writing about asparagus, except that the asparagus-headed person driving the convertible really caught my attention.

11. My husband doesn't like asparagus at all. I will eat it but he won't, so if I buy some, we all know in who's tummy it will go.

12. I seem to be really desperate for a new video game.

13. I don't want a game about asparagus, though.

The Storm Front

We are having a storm. It's been grumbling and rumbling all afternoon. Sometimes it sounds like someone has dumped a load of cooking pans at my back porch.

My allergies have been grumbling and rumbling for several days now. My eyes hurt and are dry, my breathing is raspy, throat scratchy, nose stuffy.

I read this morning that the allergy season is particularly bad this year on the east coast because of lack of rain. Hopefully the current storm will ease things a tad, at least for a day or so. That might be long enough for me to gather my strength for the next onslight of budding trees.

I take Singulair constantly for my allergies and this morning went ahead and added back Zyrtec. I stopped the Zyrtec last fall because I didn't seem to need it.

These are very expensive drugs and each one costs me $50 for 30 pills. And that's with insurance.

I use eyedrops for my dry and painful eyeballs. I use Nasacort for my sinuses (it costs me $50 a month, too).

But there is nothing I can do directly to help my left ear, and it is my ear which is troubling me most at the moment. I do not have vertigo as I did last year at this time, but I do have an overall sense of feeling out of balance. It disconcerts me when this happen, and storms intensify the feeling. I actually *feel* in my ear the bolts of lightning when they are close. It is rather strange.

To all my fellow allergy suffers, God Bless You for each sneeze.

Books: Tara Road

Tara Road, by Maeve Binchy

Performed by Terry Donnelly (audiobook)


I've always enjoyed Maeve Binchy's books and recommend her to anyone interested in reading about characters who live in Ireland.

Her story lines are well-done and plausible and her characterizations are very good.

This was an Oprah's Book Club pick in 2000 (which I didn't know until I just looked on Amazon.com). The first book of hers I ever read was Light a Penny Candle in 1984 and I've enjoyed her work ever since. (That book apparently has been reissued in paperback; I'll have to see if I can find a copy as I recall it being a very good book.)

Ria is a working-class girl who marries well and makes good. She and her husband buy an old home on Tara Road and fix it up. The road becomes the place to live. But her husband philanders and their marriage crumbles. An unexpected phone call leads Ria to swap her home with Marilyn Vine, who lives in New England. During the time away the many small events erupt. The climax is a little anticlamtic but the rest of the book is so good it's a forgiveable issue.

4 stars.

Spring Sunday

The birds have been heralding spring with everything their tiny little throats can muster, haven't they?

I've been outside early every morning this weekend and the sounds have been amazing. Saturday I heard the wetchoo wetchoo of a redbird and not long after it sprinkled on me. This morning that cardinal was calling out "clear clear clear" and I've no doubt I will see nothing but sun.

In the pond not far away there must be geese, because I hear them honking. Crows are making their raucus noise from the field. I hear other birds, too, a bluebird in the spruce tree.

Over in the woods, the wildflowers are coming up. I spied them yesterday morning.


(I think, but am not positive, that this is a Carolina Cranesbill flower.)

The cattle have been making lots of mooing noises this weekend, too. The whole world is full of sound - the speedy zip of cars on the road, the startling roar of a tractor, the shuffle of leaves from a squirrel running along the forest floor.

The earthy smell of spring permeates the nostrils, the bird sounds fill the ears. The greening fields are like emeralds to the eyes.

It's spring. It's good.

The Remains of the Day

The sun was trapped between the clouds and the Peaks of Otter this morning when I first looked out the window.

What could I do? I grabbed the camera and went for a walk around the yard and the field beside the house.

This is all that remains of the cabin. My husband and his friend began building this when they were about 10 years old - so this structure is almost 40 years old. They never finished it.

It's rotting and decaying and one day will be nothing more than a pile of mulch. My husband has fond memories of their construction efforts, though. I think it gives him a sense of connection to his past.

Thursday Thirteen

1. I spent two days watching a civil trial this week.

2. There were lots of suits and high-powered muckety-mucks there.

3. Four deputies sat through the whole thing, after frisking us all. Apparently we were very scary and needed watching.

4. The sun is shining. Feel the warmth.

5. There is a breeze. Feel the coolness and breath the fresher air.

6. I've been so busy I haven't been able to focus on anything but work. I've written 30+ articles already this month - that's more than one a day.

7. My thinking is scattered and I'm having trouble refocusing my thinking away from my work.

8. Some of my work was mentioned in the trial.

9. The word "trial" is different from "trail" but it reminded me anyway that one of my goals is to walk to McAfee's Knob.

10. That was also listed in the Extra section of the daily paper today, hiking up there.

12. I don't like the Thursday Extra section since they changed it last week and I never read the insert that used to be what is now the Extra section, either.

13. This entire entry doesn't make much sense, so thanks for reading if you made it this far.

Broth

I want to make soup,
rip the heart from some golden calf
toss its meat fat
into bubbling tomato juice
see it boil, red,
like the blood of a falling sun.
I want to make soup
with the crucifix
of the heart of the art
I choke on,
in a place where
undeserved and unserved
I eat corn, green beans – truly rare
and sacred. Part of
the bounty the earth tossed me.
It’s time to make soup.

On the Fly

The robin with the white wing
nests again in the spruce
we stole from the queer man
who lives up the street.
Stolen trees grow better
than purchased products.
The bird likes this one. Her
three eggs rest in the little
stick circle, comfortable even
in Mama's absence. She chatters
from a nearby wild cherry,
fussing at my impertience
as I peer into her home.
The eggs are brilliant
in color, larger than expected.
How can a tiny bird give
such large things, I ask
no one. As if I expect
some god to speak, offer me
stories or reasons why
the robin's eggs are blue.

A turkey of a day

While it's become pretty normal around here to see a tom turkey strutting across the field, this morning I looked up and saw an entire flock:

I grabbed the camera and a coat. It was pouring rain and so I stood with the coat hunched over my head, sheilding the camera from the rain, while I tried to take pictures.

A solitary tom bringing up the rear:



The entire flock sashaying up the hillside:



There they go, sneaking past the fence:



The big tom decided to strut his stuff for the ladies:



These guys knew they were no match for the puffed up dude at the front of the flock!

Thursday Thirteen

1. Today I lost my temper.

2. I am not a redhead.

3. I don't usually lose my temper. I am slow to anger and I try to have the patience of a saint.

4. Sometimes, I fail. Unfortunately today was a sometimes.

5. It wasn't really my fault, but I am figure it always takes two to have a disagreement, so in that respect, it was.

6. When I was younger, I would get angry but not feel it inside. Instead, I would shake uncontrollably and not know why.

7. Now I know when I am angry but I still try to keep a tight hold of my temper.

8. After I lose my temper, I feel guilty and the incident rolls around in my brain for a very long time while I try to figure out if I would have done something different.

9. The only thing I would have done differently today was maybe not have made that particular phone call.

10. It is hard to hold your tongue when you finally reach that breaking point.

11. Once when I got really angry, I turned over a big heavy picnic table. I hurt my back doing it.

12. Another time I got upset and took it out on a bouquet of roses. Petals flew everywhere.

13. But those are the only two temperamental times that really stand out in my mind. (Even today's will fade pretty quickly, as it was just a minor incident in the long scheme of life.)

Signs of Spring

The squirrels are out:

The daffodils are blooming:





My forsythia flowers are starting to make an appearance, along with the insects:

World Divinity

Sunday I lazed in the bed, trying to adjust to the time change. In an unusual move for me, I turned on the TV and caught The Secret Garden, a movie I’d never seen entirely. It’s based on the novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett and I remember it being a favorite book in my younger days.

As I watched the young girl learn to tend the earth, bringing forth plants and blossoms, my mind wandered to the divinity of nature. When the young boy, Colin, moved from his wheeled chair to his feet and took his first steps, I thought how wonderful it was that Mother Earth had nurtured this child to health.

I have long loved the meadows and forests of Botetourt County. I can remember many a time seeking shelter in the bosom of the great trees that surrounded the farm I grew up on.

In the 1960s, my grandmother would put me on her lap, her arms wrapped around me, and we would watch the birds. Robins, she always declared, meant spring was on the way. And she was right, for soon spring would be upon us, just as it is now.

As an adult on another farm, the trees around me whisper when the winds blow. I respond to their call with some unaccountable innate longing. The fields and pastures greet my vision every morning and I am pretty sure I look upon them with love.

The divinity of nature is not something much heralded in this age of asphalt, concrete and man-made time changes. We hurry to reset the clocks, to climb in the car, to make our way into the constructed stores and office buildings that shelter our lives. Who has time for trees?

In January during one of those strange warm spells, I longed for dirt and soil and purchased an herbal seed kit. I was strangely content to be sowing seeds at the wrong time of the year and now I have a little oregano, thyme and basil growing in pots in the garage. Every day I check them and water if necessary. Sometimes I just take the plastic top away to smell the earth. It is divine.

It seems we do not see the divine except on Sundays, when we go to a church building for spiritual succor. I am guilty, too, even though I try to celebrate nature every day. Stopping the world is a hard thing to do with society’s deadlines and demands.

The divinity of nature tells me it is my duty to be a good steward to what I have here. My job is to nourish my husband and the people around me. I am just one of the many keepers of a very large garden of life, one so big I cannot comprehend it.

My wish is that we all could stop for a moment every day to think about the divine around us. For me, it is in the clouds in the sky, the blueness of the mountains, the sun pouring heat and light and nourishment. The divine is there in the smile from a friend, the kiss from my spouse, the touch of a child’s hand.

It’s even there in an extra hour when the time changes. All we have to do is acknowledge it.

Dona Nobis Pacem

Efforts to promote peace are good things. On June 6, 2007, bloggers will once again show the world that they're intent on stopping the violence.

The Peace Globe promotion is the brainchild of Mimi over at MimiWrites. She and participating bloggers (including myself) put up peace globes on November 7 and December 24, 2006.

The first Peace Globe day for 2007 will be June 6 and I invite anyone interested in peace - whether it's inner peace, world peace, or a day of peace - to participate along with me and others. So far about 16 different countries and 26 U.S. states have taken part in this peace blog effort.

To read more about this and to get your own peace globe, which you can decorate any way you like, visit Mimi's website here.

I hope peace takes hold of you on this day and every other.

Saturday Hodge Podge

First, a sad little joke I ran across in my e-mail this morning:

What's the difference between northern and southern fairy tales?
Northern begins, "Once upon a time...."
Southern begins, "Y'all ain't gonna believe this . . ."

*******

I haven't had much time to blog this week. I also haven't had a lot to say that I thought was worth putting into print. My father-in-law continues to improve, but it is a long process and he is old so he will only get so well. When family members become ill it puts a strain on everyone.

*******

This week I had great interviews with women for articles that will appear in print soon.

On interview was with a female pastor in the Church of the Brethern. I was quickly reminded why I was drawn to that religion 25 years ago.

The Church of the Brethren is a pacifist church that preaches the teachings of Jesus, not the Old Testament. It teaches conservation and is pro-green movement, likely full of Democrats, and I am thinking about going back to it. First, however, I will have to buy panty hose and a skirt, as I don't think I have a thing that's fitting to wear to a church service.

I stopped attending the Brethren Church after my pastor, for reasons of his own, wouldn't marry my husband and me. Then I began attending my husband's Baptist church but I quit in May 1987 after a searing Mother's Day sermon from the new evangilical preacher informed me that I was a sinner because I worked outside the home and wasn't barefoot and pregnant. I have rarely attended a church service since.

The other interview I had was with a woman farmer and her partner (also a woman). They were a hoot and I really had a good time talking to them. While I was there I couldn't help but think how sad it is that the Virginia General Assembly's hate-mongers would pass laws that would harm these two wonderful souls simply because they found one another. I don't know if these two are lovers or not and really don't care, but the laws about deeds and ownership and who can be at the hospital bedside and such apply because they live together, regardless of what else they do.

We are governed by fools.

Both of these interviews came at a time when I really needed to be out and about and doing something. They affirmed my belief in life, women, and community. Through these interviews I am able to remember that people are good, kind and caring and that loving and giving are never bad things.

Father-in-law is home with an oxygen tank and diet and exercise instructions.

In-Law Update

Father-in-law is still in the hospital but not in danger.

Book: Milk Glass Moon

Milk Glass Moon, by Adriana Trigiani (Audio Book, read by the author)

I finished up Milk Glass Moon in the car on the way to and from the hospital over the last several days.

This book is set in Big Stone Gap, Virginia and in Italy and New York. It brings all the well-known characters back from the previous Big Stone Gap books.

I really enjoy Trigiani's reading of her work. She sounds very much like home, which, of course, she is, just a little further south. This is small town and Appalachian writing at its best.

I was thrilled when my alma mater managed a mention in the book.

I won't give anything away here, but this book is one I would probably listen to (or maybe read) again. The characters are wonderfully drawn and the circumstances all realistic. I know these people, some of them live around here, I think. If you enjoy reading about real people, you'll like Trigiani's books.

5 stars

In-Law Update #2

My father-in-law had a catherization and they were unable to do anything more for him. He has something wrong with his veins in that they are bumpy and squiggling and not smooth. I guess it is plaque build-up or something. There was a name for it but it evades me at the moment.

He is on oxygen and that seems to have put some color back into him. He will probably come home tomorrow. They plan to give him some additional medication and enroll him in cardiac therapy. Exercise apparently helps.

Everyone else is tired.

In-Law Update

Turns out my father-in-law had a mild heart attack. They are doing some kind of surgery early in the morning.

The Phone Rang

Sunday night we were readying for our winding down time, my husband and I. We'd both showered and were in our robes and house slippers. I'd just curled on the couch with a book, snuggled beside him. It was 9 p.m.

The phone rang. My father-in-law was on the floor, my mother-in-law said.

We rushed to put on our shoes and britches and dashed over to their place. They live just across the hill, not even a mile.

My father-in-law, who is 73, sat in the floor, leaning against the couch. He was crying out and clutching his chest. He had a heart attack in 1995 and has angina.

My husband, the professional firefighter and EMT, took charge, getting vital signs, asking questions. Call the ambulance, he said, even though the vitals looked okay.

Not long thereafter the aunt and uncle from just up the hill arrived. Around here everyone has a scanner and one of our cousins heard the call go out, and so called my father-in-law's sister.

My mother-in-law rode in the ambulance; we followed after we locked up the house and picked up a couple of items we thought my father-in-law might need. My husband's sister, who lives closer to the city, beat us to the hospital.

The wait in the waiting room was long and midnight came and went and daybreak was on the horizon before we got the results of some blood work back.

To make a long story short, they kept my father-in-law even though the blood work and X-rays and EKG were all negative, and he's still up there doing tests. But he seems to be alright.

The rest of us are very tired.

During the drive in and at various points during the very long night, my husband fussed about the volunteer squad that responded. They didn't do much that suited him and with the county's blessing the rescue teams now bill people's insurance companies when they respond. To my husband's mind, if you're going to pay for the service then you should get professional service, not the cats and jammers kids.

I'm just a civilian who hasn't a clue what should be done in such an emergency, so I wouldn't know if they did anything right or wrong. Neither would the majority of the citizenry, which I suppose is his point. If you're going to have to put out the money when someone responds, you should get what you pay for.

Since someone is responding, and we're a capitalistic society, then the responders have earned something. Perhaps his real complaint isn't that they're charging, but that the volunteers are currently charging the highest rate of anyone in the area.

And if they're going to charge even more than the professionals, then the professional expects them to do it right.

The Sky

Last night there was a total lunar eclipse. I wanted to see this. Starting at about 5:30 p.m. I kept peering outside. I stood in the doorway with my camera and snapped pictures as I watched the clouds move in. . . .

I have always adored the sky in all its facets. The clouds, the colors. The greatness of it and the smallness of me. Such a magnificent splash of color. . . . The next photo has been enhanced with a watercolor filter. . . .

I kept looking for the moon and did not find it until well after the eclipse was over. When I saw her, she was hanging brightly in the sky, and I overexposed the shot (as usual) but I was trying to get the clouds, for the moon was so bright she made the tops of the clouds glow.

The Coming Spring

I plant a little (very little) garden. For a long time we had a very large garden, but it was much too big for me to tend. We diligently planted it and the deer hungrily ate it, for the most part.

We gave it up in 2001, and for several years we had no garden.

Then four years ago we got a small satellite dish and could remove the large C-band dish from the side of the house. We had kept the ground beneath the large dish mulched and barren so we wouldn't have to mow beneath it. When we finally hauled the large C-band dish to the shed, I decided to turn this barren earth into a very small garden plot.

So for several years now we've planted tomatoes, peppers and squash in this small plot of earth. It amazes me what we can grow in this tiny little patch and I've come to learn that folks who believe they need a large swath of ground for a bounty are mistaken. We have hauled more produce from this 5' x 5' spot than I ever thought possible.

In January, when the weather was abnormally warm for that time of year, I began to pine for the feel of earth in my hands. I usually buy my plants at the local nursery, but I thought I would start my own this year.

Above you see the fruits of my winter efforts. I have lots of pepper plants sunning on the picnic table today (looking a little windblown, I fear). My tomato plants have not done so well. The garage does not receive much sunlight; indeed, most of my house doesn't because of trees and the side of the hill we're on. So I think the lack of light has hindered the tomatoes, much to their detriment.

The other plants are herbs. I saw a couple of herb kits while I was purchasing seeds and on a whim I thought I'd buy them and see what happened. So I have oregano, basil, thyme, etc. coming up in these little pots. I will soon move them into a larger planter and they will decorate the deck.

We have a warm day, with too much breeze, but it feels like spring is on the way. Today I'm thanking the higher power for the hope of renewal and rebirth that this time of the year brings.

Thursday Thirteen

1. The weather people are calling for thunderstorms today.

2. I have to go to Craig County, which is a 45 minute drive. I have to drive through the Catawba Valley and not go over the mountain because I can't drive over mountains.

3. Thunderstorms sometimes cause the problem with my ear and my balance to get out of whack. I can't drive when that happens. That is also why I can't drive over mountains.

4. I am afraid I am going to leave here and not be able to get back home.

5. I have no cell phone service in Craig County, either, so if I have to pull off on the side of the road, I am stuck.

6. I worry a lot about things that never happen.

7. I saw my doctor yesterday and my blood pressure was up.

8. I don't normally have white coat syndrome.

9. The white coats don't know what to do about my ear issue, either.

10. I don't like to drive at night. Or in the rain. Or in the snow.

11. I used to like doing all of that, but I am over 40 now. I apparently have peaked.

12. I forgot it was Thursday until just a few minutes ago.

13. That means once again I didn't really think about this post, and I apologize for that.

Book: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2006.

This novel has received tons of accolades and good reviews. Ambitious. Inventive. Funny, tender, tragic. Stunning virtuosity.

It was a New York Times bestseller.

It's about a nine-year-old boy who lost his father when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11/01. It is written in a first-person stream-of-consciousness sort of style wherein the reader spends a lot of time in the child's head. There is also a first person account from a missing and then found again grandfather and a first person narrative from a grandmother. Those seem more like letters than inner thoughts.

I hated this book. I felt like I was in the mind of a crazy person the entire time I was reading it. Oskar the nine-year-old, was totally unreliable as a narrator and this was a descent into insanity and depression at a child's level.

Had I not been reading this book for my book club, I would not have finished it. I wouldn't have read past the first 10 pages and I wouldn't have missed anything by not reading it.

I can't remember when I ever disliked a book this much.

No stars.

A Spam Poem

You must have your cookies on

Attention winner, you have been approved
but your account needs to be updated.
I looked at your pictures.
They are hot.
I have an inheritance
to invest in your country
but we were unable to process your most recent payment.
Now add this gem to your radar,
realize your manhood's full potential.
All signs show that this one is going to Explode!!
You can use it as a lovely gift;
give me a call;
Our agent will immediately commence
the release.

Pondering e-mail

I have been an AOL user since 1994. I like the interface and the ease of it. I use it for business as well as personal e-mail, using AOL's multiple name feature.

However, now AOL has put ads in the bottom of its mail, even if you're using AOL 9.0 software and not going through the Internet webmail site.

This is not acceptable for business use.

I have an nTelos account that I don't use. It uses MS Outlook. I am not very fond of MS Outlook, but I may have to go to that for business. That means I will have to spend a lot of time updating my address book and I will also have to have new business cards.

I have an account at my alma mater, Hollins University, that I could use. It wasn't set up properly and I finally last week got it functioning. However, they put my maiden name on the account without asking me. I ditched my maiden name the moment I said "I do" and never looked back. I surely did not want it on my e-mail. I thought that rather presumptious of a progressive women's college, but the tech people did fix it and I am thankful to them for that.

I also have a gmail account (obviously, since I'm using blogger) and could use that for business, but I suspect the nTelos account makes more sense.

I wish Microsoft products were a little friendlier, though.

Questions and Answers

Found this on somebody else's website and swiped it for lack of original thought today. Well, the answers are mine:

What is your name? Call me Ishmael. No, wait, that's the opening line of a book. CountryDew will do.

How old are you? Old enough to know better and young enough to enjoy doing it anyway.

Have any pets? I have 40 cows, deer, turkey, various other bird species including hawks and blue jays, and a husband.

Ever been married? Yep, for 23 years.

How tall are you? Short enough to walk under ladders in daring feats of defiance of superstition.

How much do you weigh? Nobody's business but my own.

Do anything exciting today? I caught the laundry up; for about 20 minutes there will be no clothes in the hamper.

Where are you from? The far reaches of the fantastic, the inner dimensions, and the oldest of the ages.

When is your birthday? Late spring, early June.

Can you read minds? I know exactly what you're thinking.

What is on your shirt? I have on a clean t-shirt with nothing but a pocket on it.

What color is your shirt? Gray.

Is it your favorite shirt? I love t-shirts. They are soft and cuddly and non-binding.

Where'd you buy this shirt? I can't recall.

What about your pants? I have on a robe.

And fuzzy socks. (Well, I did when I answered this, but it's taken me two days to fill this thing out.)














What kind of shoes are you wearing? Houseslippers.

When was the last time you took a shower? About 10 minutes ago.

What song are you listening to? Melissa Etheridge, "2001", on pandora.com. But often I listen to only the sound of my heart beating and the stillness of an approaching winter storm.

Are you hiding something? Only my brainwaves know for sure.

Are you plotting something? Scheming and plotting are my middle names.

Do you want to run away? I dream sometimes of moving to a quiet little town where no one knows me and I can start over. I could be anyone or no one, and maybe my eccentricities would go unheralded.

Are you hungry? No, I had dinner about two hours ago.

Are you dieting? Yes, but it isn't working because I cheat with root beer and chocolate (not at the same time, that's too much sugar all at once).

What is the weather like? It is the calm before the storm.

If you could have any power, what would it be? I would end poverty. Not sure what power that would take. But if I can't do that, I would like to be able to heal people.

Who is in your house? My husband.

What are you drinking? Water.

Do you want to/Did you go to college: I have a B.A. in English and have classes towards a Masters degree.

Fave color:: Blue.

Fave animal:: Deer.

Fave relative:: My husband, then ... hmm. That's a hard one. I know what I *should* say. But I suppose my grandmother, my aunt, my cousin.

Fave teacher:: My college English professor.

Fave school subject:: English/creative writing

-Clothes, Fashion And Such-

Fave style:: blue jeans and t-shirt

Fave trend:: There are trends?

Fave label:: Who reads the labels? Better yet, who can afford them?

Fave clothing store:: J.C. Penneys

Fave clothing brand:: Alfred Dunner. Very conservative and somewhat old fashioned but always looked presentable. Plus it generally fits.

Fave accessory:: My glasses, because I have this thing about seeing.

Fave hair accessory:: Don't wear anything in my hair.

Fave hair style:: Cut?

Fave natural hair color:: Brunette.

Fave kinda shoes:: Sneakers

Fave brand of tennis shoes:: Easy Spirit

Fave brand of cosmetics:: Cover Girl. I know, I know, I am old and should be wearing something else but everything else makes me break out.

Fave perfume/cologne:: Allergic! No perfume. Gak.

-Foods And Such-

Fave food:: Chocolate

Fave ethnic food:: Chinese? Sweet and sour shrimp.

Fave restaurant:: Bellacino's, because it is quiet.

Fave fast food place:: Long John Silver's.

Fave snack:: Trail mix with nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins.

Fave junk food:: Baked potato chips.

Fave dessert:: Chocolate (it's a problem).

Fave candy/sweet:: Um. Chocolate.

Fave gum flavor:: Bubble gum.

Fave drink:: Right now I drink root beer because it's caffeine free and low salt. But I really like chocolate milk, which I don't drink at all.

Fave pizza topping:: I like veggie pizza.

-Media And Such-

Fave tv show:: Right now it's Ghost Whisperer. I also watch Rome and Bill Maher on HBO.

Fave movie:: The Lord of the Rings trilogy; I also like the original Star Wars trilogy, Flash Dance, and Dirty Dancing.

Fave movie genre:: SciFi

Fave actor/actress:: Not sure I have one at the moment. I did like Orlando Bloom until I saw Kingdom of Heaven. I also like Meg Ryan.

Fave song:: American Pie by Don McClean, You Can Sleep While Drive by Melissa Etheridge, and most anything from the 1970s.

Fave music genre:: I seem partial to a mix of mellow rock instrumentation, a vocal-centric aesthetic and major key tonality (according to pandora.com). Which is mostly easy listening Pop 40, I think.

Fave artist/band:: Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge, Fleetwood Mac

Fave radio station:: I listen to Q99FM in the mornings, but only because I can't find anything I like better.

Fave way to listen to music:: While I'm working and engrossed in something else.

Fave book:: I don't really have a favorite book. I read a lot and there aren't many I read a second time. I do like the Harry Potter series, though.

Fave magazine:: Don't have one. I am in the market for new magazines, though, and will take recommendations.

Fave writer:: Jane Smiley, Rowling, Janet Evanovich, Geraldine Brooks and writers I know personally, like Jeanne Larsen, Monty Leitch, Amanda Cockrell (who writes under a pen name). My favorite poet is Sharon Old.

Fave comedian:: Ellen DeGeneres.

-Entertainment And Such-

Fave mall:: Towers

Fave store in the mall:: Ram's Head Book Store

Fave game:: I like to watch women's tennis.

Fave video game:: Morrowind. But I also like puzzles.

Fave social hangout:: White Oak Tea


Fave private hangout:: My office.

Fave thing to do for fun:: Read a book or play a video game or piddle in the garden. When you get to be my age, you try to enjoy most everything you do.

Fave place to have fun:: Wherever I might be.

Next To Last

And Nobody Cares

Out of 21 affluent countries, the United States came in next to last in a report on child well-being released last week.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, advocates internationally for the rights of children. In a first, the report card looked only at rich countries, the ones that should be leading the way and setting the standards.

The report, entitled Report Card 7, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries, analyzed 40 separate indicators using an array of existing data.

The U.S. media has ignored this report; I’ve only seen one news item about it. That was an Associated Press story that doesn't even come up anymore in a Google search, so here's a link to a UPI International story.

Great Britain, which ranked worse than the U.S. by two-tenths of a percent, saw a furor last week in its news over the issue.

The British are taking their government to task for failing its young as well as the country’s future.

We apparently just shrug our shoulders and move on.

The Netherlands ranked number one, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Spain. We were bested also by Switzerland (6th), Italy (8th), Ireland (9th), Germany (11th), Poland (14th), the Czech Republic (15th) and Hungary (19th), among others. Hungary!

The best ranking for the U.S. was in education, where the country came in 12th out of 21. In material well-being, we came in 17th; in family and peer relationships and in behaviors and risks we ranked 20th on each, and we were dead last at 21st in health and safety.

I was raised to think that the U.S. is the best country in everything, and that means that no matter how you manipulate the stats, we ought to come out on top. We’re the wealthiest of nations with the brightest brains. We work harder and longer and take fewer vacations than anybody.

And this is all we have to show for it? We can’t even crack the top 10 for in a run-down of industrialized nations and the way they care for their kids?

The six large categories are broken down by individual questions listed in charts in the back of the report. Among those statistics, the U.S. has 21.7 percent of its children living in poverty, the largest percentage of any of the 21 countries.

In the one Associated Press report I found on this report, a federal official with the Department of Health and Human Services took issue with it because UNICEF measures poverty differently.

We think $20,650 a year is poverty level for a family of four; UNICEF believes an income of $35,000 is more appropriate. Which begs the question, why do we set the poverty bar so much lower than the rest of the world?

The number is disgraceful number any way you look at it.

Being an avid reader, I was shocked to learn that 12.2 percent of children age 15 reported having less than 10 books in their house in 2003. That too was the largest percentage in all of the countries.

That is not a lot of books. That's a Bible, a cookbook, and a couple of romance novels.

Other bad things: the U.S. has the second-highest infant mortality rate, with only Hungary faring worse. We have 22.9 percent of our children under the age of 19 dying from accidents and injuries; only New Zealand fared worse. We have 75.4 percent of our kids participating in education at the age of 15; Belgium has 93.9 percent of its children in school at that age.

We have more 15-year-olds living in single-parent families and fewer students eating their main meal with their parents than any other affluent nation.

Our teens also have more babies than any other affluent nation: 46 percent of adolescent women ages 15-19 have had a baby. No other nation comes close to that.

More bad stuff: U.S. kids don’t eat much fruit (they eat a lot in Portugal and Spain), less than half eat breakfast every morning, and a quarter of them are overweight. That last is also the highest percentage among the 21 nations; they’re quite fit in the Netherlands, where only 7.6 percent battle the bulge.

Good things? Most of the U.S. households with children have a working parent (which is good insomuch as there is income to purchase necessities). Most kids get their measles shots, DPT3 shots, and polio shots. Only 14.4 percent of our students aspire to low skilled work when they are 15; in Japan, 50.3 percent have such aspirations (“low skilled” is not defined).

About 67 percent of U.S .parents talk to their children; not as high as Hungary, where 90.2 percent do, but better than Australia, where only 51.3 percent have family discussions.

Only 7.3 percent of U.S. kids ages 11, 13, 15 are smoking cigarettes, the lowest rate of the 21 countries. But 11.6 percent of kids those ages have been drunk; still, that beats the United Kingdom’s 30.8 percent by a long shot.

Also, our kids fight and are bullied, but not much more than most countries. They also exercise 4.4 days of the week.

UNICEF, which works in 191 countries, says the report shows no relationship between child well-being and GDP per capita. Many countries without the wealth of the United States, Britain or France scored higher in the rankings.

The report indicates that the European countries are consistently taking better care of their children than we are. While no indicator can tell the whole story, this seems to point out that we’re not moving in a good direction.

If nothing else, this report shows there is a need for improvement. It’s good that our kids aren’t smoking but they’re also not eating right, for example.

Both the U.S. and Britain were in the bottom two-thirds of five of the six major categories. One of the study's researchers said in the AP article that children fared worse in the U.S. and Britain because of greater economic inequality and poor levels of public support for families.

Now what can we do to change it?

The report is online at http://unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf.

Thursday Thirteen

1. If my husband outlives me, I hope he buys a coffee pot that turns off automatically, since I won't be here to go behind him and turn the thing off.

2. I don't drink coffee and never have. I think I've had maybe 10 cups in my entire life. And those were times I drank it just to be polite.

3. My husband drinks one cup of coffee every morning. He says it helps him, ah, you know. He makes his own breakfast and his own coffee every morning. Then I go behind him and clean up his mess and turn the coffee pot off. I'm fine with that; I don't like to get up at 5 a.m. like he does.

4. Tea is the drink of choice in our household.

5. Since we both stopped using sugar, our tea is unsweetened. Except my husband uses Splenda, which I won't use because I think it is poison.

6. Since I stopped caffeine a year ago, my tea is not only unsweetened, it is also decaf. Sometimes I get desperate and reach for the honey and then it's decaf and honeyed.

7. My favorite tea is Irish breakfast tea, but I have a hard time finding the decaf kind in the grocery store. I have to buy it at the speciality tea store.

8. My husband likes Lipton tea, the orange pecoe kind.

9. I have a friend who has a website all about tea.

10. A new coffee house opened up in Fincastle; I haven't been in it yet. I hope she serves something besides coffee.

11. I started drinking tea when I was about 12 years old. My parents don't drink tea but our neighbors did. They used very tall Rubbermaid glasses that stained brown from the tea. The tea was very southern and quite sweet. I thought it wonderful.

12. After I discovered I like tea, I started drinking instant tea because that is all my mother would bring home.

13. I did not set out to write about coffee and tea, but here it is anyway.

Revelations?

Today I had an interview (for an article I am writing) with an alternative healthcare provider. I did the interview and then asked the provider if she would perform Reiki on me for just a moment so I could see how she did it.

Reiki is energy healing with your hands, for those who don't know, although it is a little more involved than that. I've had a couple of hours of instruction in how to do it and can do it a little but I am not proficient at it. I have found it beneficial in the past when I've allowed someone to do it to me, though.

I wanted to see the difference in her healing and mine and the person I used to see, since that is my only experience with Reiki.

This person told me that I could use my pen as a healing tool. I found this interesting because an online friend said the same thing to me just a couple of days ago. She told me in an instant message that I am kind to people and do more good than I could ever know. It was a nice thing to hear.

The alternative healer also said I have managed to be hidden from the world while in full view and she wondered how I managed to do that and write for the newspaper. That is easily answered - no one is more invisible - and so highly visible - than the news reporter who stands behind a notebook and/or camera and watches and records. If you don't speak people pretty soon forget you're there. People remember the history, they don't remember who writes it, but they wouldn't have it to remember without the writer.

Another curious thing was she stopped at my stomach, puzzling over the energy she felt there. The other Reiki professional whom I saw over a year ago now also found issues with that particular area of my body. I have always attributed it to my hysterectomy but I am not entirely sure that is the answer. This person said it felt like my energy just stopped at my pelvis and went no further. She said it felt empty. Not too different from what I've been told in the past, actually.

After the Reiki, I felt a little dizzy and for a couple of hours afterward I felt not quite right. Not bad, but there was an obvious shifting of my energy. I usually feel a little weird for 24 hours after acupuncture or Reiki or anything else that causes an energy shift. I cannot attribute that to the person I saw today, knowing as I do that I always experience weird things from these alternative healing efforts.

I may make an appointment to work with this person. But I have to write the article first.

Books: Still Water Saints

The latest book I've read is Still Water Saints: A Novel, by Alex Espinoza.

I give it *** stars, recommended reading if you're interested in the Latino culture and/or the spiritual, or new writers.

Visiting Animals

Yesterday morning, I glanced out my window and saw these lovelies in the front yard:

This morning as I was getting my tea I saw these lovelies in the back yard:







Now you can all say you've been mooned by a turkey!

Book: The Same Sweet Girls

The Same Sweet Girls, by Cassandra King
Read by Laura Hicks
Audiocassette.

Yesterday I finished listening to this book on cassette. At first I thought I would not like it, but the longer I listened the more involved I became with the characters.

The book reminded me heavily of The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and it certainly seems to be a rip of that genre. Still, I enjoyed listening to it in the car (which is where I listen to a lot of books) and don't hesitate to recommend it for a light yet heart-tugging read. It's not an intellectually stimulating book but it does ask some important questions about friendship, relationships, and acceptance of death.

A group of women from college meet twice a year and remain friends. They call themselves the Same Sweet Girls, or SSGs for short. They have good-natured rituals and they don't all like one another, which made for some interesting contrast of characters. Yet they still care about the other, regardless of what goes on on the outside.

Each SSG has her other life - husband, lover, etc. and we learn about most of them. The book settles in to reveal all about Corrine, who has lots of issues and who faces the ultimate one at the end of the book.

I would wish for all women a couple of good friends.

In the mail

So in the mailbox today is a letter from Appalachian Power trying to explain to me why my rates increased 33 percent.

Blah blah blah. I'd have rather had the postage they spent on this mass mailing.

But here's their excuses: increased cost of coal, construction of pollution equipment (hey, blame the people who want to breath because your power costs more, they are saying, the stupid gits), more tree trimming (mother nature's fault, I guess), and new energy delivery facilities (whatever that is).

The solution - manage your personal budget better. Ha. That isn't exactly what they say but mostly it is what they are implying.

They want to make more profits, is all. Watch the middle class and the American dream depart ... it's leaving us bit by bit, every day. The gas companies will take it, the power companies will take it, the phone companies will take it, health care will take it. Ba-da-ba-boom! Out like a light.

Thursday Thirteen

1. I visited my grandmother again today. She remains in the hospital and the angels still sing to her. Today they were singing "Stand up for Jesus."

2. The ice remains on the mountains and it is absolutely gorgeous in the sunshine.

3. Yesterday for reasons that are unknown to me, I broke down and bought a very silly video game for the P.C.

4. I told myself many months ago that I could not have a new video game until I wrote a novel. I didn't buy the video game I really wanted, which I suppose is fortunate, as that involves days if not months of game play. But I can't believe I bought any at all.

5. A relatively new friend is upset with me and I have absolutely no idea why or what I have done. I'm hoping I'm just a handy scapegoat.

6. I rewrote a letter for one of my clients, who told me my version was "greatly superior" to his version of the same letter, only I used the word "I" too much.

7. We're having a roast for dinner. Bake at 325 degrees for about 25-35 minutes per pound, bam, you're done.

8. Peter Pan Peanut butter is being recalled, apparently because it will cause salmonella. I have three jars with the recall number sitting on my pantry shelve. The number is 2-1-1-1 at the beginning of a long number on the lid. Refunds supposedly are available; send lids along with your name and address to ConAGra Foods, P.O. Box 57078, Irvine, CA 92619-7078. No word if they'll also refund the postage it takes to send three peanut butter lids to California. That information came from WDBJ7.com.

9. I used to subscribe to Writer's Digest magazine but this year I'm letting the subscription expire. I think $25.96 for six issues is too much money for something I don't read that closely anymore. I've been a subscriber since 1984.

10. I'm subscribing to Countryside & Small Stock Journal and Consumer Reports instead. They're the ones who sent me the "get a free issue" coupons about the time I got my renewal to Writer's Digest.

11. I wrote a column about light therapy that ran in my weekly newspaper today. It apparently was well-received as I've received some complimentary e-mails on it.

12. Yesterday I attended an "instant poetry" talk by Jeanne Larsen, a professor at Hollins University. I used to write a lot of poetry but don't anymore. I miss it.

13. We all read our little instant poems aloud and Jeanne said I had mixed images of the seasons in my poem. I don't know why she thought that (the poem's below, maybe you can tell me) unless she was projecting what she knows about me onto the poem. She knew me in a former life, when I was dark and goth and depressing. That isn't me anymore.

Here's the poem. It was started from words she handed out that came from a translation of a Chinese poem called "Poem to Ancient Melody" by Liu Yao.

Poem to an Ancient Melody

On this day of love
the nightingale, brilliant and gold,
captures the song of the round, rotund moon.
I listen from my window, the glass glistening
with late spring frost
In the twilight by the brook
the dogwood's blossoms fall,
pile up like snow.
The candle flickers in the mirror's mirage
as the clock chimes eleven.
Tonight, I will not know sleep.

The Valentine's Ice Storm of 2007

Something Small

I have long been fascinated with the weird, the strange, the divine, the apocalypse. How much longer will mankind reign on this earth? Will we die out in a massive clump or will fall away one by one, the decline unnoticed until it's too late to stop it?

I don't know. But I have long thought it would be something small that takes us, that destroys humanity. Not a nuclear war or even global warming, although maybe the something small will be related to either.

In the last few days there have been stories about honey bees. These little creatures are quite necessary if we're going to move forward.

Imagine, the entire agriculture industry brought to its knees by a little bee - or the lack of the bee.

In this day and age, with all our wisdom and technological advances, hives are bees must be moved from field to field so pollination of crops can take place. We don't have a machine that can do what these bees do. We don't have an answer to their loss if they should in fact become extinct.

Some plants will continue to prosper because they are pollinated by wind, but the majority of pollinating plants require that tiny little bee to make the pollination process complete.

The news reports indicate the bees have low immunity systems and high levels of foreign bacteria. It might be a natural decline, or it might be the result of something we've done.

There really isn't anyway to know.

So maybe there will be, in the future, no honey for your bread. Maybe there will be no bread.

All for want of a bee.

Books I've Read Recently

These books are going to be leaving me soon. They will be donated to the local library, where they will either join the stacks or be sold. I have read them all and I'll mark them with astericks indicating how well I liked them (four astericks is something I really want to reread and in which case is not likely to end up in a list that is going to the library).

I hate to give up any book but I've not the space to keep everything that comes my way:

The Fame Game, by Charles Casillo**

Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen***

The Hamiltons, by Catherine Cookson**

Dear John, by Nicholas Sparks*

We Are All Welcome Here, by Elizabeth Berg***

The Woodsman's Daughter, by Gwyn Hyman Rubio***

The Alchemist's Daughter, by Katharine McMahon***

The Cinderella Pact, by Sarah Strohmeyer*

Lights Out Tonight, by Mary Jane Clark**

Hearing Angels

Grandma

I learned Friday night that my grandmother had been moved from assisted living to Lewis-Gale Hospital.

She's been having difficult moving about after she fell several weeks ago. She also has diabetes and is grossly overweight, all of which combined makes for poor health.

I went to the hospital yesterday to visit her and see how she is doing. Her door was shut and I could hear a nurse or therapist scolding her for not wanting to exercise. They were trying to get her to move her swollen legs so she can get some circulation going. I finally went in and let her know I was there. Her face always lights up when she sees me.

It took three nurses to get her back into the bed and resting comfortably. When it was quiet again, I asked the usual questions, how she was feeling, what the doctors were saying.

"A neurologist I think it was came in to see me with my regular doctor," she said. "He asked me all kinds of questions."

"What'd he ask you?"

"What day it is, how old I am, that kind of thing. I told him. He asked me who the president is. I said, George Bush," Grandma said. "Then he asked me who the vice president is, and I said Cheney." She looked over at me. "I don't know his first name. What's his first name?"

"Dick," I replied.

"Humph. That suits him," Grandma said. I turned to hide my smile.

A few moments later, Grandma asked me if I heard the music. No, I don't hear any music, I told her.

"I listened to it all night. I know the City of Salem said they were going to pipe music everywhere and I'm hearing it," she said.

"It's the Vicodin, Grandma. The pain medication you're taking," I said.

I asked her what they were playing. "Can I sleep in your barn tonight, mister?" she said. I asked her how that went and she sang it to me. She got all the words right, too - here's a version of the song.

I asked her what other songs she was hearing, and she said the Wabash Cannonball, the Wreck of the Old 97, and Little Mee Haw (which I can't find but I've no doubt is some song from the 1920s.) She was hearing the songs of her youth.

We talked a bit and I asked her if she still heard the music. "Not right now," she said. "They're changing the record on the player."

As long as I kept her talking, she didn't hear her music, but as soon as it grew quiet, she'd ask me again if I heard the songs. "I don't understand why you can't hear it," she fretted. "Why am I hearing it and you're not?"

"Grandma, you're hearing angels," I finally said. She accepted that and not long after, I left her to sleep.