tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58561833182483300852024-03-04T23:08:36.319-05:00Reticulated WriterJust another crazy redhead.Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.comBlogger749125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-2991458984050925112021-02-14T18:21:00.006-05:002021-02-16T01:50:32.120-05:00The weight of V Day<p></p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiwxtWX8OLWCqekclduluHxefVz2LeBfMyZ3nAahLMfzmY1btOrWZ8AOjyGpmdJl5v_Rly-9a2Xg_9__RTXtOvViW_U7QvxcfWajvcfie1DwLfZPq68oVcw_sT9ixDpQDYUmS0LnhIlUwf/s420/chocolate+penis+that+ejaculates+money.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiwxtWX8OLWCqekclduluHxefVz2LeBfMyZ3nAahLMfzmY1btOrWZ8AOjyGpmdJl5v_Rly-9a2Xg_9__RTXtOvViW_U7QvxcfWajvcfie1DwLfZPq68oVcw_sT9ixDpQDYUmS0LnhIlUwf/s320/chocolate+penis+that+ejaculates+money.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span><p></p></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I don’t really like Valentine's Day. All those hearts and
flowers and candy that everybody else gets. Gross. Even when I was married it
wasn’t such a big deal. LtColEx would stop at the grocery store on his way home
from work, grab a card, a dozen reds and a box of Esther Price mixed and his responsibility
to his valentine was bought and done. I usually baked him a cake in a
heart-shaped pan I only used on V Day. I must have thrown it out. I don’t still
have it. Maybe there’s a metaphor in there somewhere about throwing away my
heart …. pan after the divorce. Maybe not.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">💓💓💓💓💓</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I would be perfectly happy
ignoring February 14 <s>if everybody else would shut the hell up about it</s>
but Coraline doesn’t see it as a romantic holiday. She first became aware of it
when she was about four. When I said I didn’t really celebrate it, she was
heart-broken. “Does that mean you don’t really love <i>me</i>?” she asked with tears in her eyes. Awwww. Shame on me. Now I
make an effort for her. I dug out a card and bought some dark chocolate
Oreos and some mint M&M’s. We’re going to make a trip to our favorite local
chocolatier later in the week, if blizzards don’t keep us home. She drew me a
red circle on her Kindle with her drawing software. I guess it was supposed to
be a heart. It’s the thought that counts. Y</span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">ou can't </span><i style="font-family: "Special Elite";">really</i><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"> buy love with cards and gifts, right?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">💓💓💓💓💓</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">She’s at her dad’s for visitation
today. When he picked her up, he gave her a red rose and gave me a white one.
That was sweet and unexpected. I can’t even imagine my dad giving me a red rose
on Valentine’s Day. I’m not sure he even gave my mom a rose, although I was
probably so caught up in my own V Day kid drama, I didn’t notice if he
did or didn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">💓💓💓💓💓</span></p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I was born on the cusp of the baby
boom and gen X. The first few years I was in school, we decorated our shoe
boxes with bits of lace and red construction paper hearts and hoped somebody
would put a Valentine in it during the class party. Or better yet that it would
be filled with valentines, one from everybody in the class. There was no “bringing
a Valentine for everybody in the class” bullshit. You decorate your shoe box
and you take what you get and if you feel like shit about your measly score, you don’t let
anybody know. And you certainly don't steal a handful from one of the popular kid's boxes when nobody is looking.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Yep, V Day was a popularity contest.
You knew exactly where you stood in the second-grade pecking order as soon as
you opened that dressed-up shoe box and looked inside. I guess it was a good
warm-up for adult romance: a mix of giddy hope, excruciating let-down, and
gratitude for whatever love you found tucked through the slot in your box.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">💓💓💓💓💓</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">The metaphor falls apart in my
later years of elementary school when we were told to bring participation valentines
for everybody. Didn’t matter. Still a popularity contest. In my family we got
to choose one box of little sappy cards each at the store, enough to satisfy
the requirement that everybody got one, including the teacher, who got the
special teacher valentine. Only one problem: all of the valentines in the box
weren’t created equal. Each box had one or two that were bigger than all the
others. And while some said simply “Hoppy Valentine’s Day” with a picture of a
frog, others said “Be mine” or “You’re special” with hearts and a kitten. I
toiled for hours over which card should go to which classmate. Give the big one
to my best friend? Or to the popular girl I wished were my best friend? The
kids who got the most big valentines were obviously the most popular kids. Some kids got to give valentines with a little
red sucker stuck through the card or a tiny box of conversation hearts stuck to
the card. I guess they didn’t have 5 kids in their family.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">💓💓💓💓💓</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Fifth grade. Sweet grilled
cheesus, does anybody have any good memories of 5<sup>th</sup> grade? Is 5<sup>th</sup>
grade simply to prepare us for junior high? I’ve written about 5<sup>th</sup>
grade a couple of times on this old blog. About being <a href="https://reticulatedwriter.blogspot.com/2011/07/people-like-cindy-and-me-part-1_07.html" target="_blank">best friends with a popular girl</a> for a year and about <a href="https://reticulatedwriter.blogspot.com/2021/01/if-you-want-to-square-dance-with-me-you.html" target="_blank">two boys fighting to square dance with me</a>. It
was also the year of my first kiss, which had nothing to do with Valentine’s
Day so I’m not going to share that story yet. And it was the year I had my
first crush on a boy in my class.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvMMXTXJ8Z1NEQA1LZumWgz-LcpMHVGhSCU1CbqfITY58xaNdilVHdNAVu7Sv2GsZxHT1QmSTgG_-WmSL55mTRajYgoTw0BUTje3EzrDqYVKjS7k6st6Kr0QT4dLj0z36kq926hxIPFHTO/s250/conversation+hearts.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="250" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvMMXTXJ8Z1NEQA1LZumWgz-LcpMHVGhSCU1CbqfITY58xaNdilVHdNAVu7Sv2GsZxHT1QmSTgG_-WmSL55mTRajYgoTw0BUTje3EzrDqYVKjS7k6st6Kr0QT4dLj0z36kq926hxIPFHTO/w200-h177/conversation+hearts.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">By the time we were 10 we were
expected to like like a particular boy, so I told the other girls I like liked
Steve A. because we’d been friends since we were about three and had even
walked to kindergarten together every day. He was safe because he was like a
brother. My real crush was on Clint H. though and it was a secret I carried
deep inside along with my absolute belief that Bobby Sherman was my real dad. I
never told a soul, not even my best friend.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I did tell Clint on Valentine’s
Day though in the most awkward, painful way possible. Not only did I sort
through my little box of cards and choose the one that said “Be mine” to slip
into the slot he’d cut in the top of his shoe box, I also sorted out the candies
with the three most romantic, loving sayings from a box of conversation hearts
and stuck them in the pocket of my coat. When we all put on our coats to go
outside for recess, I made an excuse to go back to my desk and waited until all
the other kids had left the room. Then I lifted the lid of Clint’s desk just a
little and slipped those three hearts into the pencil tray inside his desk. Covert
love attack accomplished, I ran outside to play. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I have no idea what I expected
would happen. That he would somehow intuit that he should “be mine”? That Jesus
was watching and would reward me for my loving gesture by making Clint like me
back? Looking back, it was pretty passive-aggressive, but those were the times.
Girls weren’t supposed to make the first move … or the second or third. I grew
up in a time when girls couldn’t even call a boy on the phone, not even when I
was in high school, so my brazen act of slipping those three candies in his
desk would be an unbearable faux pas if I were discovered.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">We came back in from recess, took
off our coats and settled in at our desks. I watched as Clint opened his and
discovered the three little candy hearts. He looked around and said, “Where did
these come from?” Everybody craned to look at the hearts in his hand. I looked
too, as if seeing them for the first time, as if he weren’t holding my heart in
his grubby 10-year-old hand. “I bet Reticula put those there,” one of the boys –
I can’t remember which one now – shouted out. “I did not,” I denied. I’m sure
my face was the color of a red construction paper heart. Clint turned and looked at
me, expressionless as a 10-year-old boy, and then turned back to face the front. I don’t even know
if he ate my little candy hearts. I was drowning in shame and embarrassment. I couldn’t even look
at him, probably for the rest of 5<sup>th</sup> grade.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Two-and-a-half years ago, and decades
after I left 5<sup>th </sup>grade, my mom was dying and Clint was her lawyer. I
hadn’t seen him since shortly after we graduated. One afternoon as she lay in
her hospice bed, I went uptown to his office to discuss her estate. He’d been
recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, and even though he looked just like an
older version of his 5<sup>th</sup>-grade self, he seemed so tired and worn
out, like he just wanted to get through the day. My mom died a few days later,
and a year or so after Clint also died, before her estate was even settled.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Here’s
what I wish had happened that day in 5<sup>th</sup> grade. I wish Clint had
opened his desk and said, “Where did these come from?” and the other boy had
said he thought I put them there and then, instead of hiding in my shame, I
wish I’d stood up and said to the entire 5<sup>th</sup>-grade class, “I did put
them there. Clint is one of the smartest kids in the school. He works hard and
he never gets in trouble. He’s not mean to other kids and he’s a fast runner.
Also, I think he’s cute. I put them there because I like him. There I said it. I
like him.” And then I wish I’d sat down and felt not a twinge of shame. That’s
what I wish had happened.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">💓💓💓💓💓</span></div><div><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Ah, well. I've given up on sneaking the sweetest conversation hearts into boys' desks .... because that would be creepy now. I'm sorry I never got to tell Clint I was the one who put the suggestive candy in his desk in 5th grade. On the other hand, I don't think I could have stood to see that blank expression on his face again, this time because he didn't fucking remember anybody putting conversation hearts in his desk at recess. I haven't really improved in the realm of romance since 5th grade. Maybe if I'd had success that day? But probably not.</span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I do hope you're having a good day though. It certainly looks like everybody is happy and in love if my Facebook feed is any indication. So many flowers and chocolates and bottles of wine. If you're sitting home alone eating chocolate chips out of the freezer like I am though, here's a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/bbcthesocial/videos/2017951531585576/">soothing video to make your day complete</a>. Click it. It's my valentine to you, sweet reader.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-43617567251421800862021-01-21T00:18:00.006-05:002021-01-21T22:39:15.637-05:00The weight of an inauguration<p> </p><p><br /></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8A2-L_BSCCP6z1KROMO2nV9Mcbm9ZDiPMnDbNMYVGQCc5Doa4sY7FZHMtQ2FZ_bmCiTCwHIF3LXeNC3Q-0-o854OFrFTeav4dXSBMsgql3Ol9h686govEiZPhdN86AlUPe-1bKSArQS4/s720/gorman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="718" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8A2-L_BSCCP6z1KROMO2nV9Mcbm9ZDiPMnDbNMYVGQCc5Doa4sY7FZHMtQ2FZ_bmCiTCwHIF3LXeNC3Q-0-o854OFrFTeav4dXSBMsgql3Ol9h686govEiZPhdN86AlUPe-1bKSArQS4/s320/gorman.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I was so moved by the inauguration ceremony today that I leaked tears the entire time (and the entire day after). </span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">As the ceremony came to a close, in addition to relief, pride, and hope, I felt exhausted. Utterly exhausted. I could hardly keep my eyes open, my head up. I felt drained. Not emotionless. Not empty. Just like I need to shut down for a minute or two and stay in the space between the grief of the past 4+ years and the hope for the next four. I felt like the moon. The real, cratered moon that's been pelted by meteors for eons. I stayed alert through the long dark night of the past 4 years, and as the sun comes up, I just need a minute of rest. Or maybe a few.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">We have so much work to do. I know today was a beginning, not an end. And yet, that feeling of exhaustion is still with me tonight as I write, after the afternoon parade and the evening program and the fireworks. It was all so inspiring, so dignified and joyful. My heart is full of cautious hope and yet I feel exhausted.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Some guy I don't know posted this comment on a friend's post about the inauguration: </span><span style="font-family: Oxygen;">"You are the only person I have seen post anything about the inauguration today...80 million people silent. Remember when Trump won FB was swamped with flags and people excited. I still find it hard to believe 80million voters showed up on election day, but not on Bidens [sic] social media, rallies or even posting support of his big day on social media...very odd indeed."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">I almost scrolled on by. I almost wrote "You're a dumbass." I almost wrote, "Shut the fuck up, you delusional piece of shit. Your guy lost and it's over." I almost wrote that my Facebook was filled with angry tears and disbelief on January 20, 2017, and I was packing to ride a bus to DC to protest in the huge, non-violent Women's March." Instead I told him my Facebook newsfeed was filled with happy, hopeful posts about Biden's inauguration (true story), and that it looked like he was hanging around with the wrong crowd. I think maybe he doesn't remember what normal looks like, what humble looks like.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Do any of us remember what normal looks like though? One of the first things we need to give up is our national addiction to drama. To always being on alert. To the constant bombardment of insults and horrible decisions; the pathological attention we've been paying to the horror show that's played out in the White House over the past four years. We have to give up the adrenaline-fueled rush of alarm, of dread, of rage, of disbelief ... it's addictive and venomous. </span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">We're like rats hitting that treat button, and the treat we get is poisoned. It's making us sick. All of us. Whether we hated Donald Trump or loved him, he is a sick man who made us sick too. </span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">And I'm afraid we've forgotten how to live without it. I'm afraid we've forgotten to expect decency, from our government and from ourselves.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Maybe the guy who wrote that comment doesn't recognize Biden's dignified, even-tempered, intelligent strength. Maybe he hasn't seen how Biden's refusal to shout and rant and seek constant attention is exactly what we need now. It's what all of us need no matter whom we voted for. We're exhausted and we're sick and we still can't let down our guard.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">So today, we got what we needed: a quiet, sane, dignified, sweet transfer of ... not power, but character. A transfer of character. Just like Donald Trump was the disappointing opposite of Barrack Obama, so too is Joe Biden a different opposite of Donald Trump.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">And now that Trump has shown us the worst in our country, the worst in ourselves, maybe Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can help us find in our national story the heroic tale we've always wanted it to be. Maybe this is what it took to burn off the lies we tell about ourselves, our country, and start with new bones. What we've seen destroyed, we now have to build with a new vision. Together. Eyes open.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Today I felt like a burden was lifted, and I'm so joyful that burden has flown off to Florida. I hope the exhaustion I feel from carrying that heavy load of lies, gaslighting, cruelty and disdain, as we all have, gives way to new strength soon. You can't build new muscle without tearing down the old. So I'll drink a glass of chardonnay, go to bed early and plan to wake up tomorrow feeling calmer and saner, kinder and less ready to flip the rage switch, more like Joe and Kamala.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Brave enough to be the light.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-6311952731309992522021-01-07T22:53:00.003-05:002021-01-08T13:12:56.135-05:00If you want to square dance with me, you have to fight<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK5fivtD-JK2ISMVqBWKD-864VXZghX0epqqt8dqJb5dip-ekANf0Z6HlyiWcX3AJRwKqmbGx-L7f1gO69DlHuoMdVDvA-sbnOv8ks9yezUab_dY71_7cgQ1YCfpZOqgNlY5ay1RURzCip/s900/square+dancing.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="696" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK5fivtD-JK2ISMVqBWKD-864VXZghX0epqqt8dqJb5dip-ekANf0Z6HlyiWcX3AJRwKqmbGx-L7f1gO69DlHuoMdVDvA-sbnOv8ks9yezUab_dY71_7cgQ1YCfpZOqgNlY5ay1RURzCip/s320/square+dancing.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Isn't it funny what will trigger a waterfall of memories? Yesterday Coraline and I were glued to the insurrection at the Capitol building. Of course, my wish, as it always is, was that this would be the one act of an insane wannabe king that would bring us together as a nation. It seemed like a no-brainer that those of us on both sides, regardless of how we voted in November, could agree that a line had been crossed. I just keep hoping, but again I was disappointed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">This morning a Facebook friend from high school posted that the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/01/07/the-antifa-lie-conservative-lawmakers-pundits-push-a-baseless-claim-that-leftists-were-behind-capitol-insurrection/?sh=6f89117d4b8d">dread Antifa had infiltrated the poor hapless Proud Boys</a> (does anybody else see a treehouse with a sign that says "no girlz alowd"?) and broke into the Capitol building just to get the Boys in trouble. Now I have to admit my imagination is somewhat limited. I just can't picture these so-called Antifa agitators researching and obtaining the proper pseudo-Viking pagan tattoos, ordering big-ass Confederate and Trump flags, stockpiling Kevlar vests and firearms, practicing their mean faces, traveling to DC, and standing maskless through Trump's hour-long plea for insurrection just waiting for an opportunity to break into the Capitol building and wander around like tourists. Except for the guy who stole a podium and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/pelosi-desk-photo-trump-riot-capitol/2021/01/06/ea42643c-5068-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html?fbclid=IwAR1cwJogICOcddTK2FLuWmEBZoSHjPlEFper2YV3XmJ7dJOinHVhRProuOg" target="_blank">this guy who sat at Nancy Pelosi's desk</a> and wrote her a brief, but nasty, note while he scratched his balls. That ball-scratcher definitely has a beef with fascism. Or maybe it's good taste. But all the others? Really? We're supposed to believe they were Antifa actors?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">On the other hand, it kind of sounds like fun. I mean, I'm against fascism. Have been since the 60's. I'm as anti-fa as a Roosevelt. So sign me up for the next infiltration of the insurrection!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">But I digress ...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Several people tried to deny that the evil Antifa was really to blame, to no avail. She's certain Antifa was up to their old tricks. Backing her up though was a name from my past -- way back in my past. A boy -- let's call him DG -- I went to school with apparently also has inside information about Antifa. He piped right up with an opinion backed by zero evidence, and suddenly I was looking at a memory reel about this boy and we were never even friends.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">First thing I did was examine the palm of my hand just under the center of my first and second fingers for a small black dot that's been there since we were in second grade. It's a graphic reminder (pun intended) of the day he stabbed me and broke off the point of his pencil in my hand. I pulled the lead out afterwards, but no amount of washing would remove the graphite from the wound. I remember it took a long time to heal. I don't remember why he did it. I know I didn't tell an adult about it. I wasn't a tattle-tale. I do remember the day I served my cold revenge.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Some weeks later DG, who sat in front of me, turned around and asked me for an answer on the phonics worksheet I'd already finished. I'm surprised I was awake. I taught myself to read when I was four, so doing phonics worksheets when I was 7 was excruciating when I could have been reading a book. But boredom isn't my excuse for the answer I gave him when he showed me a drawing of a boat and asked what letter completed this word: shi_. I looked at it, covered my paper and said, "T. The answer is T." He wrote it down. I don't know what, if anything, the teacher did about that. It didn't matter. My revenge was complete.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">My next memory of DG wasn't until three years later, when we !were in fifth grade. Every year we did a few weeks of square dancing in gym class. Did I mention I grew up in a small rural town in Iowa? We also learned songs from <i>Music Man</i> every year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Anyway, we were told to choose partners. Fucking excruciating. One of the reasons I'd never want to be 10 again. In those days girls weren't allowed to call boys on the phone, much less choose them for partners in square dancing. And, yes, girls had to dance with boys and boys had to dance with girls. Duh.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I'm sure I suffered through the find-a-partner ritual many times but this time was different. This time DG and another boy I'll call BR both wanted to dance with .... wait for it .... <i><span style="font-size: large;">me</span></i><span style="font-size: large;">!</span> They both came over at the same time to stand beside me and stake their claim and <i>then</i> ... wait for it! They started fighting over me! I am <i>not fucking lying</i>!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">They were trying to punch each other (they weren't the kind of boys who were good fighters), grabbing each other's shirts and shoving and shouting, "She's dancing with <i>me</i>!" "No she's not! She's dancing with <i>me</i>!" And their faces were red and angry and everything!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I know it probably seems like this is the kind of thing that would happen to someone like me all the time, but I promise you, I was <i>not </i></span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">the kind of girl boys fought over. </span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Other girls -- popular girls -- were that kind of girl (although I don't remember two boys fighting over who got to square dance with any of the other girls)</span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">. I was the opposite of that kind of girl, that kind of girl boys liked. Some girls even had boyfriends already, of a sort. I did not have a boyfriend and it wasn't because of my daddy's shotgun. I didn't even think any boys in my school liked me, although there was one boy in my class I wished would like me. (I will confess I had my first three-way</span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"> that year, but that's another story.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">I don't remember whom I ended up doing the do-si-do with that day. Someone with sweaty palms, I'm sure. The only reason the incident stuck in my memory is because it was so unexpected and extraordinary. First, because I'm not that girl. And second, because boys just didn't fight in school.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">The end of the anecdote is <i>not</i> that I suddenly found myself with two boyfriends who hate each other to this day because neither could have all of me. I guess they used up all their courage that day. BR did ask me to homecoming our freshman year, but I was waiting for his cousin, two years older and with a driver's license, to ask me so I told him I already had a date, and then I went with his cousin. We were close friends through high school though and he never pulled a <a href="https://www.bustle.com/articles/147499-what-is-nice-guy-syndrome-5-signs-that-a-self-proclaimed-nice-guy-isnt-all-that-nice">Nice Guy</a> on me.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">DG and I were not ever friends. He was a bit of an outcast and he wasn't even close to being in any of my circles. I doubt we ever even went to the same party. But I do remember this. One of the other boys scratched out his photo in my senior yearbook and wrote "loser" over the top of it in pen. I was pissed, but it couldn't be fixed. DG kept asking me if he could sign my yearbook and I kept putting him off. He got more and more insistent, but I didn't want him to see his photo and think I had done it. Even if I explained what happened, I thought it would hurt his feelings. Now I remember he probably suffered worse in high school. I'm sure he was bullied, but he was also pretty arrogant so who knows? Maybe he had feelings of steel and I put him off for nothing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I don't know if he ever signed my yearbook and I don't care enough to get it out and look now, b</span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">ecause decades later that boy is a man and he seriously thinks some brilliant group known only as Antifa infiltrated those bad-ass Proud Boys yesterday and made it look like </span><i style="font-family: "Special Elite";">they </i><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">broke down doors and windows and took over the Capitol building when those proud Proud Boys were actually just <a href="https://twitter.com/KySportsRadio/status/1347031398176223233">innocent, peaceful demonstrators </a>who were trying to save their poor embattled leader from ... well, from prison actually, but let's not go there. He believes those meek and mild Proud Boys were the soft, squishy victims, punked at their own insurrection ... yeah, I just can't care now whether he saw his defaced photo (is that even a pun?) in my yearbook in 1976.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Thanks for reading my trip down memory lane though. I know this post is random as hell, but in case you haven't noticed, 2021 has been showing its ass this week and this is the first fucking week of the year. Let's hope it gets better before it gets worse, my friends, or I'll be writing about that three-way I had with two boys when I was ten years old just to keep myself away from the news.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Note: My friend who posted the original post is my friend. We agree on many things and we don't agree on some things. Some of those things are important to me. Not as important as my friendship with her.</span></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-7142701232663677742020-11-20T00:05:00.006-05:002020-11-20T22:15:36.150-05:00I write <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3IVtOwvA_xA9Otqzs3rMOeRZqGGkLpvkfvI8cJJ9G_DwQIvMQMv2YMukYEYwo_MdxmRmYXg0HQTnxKX4LYrDyB4-rWn7CqkYYbDQ60qZMweuIGipLd-rsreJqVCrdU-fHTDLi1rZrpVN/s2393/20201119_224157-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2089" data-original-width="2393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3IVtOwvA_xA9Otqzs3rMOeRZqGGkLpvkfvI8cJJ9G_DwQIvMQMv2YMukYEYwo_MdxmRmYXg0HQTnxKX4LYrDyB4-rWn7CqkYYbDQ60qZMweuIGipLd-rsreJqVCrdU-fHTDLi1rZrpVN/s320/20201119_224157-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I recently went to a writer's conference in my dining room. Pretty much the only way I'm going to get to one, COVID or not. Someone asked in a break-out session why I write a blog. It's certainly not because bloggers are well respected in the writing community. Quite the opposite. Anybody can write a blog, after all. And in case you haven't heard -- because obviously you haven't if you're reading this -- nobody reads blogs any more. It's a fair question, and one I need to answer for myself, since I keep coming back here and writing.*</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><strike>The most compelling reason for writing here is because I need the income. I make a ton of money writing blog posts and if you'll give me $2000, I'll show you how I do it.</strike></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">The most compelling reason I do it is because after doing it for so many years, and after writing almost 750 posts, I just need to do it. My Muse, Dolores, is not someone who likes to be put in the corner. If I go too long with her whispering ideas and words and sentences in my ear, I start to feel anxious. I feel a need to get her voice out of my head. I learn from what I write, and putting words on paper or a screen, helps me sort things out, see things more clearly. And being the extrovert I am, having an audience is the whipped cream on the pumpkin pie. Being my own audience, not so much.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Another reason I write is somewhat more altruistic. Because I can write whatever I want (1st Amendment and all that), I write whatever I feel like writing in the moment I'm in. I do not publish everything that happens in my life, but I do tackle some difficult topics when the need arises. I can't tell you how many times I've written a post that I almost didn't publish because it felt too raw or I felt too vulnerable or I didn't think people would get it, and not only did a lot of you get it, some of you actually needed to read it as much as I needed to write it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Few things are more gratifying to me than getting an email or a message that says, "Thank you for writing that. I have the same problem [went through the same thing] [have the same fears] [worry about this too], but I don't have the words to express it myself." Some people don't feel safe writing it down, and I get that. Sometimes I write things that turn out to feel not so safe. Some people haven't been able to put into words what they're feeling. That's my job as a writer, and it's a privilege to do it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I know what it's like to have my voice silenced, whether by someone else or by my own fears. When I can put something into words that are meaningful and helpful for someone else ... it's just the best feeling. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">The third reason I write here is entirely selfish. I like the attention. I love it when I can start a conversation that continues past what I write. I love it when someone comes up to me at a party (back when such a thing existed) and tells me how much they loved a particular post, and how it made them laugh or cry or, best of all, both. More than once I've been at a party and someone has introduced me to a stranger as "Reticula. You should read her blog. It's really funny and she writes a lot about vaginas." It's a great conversation starter, and I like being the vagina-writer.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">One of the best times though was at a party where we were playing Cards Against Humanity. No other game loosens people up as much as that one. One of the players was someone I knew from the theater community, but had never met in person. He made a comment about something he'd read. It was obviously this blog he was talking about, so I responded and we talked for a minute. Finally he said, "Wait! Are you Reticulated Writer? That's <i>you</i>?"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I said, "Well .... yeah. I thought you knew that. You brought it up."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">"I didn't!" he said. "I just love your blog. I read it all the time."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">That's a high, my friends. It's like one millionth of a percent of being famous. It's like being a hair on Dolly Parton's wig. Heady stuff.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Those are my top reasons, and I guess some of my reasons are also reasons you read here too. Maybe you like what I say or the way I say it. I don't dare think a lot about why other people read here, because even though I write for an audience in my head, I don't want to feel censored by that imagined, yet real, audience. I censor myself, but this is my living room and nobody else should be able to silence the telling of my story.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I have written posts that pissed people off before. There was that one guy I dated who didn't like what I wrote about him, even though every bit of it is true. One thing I don't do is lie here. I took it down and I've always regretted it. It was my story and if he didn't like the way he acted in my story, he shouldn't have dated a writer. Especially not a red-headed writer.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I know I'm not everybody's cup of tea. Otherwise I'd have a big book deal like some of the uber famous bloggers. It's not like I'm turning down offers from Penguin or Random House, and <i>The New Yorker</i> is only offering me a free tote bag with my one-year subscription.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Some people have complained that I don't write about vaginas enough these days. I agree! I need to get on that. Others used to complain that I wrote about vaginas too much. I said at least I wasn't writing about my own. What's the problem? </span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">A couple of people even unfriended me on Facebook over vagina posts. That's OK with me. If somebody comes here and finds offense, that's on them. I tell the truth here and every post is authentically me. Once my words are published, I have no control over how people absorb or react to what I'm saying. Here's what I do when I'm offended by content on a blog or website though. I move my handy cursor arrow right to the little X on the right side of the tab for that page and I click it. Poof. It's gone like Donald Trump's tan when he takes a shower. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Here's the bottom line. I love knowing 99% of you who are reading this are here because you like what I write, you enjoy reading it, and we have some kind of connection through my words. I am grateful that I can imagine myself talking to you like this, as friends. Even as a confidant. It helps, especially now when we're so isolated. In the lonely hours of the night when I usually write, it helps to know that some of you will read my words and get to know my heart and mind and like me anyway.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Stay safe and well, my friends. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">*I've already written over 2500 words today that I can use for NaNoWriMo. I'm still on track if I keep my butt in the chair.</span></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-14343946837584793142020-11-19T00:34:00.002-05:002020-11-19T02:23:30.002-05:00Thanksgiving 2020: It's going to be OK<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbFtfwWEP1HCcR414Qa0qXl3YGnILkutR5IiuYHv1VzFxE0iF-0E4AjQTkTdHO2Fa7X08Z39aFMp5jkksUKtmRhxeGCe8GLfPDz_AbkNmG8veH9KjAFpnKx9uEX3UmyFnktRtR5XMlcNgw/s960/military+family+home+alone.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbFtfwWEP1HCcR414Qa0qXl3YGnILkutR5IiuYHv1VzFxE0iF-0E4AjQTkTdHO2Fa7X08Z39aFMp5jkksUKtmRhxeGCe8GLfPDz_AbkNmG8veH9KjAFpnKx9uEX3UmyFnktRtR5XMlcNgw/s320/military+family+home+alone.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I had to laugh when a friend posted this today.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">I think I've written a Thanksgiving post every year for the past 10 years. I'm too lazy to check. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and it falls during NaBloPoMo, when I usually post a blog post every day in November. This year I'm not doing NaBloPoMo and I'm not planning that big Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not offering invitations to friends and strangers who have no place to go or who don't feel welcome with their family or who would just rather let someone else do all that cooking ... or my kids, who don't really have a choice on their mom's favorite holiday. I don't celebrate Easter and I'll even give up Christmas Day (although it turns out they won't. God love them) but Thanksgiving is </span><i style="font-family: "Special Elite";">my</i><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"> day.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">This year -- the year of 2020 -- <i>my</i> day has been coopted by a tiny, vicious, virulent, politicized, stupid-head virus. Although I still have much to give thanks for, Thanksgiving won't be the same. And you know what? I'll get through it and so will you if we're smart and lucky and we manage to stay healthy. Some of us won't be so lucky ... but this is about Thanksgiving.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Here's how I know I can get through a Thanksgiving with just my 9-year-old granddaughter Coraline and me at the table: I've done it before. I was a military wife for over 20 years, and I've been alone on my favorite holiday more than once. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">The first time I was 23 and we were stationed at Robins AFB in Georgia, living in a duplex in base housing. It was our first year there, and we'd been there less than a year. I don't remember where LtColEx was -- England, maybe Iceland or Alaska. He was a navigator on a KC-135 refueling plane, so he flew all over the world and was sometimes TDY (temporary duty) for weeks or months at a time. We couldn't afford for me to fly to Iowa, and I didn't want to make the long drive alone. So I stayed home alone. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">And it wasn't so bad. My overtly Christian neighbors across the street brought over a plate from their dinner for me. Bless them. They didn't approve of me. I blasted Led Zeppelin from the speakers in our little white Chevette when I washed it in the driveway; they blasted fiery sermons back, hoping to save unsuspecting passersby or better yet, me. I was immune, but I accepted the plate of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and dressing with gratitude, and they safely discharged their Christian duty.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Later I went next door and ate dinner with our friends Sharon and Dave, who shared bedroom walls with us. They had made turkey with all the trimmings too, and I was even invited to eat at their table. It was just the three of us, and we had a lovely low-key dinner. I saved the other plate for the next day.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">The next year LtColEx was home, only he wasn't home. He was sitting alert at the alert facility near the airfield on the other side of the base. Alert means just what it sounds like: Air Force fliers standing ready in case they need to take off quickly and go drop a bomb on something. Every three weeks if they weren't TDY the flyers had to live together in a little dorm-like facility so they could stay close to the four B-52 bombers and four KC-135 refuelers that sat on a special runway inside a second security gate. There was a family visitation center nearby with a large gathering space, a kitchen with a microwave, and three small private rooms with a couch and a TV in two of them. In the evenings the flyers would meet their wives and kids, if they had them, to spend a few hours together.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">That year I cooked our turkey dinner at home and transported it to the family center in our big wooden picnic basket that had been a wedding gift. We got lucky that night and arrived in time to get one of the rooms with a TV, where we ate our dinner and watched one of three fuzzy channels and were glad we were together.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">The next year we were both home, and I made the turkey dinner for us and for Dave, who was TDY and staying in the officer's quarters that year. He and Sharon had gotten orders to another base earlier in the year. We also hosted one of the first women to navigate the KC-135s. She arrived two hours late so the turkey was dry and the mashed potatoes were cold, but we still enjoyed our Thanksgiving, because we were together.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I've got decades of Thanksgivings under my belt now. The kids and I spent a couple of them without LtColEx, because he was in Korea or somewhere else. For years my little brother came every year and always made the gravy, which is my nemesis. Now he lives 700 miles away, and he has his own Thanksgiving dinner with his close friends. I've always invited people to be with us if I could, and some came year after year, and then for various reasons were replaced by other friends. Often I'll post an invitation on Facebook for anybody who doesn't have a place to go just to keep the "giving" in Thanksgiving.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Also, I love feeding people, and I love feeding people a big traditional turkey dinner. I've done it so often the menu rarely changes: roast turkey, bread sage stuffing (I tried a delicious wild rice with dried apricots stuffing one time and my kids threatened mutiny if I did it again), mashed potatoes, gravy that doesn't set up until after dinner because now I have to make it myself, green beans with bacon and almonds, sweet potato casserole with apples and marshmallows, homemade cranberry sauce, Grandma Bolton's secret-recipe rolls, fresh pumpkin pie and dark chocolate bourbon pecan pie with homemade whipped cream. (Cool Whip is not allowed in my house. Don't even try. That shit isn't real food.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Some of my best holiday memories come not from Christmas, but from Thanksgiving. <a href="https://reticulatedwriter.blogspot.com/2011/11/nov-13-turkey-slaughter.html" target="_blank">The year I killed my own turkey</a> and she was so long (not balled up like a store-bought turkey), she kicked the lid off the roaster and I had to put a 10-pound weight on it to hold the lid down. </span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">The year I started the oven on fire and almost burned up the bread and the pies. The year Colorado's husband-at-the-time stood out in the kitchen after the dishes were done and the rest of us had gone to the living room and ate all the turkey leftovers. We got rid of him. Jerk. The first Thanksgiving after LtColEx moved out and my sister and brother flew in from Iowa and Minneapolis. I upped my game and made homemade butter while they sat at my kitchen bar and we talked and drank wine. When it was finally done we spread it on homemade bread, so eager to try it, and it tasted .... just like butter. Any butter. Fucking Kroger butter. The year one annual guest announced three times that she'd rather get Chinese food and watch a movie than do Thanksgiving dinner the next year. I had to physically restrain Colorado. We lost her in a divorce. Buh bye. The year I made the regular turkey and a Tofurkey because I was a vegetarian, and the Tofurkey was so bad even the dog wouldn't touch it. Who knew tofu isn't meat? Three years ago when I went home to Iowa for my mom's big 80th birthday party, and we turned around the next day and had Thanksgiving together on Sunday, because that's when she liked to do her dinner so everybody could make it. Except me. I hadn't been home for Thanksgiving in decades. We didn't know it would be her last Thanksgiving as we ate our smoked turkey and my brother's good gravy. I could go on, but you probably have your own memories.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">And what about Thanksgiving 2020? What will we say about Thanksgiving when we look back on this year? I'm not sure yet how it will go, but here's what I expect.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpAdyBg1e1X4aPLeSrhfp6PRtTIeSsIVPy_oaeXixiwzfQB-P6Gynnca2w31yFdnb-QkpeT7eqvtLX31dtnieKQndBIhI63lGOGusvDqHZQ3VeZ8AYIAhvwjg0Eaj2zUrDwEPcJTfx1XB4/s960/Take+it+down+Karen.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="938" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpAdyBg1e1X4aPLeSrhfp6PRtTIeSsIVPy_oaeXixiwzfQB-P6Gynnca2w31yFdnb-QkpeT7eqvtLX31dtnieKQndBIhI63lGOGusvDqHZQ3VeZ8AYIAhvwjg0Eaj2zUrDwEPcJTfx1XB4/s320/Take+it+down+Karen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Plan A. Even though I'm not inviting anybody over, I will get a turkey and roast it in my roaster. And then after I take the meat off that bird, I'll probably put it back in the roaster and make some soup stock. Or maybe I won't. I won't feel guilty if I don't. I'll make the mashed potatoes and gravy, the green beans, some sour dough rolls, a fresh pumpkin pie, and maybe even a wild rice stuffing with dried apricots. I probably won't make the sweet potatoes or the cranberry sauce, because the two of us can only eat so much. </span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Coraline and I will enjoy our dinner, because it will be delicious. Maybe we'll video chat with family and friends throughout the day. Maybe we'll watch a movie that we have to pay for. We'll still stuff ourselves like any other Thanksgiving and then we'll take the dog for a walk so we can eat more later.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">I'll find out if the single guys who live on either side of me are home and I'll take them a plate and tell them next year I'll expect them at my dinner table. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">We will not go inside anybody else's house, and we'll feel fine, because we're keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe. And because we still have blessings to count. And we'll have tons of left-overs!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Plan B. My son Drake and my daughter-in-law Montana have a big yard -- almost an acre. If the weather is nice, we might bring our dinners together and eat outside, socially distanced, masked when we need to. Plan B is looking less likely as the COVID numbers skyrocket here in Ohio though. Our governor can't find his balls to do anything more than urge us to wear masks and weakly enforce a curfew for the fucktards who insist on partying in bars, but the board of health in my county has issued a stay-at-home advisory, which we are going to follow.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Also, Montana is an ER nurse, and as the COVID beds are now all full, the ER staff are taking care of more and more COVID patients. We'll judge the safety of an outdoor dinner next week. We don't want our 2020 Thanksgiving memory to be .... well, you know.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Here's one thing I know: We can all get through a Thanksgiving, and even a Christmas, either alone or with only the people we live with. We can. I've done it. We may be sad, but sad is better than dead or damaged for life. Feelings are temporary. COVID too often is not.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">Oh, I forgot about Plan C. Once I can safely do it, I'm going to have the biggest Thanksgiving dinner ever and I'm going to fill my house and my porches and my yard with people eating and giving thanks. I don't care if I do it in July or September or April. I will reclaim Thanksgiving from 2020 and I will make many more Thanksgiving memories to hold in my heart.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Please stay safe and well as we roll into what will be an unusual and difficult holiday season, my friends. We can do this.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span><p></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-37499382589204469752020-11-13T14:14:00.001-05:002020-11-13T14:14:39.187-05:00Someone to hold her hand ... always<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlodEbHLYLCBpl_gH-Xdz-Z7ZfuZMB52oq47PVzfZtcSRnidqZNeK8uMIzCnRzxjN6oKK7ndByJMKCN3M1nXI1YSX_ENZ58SyhPE6umMAvQQJ5cVp55m-4pMWoNKzO8O0P1i-cSVt3TDBn/s200/someone+to+hold+her+hand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlodEbHLYLCBpl_gH-Xdz-Z7ZfuZMB52oq47PVzfZtcSRnidqZNeK8uMIzCnRzxjN6oKK7ndByJMKCN3M1nXI1YSX_ENZ58SyhPE6umMAvQQJ5cVp55m-4pMWoNKzO8O0P1i-cSVt3TDBn/s0/someone+to+hold+her+hand.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Her 5th deviled egg </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I got some rare good news today. I can't write about that, so I want instead to share one of my favorite posts about my 9-year-old granddaughter, Coraline. One good thing that happened in 2020 is that I got official custody of her, something we both wanted a lot. When she used to ask why she lived with me, I'd tell her it was because we have a special relationship, and I think this post from 2013 shows just how special.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">M</span>y daughter Elvira brought over my granddaughter Coraline,
who turned 2 last week (and insists she's 5), about noon today to spend the day
and the night. We had a busy day. We started by making deviled eggs for lunch.
I keep up a running commentary as I cook or make food with Coraline now. It's
like I've got my own Food Network show, and she's the only one in the studio
audience. "And now we finish with just a sprinkle of smoked paprika to complement
the tang of the mustard and the creaminess of the eggs...."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">After lunch we threw the ball for Kohl, the granddog,
watered the tomatoes, read a bunch of books, sat on the potty a dozen times
both with and without success, and took a nap. The nap was for my benefit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Then we headed over to a local botanical garden that has a
big, creative play area for kids with lots of water features, sand boxes, fairy
houses, caves, edible plants, and bees. We spent several hours there exploring
and discovering things like snails and pale blue dragonflies and sensitive
plants.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Back home we got into dry clothes, grilled some chicken and
corn on the cob for dinner, and then took Kohl for a long walk as dusk fell,
talking about the meaning of red and yellow and green lights, and when to walk
and when to wait. A big bowl of homemade yogurt with blueberries, an apple, and
about 30 books later, it was 11:30 and Coraline was fighting sleep. She missed
her mommy, and wasn't ready for the day to end.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">She didn't want to be held or rocked, so she tossed and
rolled on my bed trying to get comfortable as I sang to her. Finally I
persuaded her to lie still, close her eyes and just hold my hand as I sang the
same song over and over.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Like a ship in the harbor,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Like a mother and child,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Like a light in the darkness<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I'll hold you a while.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">We'll rock on the water,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">And I'll cradle you deep,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">And hold you while fairies<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Sing you to sleep.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">As her muscles relaxed and her breathing slowed, I lay on my
side facing her, her tiny hand curled around my fingers, and watched her give
in to her dreams. And as I did, I saw superimposed over her small arm the arm
of a much older woman -- a woman even older than I am. The arm of the woman she
will be decades from now.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I thought of the times she had trusted my hands just today
-- the many times when she reached out without looking as she navigated a long,
man-made stream studded with rocks, knowing my hand would be there for her to
grasp so she wouldn't fall; when she rested her head in my hand as I lathered up
her hair and sprayed it clean over the kitchen sink; when she touched the hot,
foil-wrapped corn after I told her it was hot, and I grabbed her hand and held
it to a cool dishcloth to dissipate the pain; when I lifted her over a toilet
that seems big enough to swallow her up because she likes using my potty ...
when she fell asleep missing her mom and sleeping in my big bed instead of her
own.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">And I offered up a prayer to whomever may or may not be
listening for that woman of the future. I prayed that she would remember the
feeling of someone holding her hand and loving her as completely and fiercely
as is humanly possible -- because I do, just like I have loved her mother and
her uncle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I prayed that all the nights she falls asleep snuggled up to
her mommy's breast or curled up next to her daddy's side or holding my hand
while I sing to her will stay with her like a warm, soft invisible cloak that
she can fold around herself whenever she needs comfort, even after her arms are
mottled with age spots and her skin has grown thin and wrinkled, and my ashes
have long since been spread in someone's garden ... or lost if I know my kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">That, I think, would be more important than knowing how to
make deviled eggs and studying the mating habits of dragonflies, learning to
pee on a toilet and that yellow means "be careful." <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Although those things are certainly important too.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-50677890393292337682020-11-10T15:13:00.010-05:002020-11-10T17:56:07.303-05:00Finding my inner handypenis<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx-mY6kaOQeK4gzXvj2__AmWPYDokfSiOUTiSinx_cjpvnChL-fK67cTbUZh-zJg93gLXNQombYbuqix5R9wuKjB2KlL1E50zwVdKpAQW6nQtVpRC07Bcei4oAFLaLFnIGwWjDPGEjpK6K/s2048/Coraline+flipping.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1523" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx-mY6kaOQeK4gzXvj2__AmWPYDokfSiOUTiSinx_cjpvnChL-fK67cTbUZh-zJg93gLXNQombYbuqix5R9wuKjB2KlL1E50zwVdKpAQW6nQtVpRC07Bcei4oAFLaLFnIGwWjDPGEjpK6K/w298-h400/Coraline+flipping.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">I just had to check in and see how everybody's doing. Last week was a big week. Yuge. Nobody's ever seen one this huge. I have to admit I was feeling some PTSD on election Tuesday stemming from the 2016 election night horror show. I was irritable, unfocused, fearful even, after weeks of grinding tension. Like a lot of you, I suspect. 2020 has been unkind and I had no reason to believe it was going to change.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">But as the week went by, something happened. The weather changed from chilly and rainy to dry and warm. The autumn trees cast a warm pink and yellow glow over our street. The tide started to turn blue in the days after the election. And Thursday I woke up and felt like a dark cloud had been lifted off my head. A heavy dark cloud. I felt like getting to work.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Toward the end of October I had signed up for a race called <a href="https://runsignup.com/Race/IN/AnyTown/RunforRuthWeDissent?raceRefCode=TwDk65L9" target="_blank">Run for Ruth--We Dissent</a>* with my daughter-in-law Dakota. Crazy as it was this close to winter, we committed to riding (running, walking, skating) 87 miles by the end of January, 2021. Coraline and I loaded up our bikes and rode along the Stillwater River Thursday, leaves crunching under our tires, smiling and saying "hi" to the walkers. We weren't the only ones who felt more relaxed. Two weeks ago people walked with their heads down and often didn't make eye contact. Now they seemed eager to greet us as we blew past. We got in 8.5 miles, which isn't far for me, but was a pretty good ride for a 9-year-old.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">The next day we went out again with Dakota, my 3-year-old grandson Danger, and Dakota's mom, Red. This time we rode along fields and farms and through a small pretty midwestern town until we got to a park. Dakota stopped there with the kids while Redma and I rode on. About a mile and a half down the path, Redma decided to stop and call a friend. I rode on by myself past large cornfields that had been recently harvested. I passed a few people, mostly walkers. One old man was walking a bike at a jog that was slower than most people walk. I kept my eyes open for deer. The last time we rode that path a buck with an impressive rack ran across the path from out of the woods just 50 yards ahead of us. I have no desire to find out who would survive a collision between my road bike and a deer.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">All in all, I got in 16 miles that day, about half of them at a good, hard pace. Not that far compared to how I used to ride, but the longest ride of this year. I'm up to 38.25 miles, and I think I can finish those last 50 miles in plenty of time.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbhScxRDAeZsivNlO9BRVuNbE1HvRQs7KbewjpB2wTBNF8N9vQ-6QBMNoFykGALa1uImwG-v-tajy_BnzDBK3pzKc00cNsiYAG8_BSrACED9YGo1doE80KoDWuzK4CKXotQiRJl-jWy-QR/s2048/20201110_143612_Burst01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbhScxRDAeZsivNlO9BRVuNbE1HvRQs7KbewjpB2wTBNF8N9vQ-6QBMNoFykGALa1uImwG-v-tajy_BnzDBK3pzKc00cNsiYAG8_BSrACED9YGo1doE80KoDWuzK4CKXotQiRJl-jWy-QR/w150-h200/20201110_143612_Burst01.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I felt so energized our rides and the results of the election I got busy on several outside projects I've needed to do for months (many months). First I painted our old frame swing grape purple. I've had that swing for at least 15 years and I've moved it twice. The awning it came with rusted off long ago. Coraline uses it for gymnastics and we spend hours sitting out there reading and talking, playing music. It was getting pretty shabby though, the gray metal rusting in places. I've meant to paint it for .... well, longer than I care to admit. Two cans of spray paint later it's finally done and it looks just as quirky and "old hippy lives here" as I hoped it would. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">After that I got up on my big ladder and filled in a long gap between my side porch and the brick wall where a bat likes to roost and poop. Bats have gotten into the house several times over the 7 years I've lived here -- OK, if I'm honest it's probably a dozen times now. The last time my fierce white cat Gandalf brought the bat down out of the air in the middle of the night and I found myself crawling naked through bat pee in my closet trying to save it. Did I not write about that? I guess not. It's funny now.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7-3FkITHGB0AJwRH7P7ZMHAFR_RxvKynjOL_T5gTOLvvrp9vczwyWkZTWINqXrinGPRmKdrKOYE_cfTv2xJHtvpTPhhtutQiAIXTaby_Wwy-_7_E_nqOQNNn8PMevbVTZVTpxd0_W13N/s2048/20201110_143348.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7-3FkITHGB0AJwRH7P7ZMHAFR_RxvKynjOL_T5gTOLvvrp9vczwyWkZTWINqXrinGPRmKdrKOYE_cfTv2xJHtvpTPhhtutQiAIXTaby_Wwy-_7_E_nqOQNNn8PMevbVTZVTpxd0_W13N/w150-h200/20201110_143348.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I asked several <a href="https://reticulatedwriter.blogspot.com/2013/11/help-wanted-handypenis.html" target="_blank">handypenises</a> to help me figure out how the bats were getting in, but none of them could get the job done. What's a vagina to do? Well, find her inner penis, that's what. And I think I finally got that problem licked.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I bought caulk (no pun intended) and some of that ugly foam stuff that turns orange and looks like a disease, hoping to fill the gap with one or both. Turned out the gap was too wide for the caulk (nope, not going there) and the foam stuff wouldn't come out of the can after the first brief spray (nope). Worthless shit. Now what?<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I searched my garage for answers. Screen? Couldn't find it, although I know it's there. Chicken wire? The holes are too big and besides that I don't want my house to look like a barn. Just as I was about to give up I noticed an old green eggshell sleeping pad someone had left in my garage. And I thought why not cut that into strips and stuff them into the gap? Sure enough. It worked and it hardly even shows. Fingers crossed the bats stay outside where they belong.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Today after Coraline and I did our writing/schoolwork sessions, I got the wooden steps scrubbed down with some kind of really strong deck cleaner so I can stain and seal them tomorrow. I'm also going to sand down some areas on the porch floors and get them repainted. After that I've got some dry rot to dig out and refill and paint. After that, I'm painting the cellar doors and filling in the gaps in the concrete stairs to the front porch and then .... who knows? Maybe I'll figure out how to put some new siding on my garage. My handypenis is pumped and ready to go!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I'm not dicking around here, people! I was going to pay someone to do most of this work, but I couldn't find anyone to do it and the custody/visitation lawsuit I've mentioned has cost way more than I paid for my Honda Odyssey, so I did what I had to do. I called up my own penis and I got to work.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Yes, I do still have jobs I need to pay a real handypenis to do, but I haven't felt this energized since we shut down for COVID in March. Maybe since the election four years ago. I hope the feeling lasts, because this old house needs some lovin' and it looks like we're going to be sheltering in here for a while.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">How about you? How are you doing? Feeling better since the <strike>erection </strike>election? Dreading winter and wondering how to manage the holiday? Enjoying the last warm days of fall?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">* If you're looking for a challenge it's not to late to sign up for <a href="https://runsignup.com/Race/IN/AnyTown/RunforRuthWeDissent?raceRefCode=TwDk65L9" target="_blank">Run for Ruth -- We Dissent</a>. Just click on the link. It costs $35, but you get a t-shirt and some other swag. And some exercise. If you want to join my team, send me an email and I'll give you the name. Wearing pearls while you ride or run is optional.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Stay safe, my friends. I don't want to lose any of you.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqLvpTq7PpUkPLr3EwUZFxZlAwDJW4KGPXe7AF2J-DYb0loiFhdSLjmBRdE2KAd7AwHfnBIJciShM7W6ZSeBzLjursEiyy63Q4Rm7d8DQDaMni0Bg35we-sHSIFvv9FB3xigXN2rt0S8K6/s2048/20201110_143331.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqLvpTq7PpUkPLr3EwUZFxZlAwDJW4KGPXe7AF2J-DYb0loiFhdSLjmBRdE2KAd7AwHfnBIJciShM7W6ZSeBzLjursEiyy63Q4Rm7d8DQDaMni0Bg35we-sHSIFvv9FB3xigXN2rt0S8K6/w300-h400/20201110_143331.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Love, Coraline</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></p><br />Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-89634122609413566802020-11-04T11:52:00.003-05:002020-11-04T12:56:23.176-05:00Hope in a time of waiting<p> </p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8npYdoTCoocZ79ApfvtwbllIJp3VizTUJCKsdT4z7s2J-IgNhSTqRbN-IRD95RuuZ7DvVr0lJ5EcsGcQi6IDhybsxUiMhyw3uyv0JATGhAEvL_YiEq2WyVhmdJL6nuLVdYRJrX3jJqDc/s2048/20201027_155023.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8npYdoTCoocZ79ApfvtwbllIJp3VizTUJCKsdT4z7s2J-IgNhSTqRbN-IRD95RuuZ7DvVr0lJ5EcsGcQi6IDhybsxUiMhyw3uyv0JATGhAEvL_YiEq2WyVhmdJL6nuLVdYRJrX3jJqDc/w298-h397/20201027_155023.jpg" width="298" /></a></span></div><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Apparently I just can't quit this place. I'm at my NaNoWriMo writing space with my notes and my intentions (5585 words so far!), but I have to get something off my chest before I can buckle down. The election is on-going. If we thought we'd have relief after Election Day, we were deluding ourselves.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">About midnight, I posted this on my Facebook: </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Tonight is one of those nights when it's hard to be alone. So glad Dakota [my daughter-in-law] called me on her way home from work for a long talk. Would be nice to be curled up under a blanket with someone watching a movie. That's election night during a pandemic for you. At least I get to choose the movie." </span><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I think this was the first election I spent by myself, which wouldn't have been so bad except the PTSD from the 2016 election was hitting me hard, as it was many of my friends who actually care about other people and the planet. I should have gone to bed early but ...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">... I didn't go to bed until 3:00, not because I was watching election results. No, I turned off the movie I was watching about 2:00 because I couldn't focus and I thought I might as well get some sleep, and then, instead of going upstairs to bed I picked up my Kindle and <strike>started reading a book</strike> started playing <a href="https://subwaysurfers.com/" target="_blank">Subway Surfers</a>. I fled from a fat police officer, ran over the tops of trains and dodged others, rolled and jumped over blockades, and collected coins for an hour or longer, utterly stupified and disconnected from all things political. This could become an addiction.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">As I write this morning, the votes are being tallied. Trump gave what amounted to an acceptance speech in the middle of the night. I wasn't watching him though; I was dodging trains and collecting coins and trying to figure out what it meant when my shoes got bouncy. When I finally thought I could sleep, I went to bed, read my book for a short time and actually did fall asleep to the sound of pink noise, courtesy of Alexa ...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">... Only to be awakened yet again by the guy who is living with my next door neighbor, mostly in his garage where he works on a loud motorcycle that he revs and revs and revs at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes he rides it down the sidewalk and leaves it running out there. Did I mention it's loud? Really loud? Fuck that shit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">And then there were the dreams. Jesus, save me from the dreams on election night 2020.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I woke up feeling heavy, sluggish, like my nerves are on the outside of my body and any touch or sound sets off an alarm. I yelled at my 9-year-old granddaughter Coraline for not picking up her dirty socks off the dining room floor. The same socks I told her to pick up yesterday morning. That was well deserved, I think, but she's not whom I really want to yell at.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I need some hope and in spite of the reassurances of the pundits both left and right (et tu, Fox News?) that the election isn't over and Trump isn't winning, hope is hard to find.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">And so I look to the children -- or child, in this case -- and I share with you another blog post, one Coraline wrote on her private blog. I hope it gives you hope too. And I hope, like me, you voted for the world she wants to live in, not the one we should leave in the past.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Lobster;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Lobster;"> </span><span style="font-family: Indie Flower;">Dear man in the pickup truck at the food drive who said all lives matter,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Indie Flower;">So, Hello Mr. Guy at the food drive, how are you?. Never mind. Remember that time when you pulled up in your black pickup truck with fake Trump 2020 money in the front window? And we where in our car, with our masks on, I had om my BLM mask on, my grandma with her purple one on? And you did not have a mask on. You and my grandma talked for a good 5 minutes, and while you where driving away you said,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Indie Flower;">" All lives matter, honey,"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Indie Flower;">Good, because this is what I have to say about that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Lobster;"> </span><span style="font-family: Indie Flower;">First of all, EWW. Don't call a little girl who you know Nothing about honey. Its creepy. Second, if all lives matter, why do you have a problem with Black lives matter? Hmm? Whats' that? You are just saying that because your racist, sexist, homophobic</span><span style="font-family: "Indie Flower";"> and trying to hide it? I thought so. Herse what your trying to say. All lives matter, but women are nasty</span><span style="font-family: Indie Flower;">. All lives matter, but Black people are dangerous. All lives matter but immigrants are being kept in concentration camps. All lives matter but being LGBTQIA+ is a sin. All lives matter but all Muslims are terrorists. All lives matter doesn't mean you can chose when they matter! Third of all, I was sitting there in my BLM mask that my friend Layla gave me. And no, I'm not black. But the reason I'm righting this here at the dining room table, is because none of us are free, until all of us are free. When Layla gave me that mask, I felt like I could speak up for the black community. I want to use my voice. But you did not give me a chance. You said All lives matter and drove away. You are the reason that the black c</span><span style="font-family: "Indie Flower";">ommunity has to fight for equality</span><span style="font-family: "Indie Flower";"> that we are suppose to have.</span><span style="font-family: "Indie Flower";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Indie Flower";"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Indie Flower;">Thank you for your time,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Indie Flower;">Coraline. </span></p><p></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Learn from the children.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-35863251678707066742020-11-01T23:25:00.001-05:002020-11-01T23:29:14.797-05:00NaBloPoMo 2020 cancelled<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkRGlarpZ5cCklSRss1UHnzcISuvtkwo5RQJROFbKZ-oEL-M-bVP6hweyIuOP-LNOUXWcJxfbbdbMbp1uO9CvA1rES3r-jwZEq-GYs9JRBdvDRGSJrv5xM_PrRG4LmYn2yEeK-7nvQryK5/s450/Typewriter-keys.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkRGlarpZ5cCklSRss1UHnzcISuvtkwo5RQJROFbKZ-oEL-M-bVP6hweyIuOP-LNOUXWcJxfbbdbMbp1uO9CvA1rES3r-jwZEq-GYs9JRBdvDRGSJrv5xM_PrRG4LmYn2yEeK-7nvQryK5/s320/Typewriter-keys.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></p>If you've been reading here for a while you know I always do National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo) in November. Some of you even look forward to reading a blog post every day for that one month of the year. I had every intention of doing it this year too. It would have been my 10th year .... can you see where this is going? </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Last month I went to a virtual 5-day writing conference called Rebirth Your Writing, led by <i><a href="https://brevitymag.com/" target="_blank">Brevity Magazine</a> </i>editors Allison Williams and Dinty W. Moore. It was the inspiring kick in the butt I needed to buckle down and get said butt into the chair and write. But not to write here on this old blog. I mean seriously write like a professional writer. No distractions. No excuses. That's the first thing that happened.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Then last weekend, my little brother died in Alaska, 4000 miles away. He had been getting sicker and sicker this year, after decades of being sick and in denial. He finally succumbed to alcoholism at age 59. He followed my mom in death by only two years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">We're also in a serious pandemic and some people think we're headed toward a civil war, so none of us know what will happen to us in the near future. Life is precious and seems increasingly precarious.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">So instead of writing here, much as I love writing here, I'm going to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which means I've made a commitment to write 50,000 words in November. Not 50,000 words of blog posts, but 50,000 words of what will become my book. I do love writing these blog posts, but I'm not a blogger who gets lots of comments and I don't write posts that many people tend to share, so this is a hobby at best. I need to focus on making writing -- not just teaching writing -- my profession. I need to stop giving it away here, in other words.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Some of you are as much to blame as the Rebirthing conference, you know. You've been telling me I should write a book for years now. Decades even. And now I'm making a commitment to doing it. (So p</span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">romise me you'll buy the fucking book when it comes out, OK?)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">It seems kind of crazy, given I'm barely keeping my head above the raging waters of 2020, to make a commitment that's even bigger than publishing a blog post every day. If I don't do it now though, I don't know when I will do it. Life is short -- sometimes shorter than you think. I need to prioritize this dream of mine to write and publish a book that I've had since I could pick up a pencil in my chubby little hand.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I'll pop in here when I need to get a rant off my chest, but it's best if you don't see much of me this month, here or on Facebook. Wish me luck though. I need a lot of that these days.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span><p></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-63773130341935535702020-10-30T21:00:00.057-04:002020-10-30T23:58:21.887-04:00Reticulated Radical<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggYHU-f2JB6WU9irhJBGq3n0ISo6p-i3jsJfNk_HysjWtpbGv13NiJ8LichCZF8YJ2T2vDORxMosOJ53LjTbtoRQhN3Gb3Xig120GaT2mY-V9yOJp-S_wiVPTg627nFkkbZ9wW3rn2Gchd/s678/radical+left.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="678" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggYHU-f2JB6WU9irhJBGq3n0ISo6p-i3jsJfNk_HysjWtpbGv13NiJ8LichCZF8YJ2T2vDORxMosOJ53LjTbtoRQhN3Gb3Xig120GaT2mY-V9yOJp-S_wiVPTg627nFkkbZ9wW3rn2Gchd/s320/radical+left.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Facebook meme, author unknown</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">But seriously, I would like to know. What <i><b>is</b></i> so radical about my political beliefs? What I want from our government? The decency and civility I expect from elected and appointed leaders who are supposed to represent all of us? What part of what I believe is so revolutionary?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Yes, I do yearn for equality for all people. No exceptions. Is that radical?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Special Elite"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Special Elite"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also think one billion dollars is more than enough for anybody, and any income over that should be taxed at about 90%. That leaves 100 million dollars a year for the poor billionaire, which I would gladly trade for my annual income if they have a problem with it. Or maybe that extra wealth should be distributed to workers who don't make a billion, or even a million, dollars a year so they can spend it on .... oh, I don't know. Food and housing and an annual vacation. I think every senator and every president should have to live for one year on my annual income before taking office. Just one year. No? Why not? If you want to represent me, get a feel for how I live. How is that radical and not just common sense?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Special Elite"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Special Elite"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't want people to go hungry or to be without decent medical care, including dental and vision. I want good roads, well supported fire and police departments, safe schools with a low teacher/student ratio, accessible upper education (including training in so-called blue-collar trades) that doesn't require taking out student loans that are more than a mortgage, and <strike>a bottle of wine</strike> a chicken or bowl of beans and quinoa on every table.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Special Elite"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Special Elite"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want politicians and religious leaders to stay out of my vagina and my uterus. I want to lower the abortion rate by providing kids with honest, thorough sex education; supporting poor mothers with childcare and food and a decent wage; and opening more Planned Parenthood clinics.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">How am I a radical? Honestly, how? I'm practically Jesus's eccentric, lovable aunt.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SIqVIgZ0luE" width="459"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Special Elite"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Special Elite"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you think I'm radical?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></span></div>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-71788755370541933572020-09-27T23:54:00.003-04:002020-09-28T11:47:25.878-04:00Don't buy wine from a Facebook ad<p></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLy2xlFh9huht0jkYg0X-PK_ieQ0WIPPS4K0C5mQpB8vv-825uhbI_ave766MQ9xPZ29owspCq5AglonBhL7I0y3HLFqxDGuNfDfu4b5KRcZuo4_QChjAQPhk0WOYi4CeEz1uW1_kvzGqu/s2048/20200807_135702-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1788" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLy2xlFh9huht0jkYg0X-PK_ieQ0WIPPS4K0C5mQpB8vv-825uhbI_ave766MQ9xPZ29owspCq5AglonBhL7I0y3HLFqxDGuNfDfu4b5KRcZuo4_QChjAQPhk0WOYi4CeEz1uW1_kvzGqu/s320/20200807_135702-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I almost fell for it, my friends. The ubiquitous Facebook ad. I almost completed the order. I took the fucking quiz. I even gave out my information: email, address, phone number. I was one click away from PayPal with my finger on the button when I noticed. The price for my six bottles of wine was <i>not</i> $29.95 as the ad promised. It was $39.95. I heard the voice of reason in my head, <i>Back away from the cheap wine with the free delivery. It's another scam. Yes, even at $39.95 it's a reasonable price for 6 bottles plus free shipping, but </i><b style="font-style: italic;">that's not the fucking price they said it would be in the ad!</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I closed the window.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">And then the emails started coming in. Every single day the offer for 6 bottles of wine for $3.33/bottle plus free shipping. I deleted them. And then I got the email from Philip James, who claims to be the founder of the company, and I couldn't resist answering him. I mean, how often do you get to go straight to the office on the top floor without even asking? Here's my letter to Philip James, founder of Firstleaf wines, along with my warning to you: Don't be tempted by the Facebook ads. In fact, add the Facebook Purity extension to your Chrome browser and you'll never have to see another Facebook ad again.</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Here's the thing, Philip James. I went to your site from Facebook where your ad offered 6 bottles of wine for $29.95. I went through the entire quiz, but when I got to the checkout, I was going to be charged $39.95, a price that, while fair, certainly isn't what was advertised. That extra $10 caused my trust in your company, and I suppose in you, Philip James, to plummet. I returned to Facebook where I commented on my experience. Someone from Firstleaf responded a couple of days later and told me I should contact your customer service. I don't think that's really my responsibility, do you, Philip James? I suspect a good number of people just went ahead and paid $10 more, either because they didn't remember what the cost was supposed to be or because they didn't notice the price difference, or because of reasons I'm not willing to worry about myself. Good for you if you can squeeze 10 extra dollars from unsuspecting and trusting new customers. Excellent scam, and then they'll find themselves subscribed to a much more expensive subscription service as well. I see what you're doing there.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">I am not one of those customers though. I do not trust you now. I do not believe you will sell me 6 bottles of wine for $3.33/bottle and live up to your guarantee that I will like them or you will .... I don't know. Refund my three bucks and change? Send me a different brand and try again? I didn't read the fine print. I don't for a minute believe in your promises. I wish I did. I do love my wine. A smooth, chilled buttery Chardonnay paired with a bag of Lays potato chips can make me absolutely giddy. Almost better than sex, am I right? Although why choose? I even write about my love of wine on my blog in posts titled "If we were sharing a bottle of wine ...." During the pandemic, several of my more loving friends have dropped off a bottle or two of Chardonnay on my front porch because they would hate for me to run out. Alas, the pity is that I have run out -- hence my stupid foray to your website from Facebook. Never trust a Facebook ad, Philip James. Learn from my experience. I can live without wine much easier than I can live with being scammed though. I adore it, but I'm not married to it.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">So much as I would love to pay you $3.33/bottle for 6 bottles of wine and find them eventually delivered for free to my front door -- Sweet Jesus who made the water into wine, that is a first-world luxury! -- something doesn't smell quite right here. This is my long way of telling you I'm going to have to put a cork into our relationship, in spite of your tempting offers.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Cheers,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Reticula</span></div></blockquote><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">And that, my friends, is that. I'll never learn if Philip James, founder of Firstleaf, did indeed choose the most delectable $3.33 bottles of wine I've ever <strike>gulped</strike> sipped. I'll never answer my door and sign for those six bottles of freely shipped wine and chill one down to drink with a bowl of buttered popcorn on my porch some cool early fall eve, possible with a socially distanced friend. I am, in fact, drinking water and looking forward to watching my boyfriend James Spader in an episode of <i>Blacklist</i> after I hit publish on this post, which will probably be about as exciting as it gets around here for a while.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">How about you? Any Facebook ad experiences? Ever fall for a ModCloth ad? Some exciting new tool that costs 1/3 the price on Amazon? Ever tried to get a decent color of Overtone, only to find out all the good colors are always sold out? What's your Facebook ad story?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Special Elite;">Maybe I should buy my own Facebook ad. I'll offer to write angry letters to Facebook scammers for .... let's start at $25 for the first letter and $40 after that for the monthly epistolary subscription. </span><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">I think I've found my niche.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><b>Have typewriter, will rant.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";">You know you want it. So will your friends and relatives. Think ahead. Christmas is coming and you won't even have to put on your mask and leave your house. I'll run a special special just for readers. You are welcome. Cheers. XOXO</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s320/love+reticula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Special Elite";"><br /></span><p></p><div></div>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-58663486812019588562020-08-24T02:59:00.002-04:002020-08-24T18:52:16.535-04:00The weight of COVID-19<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLG4J6kGb22PNbZcRdzFAyji3eoByj-s38_90yO_ej9q3mbbMF1Q5xpIG3k10-yjR1w0XSlBLOoHOf0RZ260vzagNLzEYIIQmeBMryXKU7sd0RV4PnjDB2dpIG2d-tVKtESLnillR6yNsO/s1000/in-the-dark-cw.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="What I'm watching: In the Dark on Netflix" border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLG4J6kGb22PNbZcRdzFAyji3eoByj-s38_90yO_ej9q3mbbMF1Q5xpIG3k10-yjR1w0XSlBLOoHOf0RZ260vzagNLzEYIIQmeBMryXKU7sd0RV4PnjDB2dpIG2d-tVKtESLnillR6yNsO/w400-h225/in-the-dark-cw.jpg" title="What I'm watching: In the Dark on Netflix" width="400" /></a></div><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";"><br /></span><p></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">I'm so jealous of people in movies and on TV shows. They go to bars and sit close on bar stools. They go on cruises and cross-country trips. They eat in restaurants and choose how their steaks are cooked and sample the wine. They cuddle up with each other on the couch, and even though I can literally remember the exact day I last did that with someone other than Coraline (my 9-year-old granddaughter who lives with me), I can barely remember how it feels. I know I will never do it again with that person, but I really hope I will do it with someone again some day. They meet new lovers and have one-night stands, and honestly, I haven't done that in literally decades, a one-night stand, but I still want the fucking option, because now I wish I'd done it more often. (OK, I also wish I could guarantee the sex would be at the very least acceptable, and at the best good, and we all know that's not usually true for women, and that's why I didn't do it often, but I digress .... except to say, I suppose it could happen and now I'll never know.) And they have family dinners around a big table where they laugh and fight and maybe they drink too much, but they always compliment the cook. They put their heads together when they laugh, and they touch each others hands tenderly. They ride in cars together. And, oh my god, they hug. And kiss. I can hardly bear to watch two people sharing a first kiss. I mean, it was hard enough before, but at least it was a possibility before.</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">When I think of all the times I've taken spontaneous physical closeness for granted ... I wonder if I ever will again. Assuming, of course, I will ever experience it again.</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">In real life I see people acting like the pandemic doesn't exist and I think, fuck it. Why should I give up some of the best human interactions when odds say I won't get that sick even if I get it. I'm a woman. I have type O blood. I'm in pretty good shape, and I'm not that far into the dangerous age group. Yes, I could stand to lose some weight, but I don't have any health issues. Why shouldn't I hug my 2-year-old grandson who cries because he can't come into my house and hang out with me? We miss snuggling up on the couch, reading books and watching Youtube videos of trains. Why shouldn't I hug my son when I see him? Why shouldn't I have a big karaoke party like I do every other summer, with the windows open and the wine flowing, and the songs sung until the wee hours of the next morning? I could be dead in 2 months anyway, because Coraline is in a situation with people who refuse to social distance, and I can't prevent it. Will I die having never hugged my baby grandson again? Or my son? Or my close friends, who are my chosen family?</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">My friend Jay told me tonight about a former colleague who's been on a ventilator since some time in July. He recently succumbed to the virus. He was 49 years old. What would he have given for one more hug from his wife or husband, if he had one? Or his kids? His mother? And if more people had taken this seriously months ago, would he still be alive? If other people weren't so fucking selfish, would he still be alive?</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">That's what I come back to every time I have the urge to say, "Fuck this shit. I'm going to live my life. We're all going to die anyway..." I come back to all the <a href="https://apnews.com/c1b338cfa0d37d3858e711794b367156" target="_blank">people who wouldn't be dead now</a>, and who wouldn't be permanently disabled or chronically ill, if we'd had leadership who followed the protocols that kept us safe from other deadly incurable viruses, like Ebola. I'll bet if you live in the US you don't know anybody who died from Ebola. If all of us had followed those protocols for COVID-19 and done our duty as good citizens of the country, the world, and put up with just a couple of months of sheltering in ... </span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">But we didn't. And I can't take risks that might have disastrous consequences for my family and friends just because I miss life as it was. I'm not that selfish. Or maybe I'm just not a <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2020/08/sociopathic-traits-linked-to-non-compliance-with-mask-guidelines-and-other-covid-19-containment-measures-57773" target="_blank">sociopath</a>. I can't keep <i>all </i>of them safe .... actually, as of this week I can't keep any of them safe. But I can do everything I can to make myself safe around them and to keep myself safe, because there are people who depend on me and even who care if I'm OK.</span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6wCdIyKPp-jZWWdGHXZob4OL9p54aE8-ocH6tgsXVXgkF9FCa31ZfEPi01u0ehDzeh9eetp3J1o0f7nHDy9xtTVaBDjh21gZG_-sqQR-ENnOLIUO05cqvwAqOuxpSTISk2nV4X2mAmk_d/s1200/Maslows-Hierarchy-Needs.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="1200" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6wCdIyKPp-jZWWdGHXZob4OL9p54aE8-ocH6tgsXVXgkF9FCa31ZfEPi01u0ehDzeh9eetp3J1o0f7nHDy9xtTVaBDjh21gZG_-sqQR-ENnOLIUO05cqvwAqOuxpSTISk2nV4X2mAmk_d/w210-h142/Maslows-Hierarchy-Needs.png" width="210" /></a><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">As for the people who won't, fuck them. And if it's you, fuck you. Safety needs are the second tier on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Way below, and thus more important than, </span><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">eating at a restaurant and drinking beer at a bar. Way below graduation parties and birthday parties and sports and packing into elevators.</span></p><p></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">I hope I'm preaching to the choir here. I hope you're pumping your fist in agreement and wishing you could hug me, but choosing not to. I hope you're able to keep yourself and your family safe, because I know a lot of people have to work among selfish sociopaths who refuse to cover their snotty noses. (I had to go to court twice last week, and I saw a lot of people showing their stupid noses and refusing to cover their ugly faces.) And I know a lot of you can't keep your children home and safe for various reasons. It's really hard when you want to protect them and you can't.</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">None of this is easy. But if you're just choosing not to do the best you can because you can't be inconvenienced by a deadly virus, then fuck you. Put on a mask and grow the fuck up. Stay 6 feet apart and grow the fuck up. If my 9-year-old granddaughter can do it, because she doesn't want to make one of her friends or family members sick, so can you.</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">That was an entire digression. I'm bringing it back. Has anybody else struggled with watching people on TV and in movies? Have you shouted at the screen, "Back up! Six feet! Where's your fucking mask, you moron? People are going to die because of you!" </span><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">I mean, can anybody even enjoy porn any more? This fucking virus has ruined everything!</span></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";">Stay safe and stay well, my friends.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/w328-h201/love+reticula.jpg" width="328" /></a></div><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";"><br /></span><p></p><p><span face="" style="font-family: "special elite";"><br /></span></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-44531836549046037662020-08-18T02:27:00.070-04:002020-08-18T22:39:14.792-04:00Monday, Monday. Can't trust that day...<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Fe9lrNkko3Zh-psw8YPlz4lFDgpstVAyEPrwkZLPBFU4gVoUUQagFI1gSepfelgYDxoC7hTIOwJoyttuhYDibJ1wNhNVimDENDWIPFRaWj8168K4efKWfGaMAjZkC9lg2zWx6eVOq7ja/s2048/20200818_020323-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1827" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Fe9lrNkko3Zh-psw8YPlz4lFDgpstVAyEPrwkZLPBFU4gVoUUQagFI1gSepfelgYDxoC7hTIOwJoyttuhYDibJ1wNhNVimDENDWIPFRaWj8168K4efKWfGaMAjZkC9lg2zWx6eVOq7ja/w366-h410/20200818_020323-1.jpg" width="366" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monday was a rough day. I was bullied and I was lied about on Monday. And I can't write the story here, s</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">o I'll talk about the other side of Monday. People who don't owe me a thing blessed me with incredible love and support on Monday.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My daughter-in-law Dakota, who is simply the best daughter-in-law ever, took Coraline and my 2-year-old grandson Cassius Danger (whom I haven't even hugged since March) on a socially distanced (because she cares about Coraline) hike while I was in court getting custody. And Coraline didn't worry so much for a while, because she was having a good time exploring an abandoned house and hiking in the woods with people she loves and who love her and have always been there for her. And who care enough about her to socially distance no matter how hard it is to not give a worried little girl a hug and a snuggle. It was more than enough.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shortly after we got home a former student who's from Moldova stopped by to pick up some sweet corn I was selling for a farmer I know (another story), and she brought Coraline and me delicious Russian chocolates and oatmeal cookies. I didn't even know there was a Russian grocery here, but there is and once it's safe, she's going to go there with me and tell me about Russian food.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I picked up the mail and there was a package from another friend from back in the olden days when I homeschooled my kids and we had just discovered the internet (who remembers Prodigy and AOL?). She sent me 4 ceramic affirmation stones and a money order to help pay for a used Trek bicycle I bought Coraline last week. I knew she was sending something, because she told me to expect a package, but I didn't expect such generosity. Yeah, I cried. I'm a sap.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other friends sent me texts and messages and checked in on me to make sure I was OK. I'm not, but their support makes me feel not so alone. Once I got Coraline to bed, I <strike>did an hour of yoga and meditation</strike> opened a bottle of wine my friend Maria gave me for my birthday last month and a bag of Clancy's potato chips Dakota dropped off the other day (because I still haven't been to the g</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">rocery store since March) and watched a documentary about buskers. I've always wanted to busk, but I'm not that good. I don't think people would toss their coins and bills in my guitar case unless maybe they wanted me to stop playing. I'm reading a book about a guy who busks with a manual typewriter and writes a poem for anybody who needs one and they give him what they can or what they think it's worth. Maybe I need to busk with a typewriter instead of a guitar. I digress ....</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to be able to write specifically about what's happening, but I don't dare. And that pisses me off because it's my story and as Anne Lamott says</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB4Wn2PxMMD4Lwc72sHvRWsMllFPQsBvHhJ9Zv_cMDKPitsbR-K-QWVKQ27Av9YfjPAACnJieOUbcBgB5BWelLdyMCvT7F7qQGSx4ywtPBSZhb-DrUGTnk-WupjdJngwqebsLt37BP-p1B/s500/Write+warmly+Lamott.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB4Wn2PxMMD4Lwc72sHvRWsMllFPQsBvHhJ9Zv_cMDKPitsbR-K-QWVKQ27Av9YfjPAACnJieOUbcBgB5BWelLdyMCvT7F7qQGSx4ywtPBSZhb-DrUGTnk-WupjdJngwqebsLt37BP-p1B/w320-h256/Write+warmly+Lamott.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm sorry, Anne Lamott. I don't have the courage -- or maybe the stupidity -- to tell th</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">is story while it's happening. But someday. Someday I will just for myself. Just to keep the record straight for those who wonder.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And in the meantime I will simply say that being the hero in a story doesn't mean you win like it does in the movies and books. Real life is 20fucking20 and I wouldn't get through it if I didn't have these blessings to count. These many blessings. I'm going to have to work hard to pay all this forward. I look forward to finding those opportunities though.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you have stories you can't tell? You can tell them to me. I can't tell all of mine -- nobody does -- but I can listen. One thing 2020 has taken away is the random encounter with strangers who have a story to tell, at least for people like me who are practicing safe living.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">One final thought: Heroes wear masks. Heroes keep the rest of us safe by social distancing. Heroes know when to put others before themselves. Be a hero, even if heroes don't always win.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/s1380/love+reticula.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1380" height="129" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxn8IKby58yA4tjmnzbvSF9bZsS3lIwqzWRxcKNN0AQf8VY_sp6Qgyq7y24NJLGhaHQd_XjJ93oaNBVL7I9smPIf6JVLPtrSKvEzEbHq-yqz4H2xJDXKzp7ZfhXrTq_d51Bt2dwZw4Nh/w210-h129/love+reticula.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-7541401021852492342020-08-08T01:56:00.001-04:002020-08-10T16:22:18.373-04:00Oh for a road trip<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDzgy0kURBW7NDCAOimwULKI0xQ0Mx13x0vL8GLxIdmLK2ov8Aek4P-74ZjRXmHyEJwfi89SQKkJV2GlHCIWeKaAPw2owcV55buk6AS1wbO2ygtpwV0MIvWNwmQJiRbaLWgfXu6lLyKXk1/s1320/Road+Trip.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="1320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDzgy0kURBW7NDCAOimwULKI0xQ0Mx13x0vL8GLxIdmLK2ov8Aek4P-74ZjRXmHyEJwfi89SQKkJV2GlHCIWeKaAPw2owcV55buk6AS1wbO2ygtpwV0MIvWNwmQJiRbaLWgfXu6lLyKXk1/s640/Road+Trip.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe I need to stop watching TV. I keep seeing things on TV that make me want to do those things and I can't because fucking COVID. Like I was watching </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">In the Dark,</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> which I think if you like reading this blog you would like because it's dark and sarcastic and it makes you want to drink. But in the 4th episode Murphy, the blind (not in real life) star of the show goes on a road trip. Oh, how I love a road trip. And she gets stuck in a bathroom stall and has to crawl under the door of the stall, which is a lot scarier when you're blind I would imagine, but is massively scarier to consider during fucking COVID. Otherwise it would just make a funny story, but not now. And then they actually </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">stop at a diner</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. And I could smell the old grease and coffee and pancake syrup and the ghost of cigarette smoke and hear the ting of forks against plates and the overlapping voices of people telling their stories. And I could just taste a big bite of juicy burger with lettuce and tomato and ketchup and mustard and mayo and some fat greasy fries dipped in more ketchup and fuck COVID I was </span><i style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold;">there </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">with the backs of my thighs stuck to the red plastic bench seat and the waitress (server ... whatever) asking me if I wanted more coffee</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">. Only I wasn't there and I won't be there for a long time. And now I'm thinking about eating a chocolate malted milk shake with a long spoon, and they leave the extra in the metal cup so you don't waste any, and a piece of pie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. God I'm full.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But that's from a glass of wine and a bowl of wavy potato chips, which I ate alone on my couch as I watched Murphy on her road trip and wished I'd gone on more myself when I had the chance. And I'm not even going to start in on the sex ....</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">What do you miss?</span></p>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-60665010819856093652020-08-01T18:17:00.000-04:002020-08-02T18:12:05.066-04:00Week 31: 2020<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcZmYqizioT13AAP3hdbvr59xucD0rn-gMa_hec_5k8vw7F4Gb6CPo4rVx8N6yWKvC-pXSf8bS28N_s9OkeTKwd66NksTOFylu7UEE3BTI8WMGbFuDcAg8LAEmZQZBY5qNf9JXgX7WvDU/s1600/anal+glands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcZmYqizioT13AAP3hdbvr59xucD0rn-gMa_hec_5k8vw7F4Gb6CPo4rVx8N6yWKvC-pXSf8bS28N_s9OkeTKwd66NksTOFylu7UEE3BTI8WMGbFuDcAg8LAEmZQZBY5qNf9JXgX7WvDU/s320/anal+glands.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last Saturday, a week ago, I got together with 5 friends at a park, more than socially distanced, to celebrate my and Chuck's birthdays. Chuck said something about missing my blog, and I said I think all the time about writing, but I just can't find that space I used to be in where I wrote about vaginas and dildos and cookies and various funny human foibles. I can't find my voice in this new world, and I don't want to burden people with what's coming out of me when I try to write. And he said he gets it. We all feel exhausted and unnerved and angry and lonely and it's hard to focus. Everything seems too serious, and it's not just the pandemic. The seriousness started almost 4 years ago. I don't have much funniness in me, although I do find moments of joy and delight. I also have lots of bitter. Lots of depressed. Lots of indignation and .... well, rage. Hopelessness even. And now, since March, I summon Dolores, my muse, sit down here to write, intending to focus on the positive things that happen, that keep me going, that somebody might want to read about, and all I get is about a paragraph before I just can't go on, usually because I can't stay on topic or another shoe drops on my head or it turns into a political rant, and I don't know about you but I'm fucking sick of it all. So I've got a bunch of unpublished posts that are about a paragraph long and a lot built up inside me that I suspect nobody wants to read because you've all got your own shit going on, but I need to write and this is my blog so I'm going with what I've got.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;">A lot of shit has happened this year. It would be a rough year even without a pandemic. It would be a rough year even without Trump. I grab on to any bright spots and clutch them like they're a piece of driftwood and I just fell off the Titanic. From a terribly unjust and expensive custody suit to a surgery to remove my 5 front teeth (because of a fall into a brick hearth 20 years ago) to big old house issues (I need about 5 handy-penii) to being robbed to painful breaks in several relationships to lost jobs and all that goes with a pandemic ... I feel like I'm in a crazy Jim Carrey movie that just won't fucking end. Like this can't actually be real life. I understand why the stakes have to get so high for characters in movies, but even movies eventually resolve and end and our hero gets a fucking break.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;">This week has been .... I'm not going to list everything. It's too much. We've all got problems. At least I'm not still teaching .... Wait. OK, that's not true. I'm going to be homeschooling Coraline this year. That was decided this week. No biggie. Did it for 12 years with my own kids. Not during a pandemic. Not as a single parent. It's OK though. </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">She's 9 years old now and we'll have fun. She's always busy learning and experimenting. Then again i</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;">t's not really OK, because we love her school and don't want her to lose her place there, and her community, but not much is under my control. All of my side gigs have slipped off the side and disappeared so I'll have the time. </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">(Ray of sunshine: One of my employers is still paying me half what I was making. I'm extremely grateful. See? There are some bright spots. I'll highlight those for you.) </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">This week though. What a fucking week. First, my dog Crow has had a nasty ass for weeks now. I took him to a walk-in vet to get his anal glands expressed, because of the nasty, smelly discharge that was leaking out of his asshole, and the tech ruptured one of the glands. After 3 weeks of antibiotics and continued ass-leaking and hosing off his asshole out in the back yard, I took him to another vet who prescribed a different antibiotic. Finally it's working (fingers crossed) and $350 later Crow's stinky leaky asshole is .... well, <span style="color: #f1c232;">not as leaky as it was</span>. If you've never smelled what comes out of a dog's anal glands, count yourself among the lucky. It's pretty much a biological weapon.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the way home from the second vet's office, I was stopped at a red light when my engine revved just a bit. I had my foot on the brake so my van didn't jump forward. In fact, when it was time to go, it didn't go at all. It just idled along at about 5 mph no matter how hard I pushed the pedal. The long line of cars behind me went around when I turned on my flashers and <span style="color: #f1c232;">nobody honked at me or flipped me off</span>. I pulled into a parking lot, turned my van off and on, and it worked fine, other than running a little rough. I made an appointment with Darryl. "Should take an hour, two at the most," he said. "It needs a tune-up at the very least. Bring it in tomorrow."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before I even got up the next day, my lawyer's office called. He wanted to make an appointment for a phone consult. He makes more in an 8-hour day than I do in a month. But OK. I made the appointment and started worrying about the custody trial coming up the middle of August. I don't dare write publicly about that, for so many reasons.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then it was off to Goodyear on a steamy July day. Coraline and I took books and our camp chairs so we could sit in the shade to wait. Not a mask in sight at Goodyear, other than mine, so we certainly weren't going to sit inside in the AC, despite the temperatures in the 90's</span></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. We settled in. For 5 hours. Five fucking hours we sat watching the Main Street traffic and reading our books. Fending off panhandlers. Wishing I'd eaten breakfast. Finally my van was done and I paid Darryl his $500 and left.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next morning I went out to pick up a package off the porch, and a young man who was illegally parked in the turn-around by my van stepped out of his car and yelled, "Hey, is that your van?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yes," I said reluctantly. Maybe even suspiciously. I really hoped he wasn't going to tell me he'd run into my van. Or worse. It had been a short night. My neighbor has a guy living with him who works all night long on a motorcycle. A loud motorcycle. It requires him, apparently, to rev it over and over and over at 11:00, midnight, 1:00 and again at 5:30 in the morning. I sent the nicest message I could muster to my neighbor at 5:40 am and <span style="color: #f1c232;">he agreed it was too much and put a stop to it</span>. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I think your tire is flat," the stranger said. I looked at my van and thanked him. As if I wouldn't have noticed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course it was. That's the second time I've had a flat tire the morning after I had my van in the shop. Of course it was flat. I came inside and put in a request for roadside assistance. I received the follow-up text and went outside to wait. And wait. Finally, after about an hour and a half, I called the company that was supposed to come out. I won't repeat the conversation. The guy was rude. He said they hadn't gotten a call to come to my house. He didn't sound like he wanted my business. I put in another request. When the text came in, it was from the same damn company. I got on the phone to try to talk to a real person.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I waited some more. After almost 45 minutes on hold, I told a real person I did not want that company and I still needed someone to come out and fix my tire. She cancelled my other requests -- not that anybody was going to come out anyway -- and sent someone else. Someone who was in another county on another job. Fine. Who wouldn't have expected that? He got to my house when he could. He was polite, quick, got the job done. By the time he left, it had been over 4 hours since I put in my first request and <span style="color: #f1c232;">I was just glad I hadn't been sitting on the side of the road on a 95-degree day.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">By now my amazing daughter-in-law felt so sorry for me, </span><span style="color: #f1c232; white-space: pre-wrap;">she invited us over for a socially distanced BBQ that evening. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I needed to drop off my ruined tire at Goodyear, which is near their house, so off we went. We got there just before they closed, which I guess is good luck if it hadn't taken the entire afternoon to get it fixed. Darryl said the hole was probably too close to the edge of the tire to plug, but he would try. I knew it wasn't in my stars this week to get such a lucky break and started planning for buying a new tire. </span></span><br />
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Nevertheless dinner</span><span style="color: #f1c232; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was lovely: chicken on the grill, corn from their amazing, prolific garden, caprese salad, mashed potatoes, homemade lemonade, peach ice cream, and excellent company. After we ate, we made concrete stepping stones with butterfly molds and big leaves from their garden. </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"> An oasis from the shit storm that had been my week so far. (In case I haven't made my point about this fucking year, see the contrast between their garden and my garden below.)</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Their garden.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Sigh.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was a wonderful evening except that I brought my bad luck with me. One of their pretty chickens flew up out of the pen into the yard and within seconds one of their dogs was on it and killed it. They were going to butcher it and eat it and I'm sure it was tasty, but it was supposed to enjoy a long, egg-laying life before it ended up in the soup pot. Honestly, I'm surprised it wasn't my dog who killed it, but <span style="color: #f1c232;">he stopped when I called him off</span>. Him and his stinky ass.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">The week kind of went on like that. I'm not going to describe it all. Suffice to say I somehow screwed up making yogurt in my Instant Pot twice, even though I've made yogurt that way many times. We made chocolate pudding and it didn't thicken (<span style="color: #f1c232;">so I made it into rice pudding</span>). I couldn't get eggs today at the farmer's market. Shit like that. Annoyances mostly that just seemed to pile up.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have more. Some of it is too personal though. Too painful and I don't need to spread my own existential crises here like moldy cheese.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">I've had too many weeks like this in 2020, but who hasn't? I try to find the bright spots and highlight them in yellow. <span style="color: #f1c232;">It's pouring down rain today, which we desperately need.</span> We're in a moderate drought situation here. But I won't even go into my basement to see how much water is pouring in through the walls. I've done everything I can on my property to divert the water from my foundation. It's just one more old-house issue I need to figure out. I'm not sure if every dark cloud has a silver lining or if every silver lining .... yeah, that doesn't work.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honestly, I do have good things going on in my life, even in these crazy, unsettled times. Friends who come over for socially distanced porch-sitting. My next-door neighbor to the south came over today and helped me change the way-up-high light bulbs on my outside lights. They've been burned out for .... I don't even remember how long. My next-door neighbor to the north plays his guitar and sings for me from his porch sometimes. We have good, deep conversations. Coraline is happily making Tik ToK videos today so I can sit here and write this whiny post. We're hoping President Butt-Hurt doesn't shut Tik Tok down just because hardly anybody went to his stupid rally in Tulsa. Or maybe it's because of this <span style="color: #f1c232;">ray of sunshine named Sarah Cooper</span>. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">OMG! I just love her face. I want to socially distance porch-sit with her.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">It feels good to be writing here again, so I'm going to keep it up, even if I drive all 12 of you away with my whining.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before I go I'll tell you the last straw for this week though. In the mail today I got a summons for jury duty. I'm supposed to be there just 3 days after the big custody hearing but <i style="font-weight: bold;">I have always wanted to perform my duty as a juror! I've been rewatching Boston Legal the past few months and I'm ready. Denny Crane! (Mmmm. Alan Shore.) </i>I'm called to a grand jury though, which can last for 4 months. And did I mention I'm going to be homeschooling Coraline this year? And do I have to mention we're in a pandemic and I don't have childcare, because otherwise she would be in school so ..... yeah. I think I'm going to have to get out of it. It would be a perfect homeschool activity for her to sit and watch, but those cases are often murder cases and it might not be appropriate. Also, the judge probably wouldn't let her in the jury box. If only they were doing Zoom trials.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sigh.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">How's your 2020 going? Any good news out there? Anybody else need to whine? Feel free to fill the comments. I want to know I'm not alone in this mad, mad world.</span></span></span><br />
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Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-60156996012218948222020-03-22T23:26:00.002-04:002020-03-22T23:26:16.168-04:00If we were sharing a glass of wine from a safe distance ....<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<b>If we were sharing a glass of wine </b>(but not the bottle), I'd have to get this out of the way. It's the new talking about the weather. It's weird to think we <b>can </b>be heroes simply by staying home, but it's true. Of course, we're not heroes like our family and friends who are on the front lines defending our lives: doctors, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, firefighters, police, grocery store workers, pharmacy workers, mail carriers, Amazon workers ..... Lots of heroes are out there taking care of us and we have to take care of them by staying home. Simply staying home. I think it's kind of stupid at this point that the government has to order us to do the right thing, but here in Ohio, we're on a <a href="https://www.wlwt.com/article/ohios-stay-at-home-order-heres-what-you-can-and-cant-do/31878089?fbclid=IwAR0vq2Ck_WKTEkXqGCo3Mk5zVWLJ7B5eyUsX1ReyKQNut-meOkTDhMWvEe0#" target="_blank">"stay at home" order.</a> I didn't need to be told twice a week and a half ago. I neither want to die nor to kill someone else.<br />
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<b>If we were sharing a glass of wine</b> you might notice my 115-pound standard poodle Crow Cocker looks pretty weird. He hasn't been to the groomer since .... I don't know. It's been a while. I've been distracted by some shit. So earlier I started to shave him down myself. I got 1/3 of the way through his mess of matted curls. He won't let me take his photo tonight. He's embarrassed. So here's what 1/3 of the hair on a 115-pound poodle looks like. I wish I could think of some way to repurpose it ....<br />
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<b>If we were sharing a glass of wine </b>I'd tell you I got an email today titled "Death Awaits You..." from the author of a book I recently downloaded for my Kindle. I couldn't unsubscribe fast enough. I probably won't read the book either. Must be a reason it was free. We'd call that guy an asshole.<br />
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<b>If we were sharing a glass of wine </b>I'd say I've found a new use for my kitchen tongs. I call it my Corona Hand (not related to <a href="https://reticulatedwriter.blogspot.com/2013/11/help-wanted-handypenis.html" target="_blank">Handypenis</a>). When I drove over to a local CSA farm to get some spring greens, I got out of my van and picked up my bag with a pair of tongs, brought it home and sprayed it with rubbing alcohol. If I were working a cash register anywhere, that's what I'd be using to check people's shit, with a glove. Tongs, people! Use them!<br />
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<b>If we were sharing a glass of wine </b>I would offer the following observation: holding a fist-sized smooth rock that's been warming on the furnace vent is more comforting that you'd imagine. Holding a warm smooth rock while a cat purrs on your lap is like being back in the womb. Only not as moist.<br />
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<b>If we were sharing a glass of wine</b> we'd probably agree looking at Facebook memories isn't so much fun any more. I've decided to take a break from them for a while. I need to focus on today.<br />
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<b>If we were sharing a glass of wine</b> <strike>it would be long gone</strike> I would tell you I read today that people who are secret harborers of the COVID-19 lose their senses of smell and taste. So I've decided I'll feed my dogs pizza and if I can't smell dog farts within 2 hours, I'm going to get tested. No worries though. So far, so good.<br />
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Well, it looks like the bottle is empty. I got lucky and picked up a pile of newish 7-day DVD's at the library the day before it closed, so I'm going to watch <i>Judy</i> and immerse myself in someone else's problems for a while. Tomorrow is another day. I think I'll continue shaving the dog and <a href="http://258525804_testing_the_efficacy_of_homemade_masks_would_they_protect_in_an_influenza_pandemic/" target="_blank">sew up some masks</a>. I'm not too proud to wear one the next time I go to the grocery store. Click that link before you disagree.<br />
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Stay home and stay safe, my friends</div>
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<br />Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-42416723887140182902020-03-20T23:34:00.001-04:002020-03-20T23:34:17.926-04:00Nothing stays the same ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>I wrote this last night, but it seemed too dark to post here, so I posted it on my Wordpress blog, which gets little traffic. But then I thought why? This is my reality. Maybe you'd like to tell yours too. So here it is. I'll be posting more. I've got time now.</i><br />
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Strange days. Today I was finally struck by the thought that I really could be deciding what I'll do with my final days of life. And then I wanted to take a nap. None of us can predict what the final days of our lives will look like. A year and a half later I still think often about my mom's final days, after she suffered her last, terrible stroke and we, my sister and brother and I, had to make the decision to take her off life support and wait several days for her body to catch up with our intention. She didn't know she'd spend her final day playing solitaire on her Kindle while she watched daytime TV in her kitchen, maybe enjoying a visit from my niece or my sister for a few minutes as afternoon turned to evening, eating a packet of instant oatmeal or leftovers from Meals on Wheels for dinner, chatting on the phone with my little brother, and then watching more TV from her recliner. Maybe she went to her weekly coffee group at the library, just up the alley, with her neighbor, who was even older than she was. Maybe she talked with her friend from country school days and made plans to visit another friend, housebound now, the next day for lunch. She couldn't have known she would spend that day on the floor of her bedroom, unable to even push her help button, until my sister found her 9 hours later.<br />
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We don't know. And so I spend these days not knowing if they are my last days, but knowing for certain nothing is going to be the same from now on. I struggle to stay engaged with the books I'm reading, the movies I try to watch. They are stories from another life. I'm glued to Facebook, waiting for more bad news instead of doing all the things I wished I had time for two weeks ago. Two weeks ago when I had jobs to go to and Girl Scouts and basketball games and piano lessons and ... all the things that seemed necessary and important.<br />
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I don't know what's important any more. And the things that are still important seem even more out of control than they did before the Big V. I still have to deal with them, but under this new way of living, I'm not sure how to manage them or whether it will even matter a month from now.<br />
For example, I'm embroiled in not one, but two, custody lawsuits, filed against me by my 8-year-old granddaughter Coraline's dad and his parents. I probably shouldn't write about that, but I will say it's been a cruel state of affairs, costly in every way imaginable, and it started because I tried to get health insurance for Coraline, who has been living with me for the past 4 1/2 years. I still have to deal with it, even though it has become moot at this point as we face weeks, possibly months, of distancing and quarantine. If these are my final days, I resent spending them on this unnecessary burden .... and she still does not have health insurance.<br />
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For example, a few weeks ago I found out I need dental surgery to remove 5 or 6 of my front teeth, roots and all. I suffered a bad accident with a brick hearth 20 years ago and the damage has continued to flourish unknown to me or my dentist. My teeth, which are really tiny points holding a rack of crowns, could fall out any time; I'm wearing a retainer to hold them in. My surgery has been postponed indefinitely. There are worse things than being without front teeth, and I told myself that even before the viral shit storm hit. That accident could easily have killed me then. But I've spent the past weeks worrying and preparing, counting pennies to pay the dentists and the lawyers.<br />
For example, I found out my house was robbed the same day I found out about my teeth, and I can't write about that either. So I'll just say it was bad timing and the losses from the robbery go far deeper than the possessions I will never see again.<br />
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I'm not the only person who has been struggling with big losses. I hardly know anyone who wasn't before the Big V hit. For many of us, nothing was going to be the same anyway -- because life is all about change and thank you, I know all that, Buddha -- but now we're not even sure where we are on the map. For many of us, we're close to the end of the road. If all predictions come true, no family will be left whole. The next few months .... who knows? None of us can predict now.<br />
And we do so love to predict. Oh god, how we crave knowing we'll just be OK. Just OK. Even with all I was going through before, I thought I would be OK. Now I don't know. And neither do you.<br />
So what do we do when we can't see what's even a few days ahead? What do we do when we can't even empty our bucket lists because we're quarantined in our homes? At least I hope you're staying home unless you're in an essential job.<br />
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I can tell you what I want to do right now, in this minute. I want to gorge myself on good dark chocolate and drink a bottle of ice-cold chardonnay in the company of my closest family and friends. I want to play my guitar and sing harmony with other people. I want to watch the sun rise from the night side of the day. I want to ride my bike along the river for miles and miles in the sun. I want to dig my hands in the dirt and plant vegetables that I know I'll eat in the summer.<br />
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But fuck me, I can't do any of those things. I forgot to buy enough chocolate and my liquor cabinet was robbed with the rest of my house. It's been raining here for 2 days and a big storm is blowing up as I write. The wind is getting fierce. Sometimes I love a windy night, but after being in a tornado last spring, it's not as much fun as it used to be.<br />
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I'm just one big ball of fun tonight, aren't I?<br />
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What I have been doing is staying holed up here in our house with Coraline -- except when we can get out for a walk between rain drops. I've been sleeping in and feeling zero guilt about it. I made a list of things I want to get done and I've been clearing at least one item off that list daily. Today I tidied the linen cupboard. <span style="color: var(--color-text);">I helped Coraline with her schoolwork, and we went to a live Indigo Girls concert on Facebook and then watched a silly movie on Disney+. </span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Yesterday I installed a bidet that I bought a month ago. It was pretty funny and I'll be writing about that soon. We watched <em>The Voice</em>, but it was hard knowing none of those singers will ever really compete. The day before I added leaves to the compost and stirred it up, preparing for a new garden this spring, and video chatted with my daughter-in-law Dakota and my 2-year-old grandson Cassius Danger. (I miss them so much my whole body aches.) I still need to shave our standard poodle Crow Cocker and send my tax documents to Dave and wash the chairs on the front porch -- at least one thing a day that moves me toward the future, whatever it brings.</span><br />
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And I've been preparing for the possibility that I'll be sick for a week or longer and Coraline will need to do more for us than she usually does. I taught her how to start the washer and dryer. We talked about foods she can cook, and I made two huge pots of chicken, vegetable and wild rice soup to put in the freezer. We could live a long time on soup. It helps to feel somewhat prepared for whatever craziness will inevitably ensue. I may look back on this time and say when everything was out of control, I made soup.<br />
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Social media has been a sanity-saver, both for me and for Coraline. She video chats with her friends for hours, and I let her. They do their homework together and have dance contests. And of course, I'm in contact with many of my friends too. I think we'd both be crazy by now without our online social life, extroverts that we are. We talk to the guys who live on either side of us from the safety of our porches. Today we the house for the first time since last Saturday to go pick up some early spring greens from a local CSA. On our way home we had to pass close to the home of one of Coraline's best friends. In a blaze of serendipity, they were just getting into their car as we drove by, so I whipped down the street and we car-chatted from across the street for about 20 minutes. It felt good.<br />
<br />
I worry about every tickle in my throat, every cough that I would normally attribute to spring allergies. I try to focus on the 80% of people who throw this virus off like it's a bad cold. I try to be like Tom Hanks, even though unlike him, I'm not even sick yet. I wash my hands a lot. I cross my fingers a cure will come any day now and then a vaccine. And I know even so, nothing will be the same.<br />
<br />
I don't know how to teach Coraline about a world that doesn't exist yet. We'll have to learn together.<br />
<br />
Whatever happens, we will fight to survive. The isolation feels like a terrible trick though. This is one way to break people, and we need to remember it. We are stronger together, even when we have to stay 6 feet apart.<br />
<br />
I don't know whether to hit publish on this one. It's a post for the times we're in, but for once I'm not able to find the humor like I usually can. You've all got your own troubles. Feel free to tell them to me in the comments. I can always listen.<br />
<br />
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Stay well, my friends.</div>
<br />
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<br />Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-79847343003059847442019-12-08T22:57:00.001-05:002019-12-08T22:57:55.644-05:00The weight of flushing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sorry I haven't written here in over a week. I've been busy in the bathroom. I'm wearing a brace on my wrist as I write this. I had to poop today and by the time I finished flushing 15 times .... again .... I mean, it's every single day with this flushing shit .... I've developed carpal tunnel. Thank you, Jeebus, I only have to flush ten times when I pee. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm working on a design for a toilet that flushes every 15 seconds whether somebody is using it or not. I figure the millionaire in the White House would gladly underwrite my invention so he could flush less and save his tiny hands for tweeting. Don't worry. My design will be super-sized. I think that's language he understands. The tank will hold 15 gallons of bottled water, courtesy of Nestle. And of course I'd offer a solid-gold option just for him. King of the throne and all that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think I'm on to something. I'm also thinking about presidential add-ons like toilet paper made from real $100 bills. Not that fake shit you get at the dollar store. A power-washer of a bidet attachment. No cling-ons when The Man leaves my deluxe toilet. Maybe a tanning light attachment, for the busy faux prez who wants to tan and poop in tandem.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The only thing I regret is that I probably won't need to work four part-time jobs to make ends meet once I get rich from my Mega Necessarium. I hate be a party pooper and bring down those robust unemployment numbers, but I'm going to live the American dream, my friends. Once I'm rich I don't have to give any more shits about poor people anyway, so I'm looking forward to that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gotta go. Saving my hands for inventing and flushing. Poop on!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-88832400386997290292019-12-02T23:26:00.003-05:002019-12-02T23:33:10.866-05:00Dell sucks. Eat the rich.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bet you didn't think you'd see me back here so soon. I just want to say that Dell sucks. Cyber Monday sucks. Capitalism pretty much sucks, except when ice cream is on sale. I am not being paid for this review.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm sick of the hype that happens after Thanksgiving every year. I never even leave the house on Black Friday. Hell, I don't really even get out of my pajamas. (OK, I don't wear pajamas, but if I did, that's what I wear on Black Friday.) And no, I don't shop online either. No offense to those of you who love that shit, but I hate it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A woman told me the other day she was going to stand in line for hours to get a deal on a 65-inch TV, <i>just like she did last year</i>, because it was such a good price and her TV was all of one year old now. And that she has a 52-inch TV in her bedroom that she watches about three times a year, but it's (she held out her fingers) about three inches wide and she might as well get two of those 65-inch TVs because they're only two inches wide. She asked me if I didn't think it was time to upgrade. I just stared at her. I couldn't comprehend her logic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That is my definition of insanity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet ... stupid me. I decided I'd buy a new laptop tonight because I need one. So my friend Green Jello found me one at Costco and my son Drake found me one on the Dell website, which is the one I decided to get, because it was faster. But <i><b>of course</b></i> when I went to my cart to actually pay for it, it wasn't available. But they did try to direct me to one that costs </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">$150</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> more. Thieving bastards.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fuck you, Dell. I think that might be illegal. Bait and switch. Right? Isn't that what that's called? It should be illegal. And try ... I dare you, just try to lodge a complaint. Not a chance in hell.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because they know they suck. So they don't need to be told. They won't even let you tell them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I'm not getting my Inspiron 15 5000 laptop computer tonight. Nor am I going to get a new Inspiron 14 5000, which was $50 more, because apparently it sold out just seconds before I was going to add it to my cart. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think it's a fucking conspiracy. Some fucking billionaires made a ton more billions the past few days, which they will pay zero taxes on, and fuck the rest of us. And now I'm mad because I couldn't add to their wealth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What about you? Do you shop Black Friday sales? Cyber Monday? Did you get some good deals and I'm just a loser. You can tell me. I can take it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But fuck Dell. Who needs their damn computer anyway?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">(I do.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-5565974493937749652019-11-30T21:47:00.000-05:002019-12-01T21:49:25.517-05:00Day 30: The Finish Line<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Day 30. This is the last
post for NaBloPoMo 2019. A big hug of gratitude to all of you who read my rants
and rambles this month. I've got a little something extra for those of you who
managed to read every post and I think you know what I mean. Seriously, I have
no reason to write here if you all don't show up and engage with me. I mean
.... <b><i>I am nothing without you!</i></b> So, really. Thank you.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
I always intend to continue writing at least a couple of times a week after
NaBloPoMo. I go into December with the same intention this year, because one of
these years I will succeed. If you run across topics you think I should write
about, please send them on. You can contact me by email or on my Facebook page.
You have liked my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Reticulated-Writer-343588962335010/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666699;">Reticulated Writer Facebook page</span></a>,
right? Or you can just pop a comment under this post. Lots of ways to find me.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
At a party last night, I did receive a complaint that I didn't write about
vaginas often enough. I know, right? It's uncharacteristic. I guess it's the
sign of our times that I ended up ranting more than I usually do. I'll do my
best to get back into vaginas.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
Oh, you know what I mean!</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
I leave you with this poem by Danusha Laméris simply because it's beautiful and
I love it.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
<br />
<br />
Small Kindnesses<br />
<br />
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk<br />
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs<br />
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”<br />
when someone sneezes, a leftover<br />
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.<br />
And sometimes, when you spill lemons<br />
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you<br />
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.<br />
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,<br />
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile<br />
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress<br />
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,<br />
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.<br />
We have so little of each other, now. So far<br />
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.<br />
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these<br />
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,<br />
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-28717907269342713962019-11-29T23:51:00.000-05:002019-11-30T00:40:09.785-05:00Day 29: Gratitude: Coraline<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdtGWIxIIKDhxOg14wTEeOaIJ65vGdOYa1lRO9j29XN7PeuiSeESVvWGLUBRM2XHFlrlQ2tA6fmOF1-IzlAWLnTtu-hLJxYDVqgii45ZBBs5pEhvReJXmroXM-cLD4l_cdZ1RjHJAhAxp9/s1600/Coraline+sleeping+with+Margaret+Catwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="552" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdtGWIxIIKDhxOg14wTEeOaIJ65vGdOYa1lRO9j29XN7PeuiSeESVvWGLUBRM2XHFlrlQ2tA6fmOF1-IzlAWLnTtu-hLJxYDVqgii45ZBBs5pEhvReJXmroXM-cLD4l_cdZ1RjHJAhAxp9/s320/Coraline+sleeping+with+Margaret+Catwood.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coraline with Margaret Catwood<br />
Photo credit: Reticulated Writer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was trying to decide what to write about tonight on this next-to-last night of NaBloPoMo, and I realized I hadn't written a gratitude post yet this month. I should write at least one gratitude post in the Thanksgiving month, because I have so much to be grateful for. And then I realized some of you reading here this month might not know my 8-year-old granddaughter Coraline and me in real life, so I'm going to write about her.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coraline has lived here with me in our big 145-year-old Queen Anne Victorian house for over four years. I can hear some of you thinking, <i>Wait just a dang minute there, Reticula. You're raising yet another generation </i>now<i>, in your golden years, and you're talking about gratitude? I don't get it!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'll tell you what. A lot of people don't get it -- unless they know us. Even then, I've heard," She's so lucky to have you," and "You're such an angel," and "How do you keep up?" and other variations on the theme.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here's how I answer: I'm the lucky one. A little background: I'm the oldest of five kids and I have two of my own. I've been raising or helping to raise kids for a lot of years. But I still consider myself lucky, because if I am going to raise another child at my age, I am raising the perfect child. Not that she's perfect. Neither of us are. But she's the perfect child for me. I know other grandparents who are raising their grandchildren and from my perspective, as much as they love their grandchildren, they're not as lucky. They've got a lot of problems we don't have. My daughter's only unhealthy habit during her pregnancy was smoking. Same while she breastfed Coraline for a year and a half. She was careful. I didn't have to deal with fetal alcohol syndrome or a baby born addicted to drugs or any of the many other issues custodial grandparents deal with. We do have some issues that led to Coraline living here -- obviously. But Coraline is bright, healthy, empathetic, out-going, confident, so compassionate ... I could go on, but you get the idea. I am lucky and I am grateful. And I know many of you who know us in real life will give me a Blessed Be or an Amen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I will admit I don't get to do some of the things I did the few years I was single and living alone. Or I don't get to do those things as often. <i>Shrug</i>. I'm doing other things. I'm a Girl Scout leader again. We go camping with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. We go to women's basketball games at my alma mater. Now that she's learned to ride her bike, we can do that together, and we'll ride farther and faster as she gets older. We go on fun day trips and we have groups of friends we socialize with. We go to church together. Oh, my god. You should see her dance in church. I'm not the only one who loves this child and her amazing spirit. She's taking piano lessons, and we're going to play a duet for her Christmas recital. Instead of making me feel old trying to keep up, raising Coraline keeps me younger, I think.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Are there some drawbacks? Are you a parent or have you been? Are there ever not trade-offs when you're raising kids? I confess I feel guilty that I can't spend as much time with my grandson as I think I would otherwise. On the other hand, Coraline is so good with him and he adores her. I'm not a morning person, so that 7:15 alarm doesn't excite me every morning. Neither does the drive to the school twice a day, although we have a carpool this year, so that helps. I miss doing some things with my friends when I don't have childcare, but I also do some things I wouldn't otherwise have done, so I don't dwell. There are other things I know I'm missing out on, but nobody gets a guarantee that they'll do everything in life they want to do. And I have to say, Coraline is a good excuse not to date. I'm sure that's not the only bad decision she saves me from making.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, yes, my life took a turn I didn't expect. Doesn't every life? And I'm grateful for every day I get to be in Coraline's life and that she is in mine. Have I mentioned she loves to mop (for now) and begs to be the one to mop the kitchen floor? See? Wouldn't you be grateful too?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'll end with this <a href="https://reticulatedwriter.blogspot.com/2015/11/nablopomo-17-coralineisms-103.html" target="_blank">Coralineism </a>from earlier today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coraline: What do you think happens to toys when they die?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: I'm not sure I understand the question.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coraline: If toys are secretly alive, if a toy dies then the kid won't know it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: I never thought about that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coraline: Yeah, and then the kid will keep playing with the toy and all the other toys will have to watch him play with a toy corpse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: I guess it's a good thing toys aren't secretly alive. I don't know how we'd solve that dilemma.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coraline: Well, we don't really know though, do we?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: No, and now you're giving me the creeps. Are you ready for another pancake?</span><br />
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Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-54560190774322293132019-11-28T23:57:00.000-05:002019-11-28T23:57:08.561-05:00Day 28: Throwback Thursday: What Febreze Scent Is Your Vagina<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://fontmeme.com/sticky-notes/"><img alt="sticky-notes" border="0" src="https://fontmeme.com/permalink/191122/63e52b682341e257316ce56b0baa0fed.png" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Happy Thanksgiving! Are you stuffed? Because I am stuffed. And tired. The past few days I did a lot of cleaning and a lot of cooking and right before my favorite holiday I got a nasty shock that I'll have to deal with whether I want to or not. If you're the praying type, our little family could use some intervention of the supernatural type. No floods or anything like that, please. If you're a ninja Amazon warrior, hit me back channel and let's make a plan. This Mama Bear never hibernates, although I do need some sleep tonight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So anyway, it's been a long week and I'm so glad it's over .... Wait? What? It's not over yet? Damn it. That's a very good reason for me to share a post from six years ago that I still find entertaining instead of staying up another 2-3 hours writing, editing, nodding off and banging my head on the keyboard. I've already talked about vaginas and Febreze this month. This post ties them together in a neat fragrant package.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From March 6, 2013</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Recently I've started holding what I call writer's bootcamps at my house. I open my house to a group of women writers, take their cell phones, and <strike>shame</strike> encourage them to put their asses in a chair and write for 4 hours with 5 minute breaks every hour. We take a long break for lunch, and then wrap up with a sharing session.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sounds so simple, but it's rather powerful. Some amazing work comes out of these bootcamps.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At last week's bootcamp .... for reasons I simply don't understand .... the topic of vaginas came up. I offer you a synopsis.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS:</b> Vaginas do not smell like fish. Vaginas don't even smell like <a href="http://reticulatedwriter.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-karaoke-snippet-something-smells.html" target="_blank">nice, fresh trout</a>. (This will make no sense if you haven't read the nice, fresh trout post.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula</b>: Hey, that's what I said, but he was adamant. The guy seemed to know his vagina.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS</b>: No way. As the lone lesbian in the room, and the person with by far the most experience with vaginas, I'm telling you <i>no vagina smells like fish</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula</b>: My vagina smells like rain. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KK</b>: OK, then mine smells like mountain air.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS</b>: Sounds like a Febreze scent. Hey, if your vagina was a Febreze scent, what would it be?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>R</b>: Mine would be mango .... no, chili .... no, mango. My vagina smells like mango Febreze.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula</b>: I'm sticking with rain. I'm not kidding: my vagina smells like rain.<br /><b>Anonymous</b>: How about double rainbow? Maybe your vagina smells like double rainbow Febreze.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula</b>: No, I'm sticking with rain. Nobody gets to say what somebody else's vagina smells like....especially if he's going to say fish.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KK</b>: If we're thinking of Febreze scents, then I'm going to change mine. My vagina Febreze scent is sunshine, not mountain air. My vagina smells like sunshine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>M</b>: Mine is .... fresh man walking out of a shower.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Everybody</b>: That's the best Febreze scent ever!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KK</b>: OK, I'm changing mine again. This time I'm sure. My Febreze vagina scent is honey cream hops.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula</b>: Mmmm. That sounds like a favorite beverage. Maybe next time we should say what our vagina's favorite beverage should be. (Wait for it...)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS</b>: My vagina Febreze scent is new car.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Everybody</b>: <i>New car!!! </i><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>Does your vagina really smell like new car?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS</b>: I'm telling you, my vagina smells like new car. I'm the only lesbian here, so I'm the expert on what vaginas smell like. New car. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Epilogue:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS:</b> OMG. New car Febreze smells like old lady.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula</b>: What does that mean? Did you buy some?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS</b>: Yes. And I mean it stinks. I want to change my Febreze vagina scent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula</b>: Too late. You already chose. Your vagina smells like new car.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS</b>: But new car Febreze</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> smells like old lady toilet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula</b>: Do mean the toilette that's watered-down perfume or the toilet your cat drinks out of?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>KS</b>: Is there a difference?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Reticula: </b>I dunno. It's your vagina.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If your vagina smelled like a Febreze scent, what would it be?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-44778402110372739092019-11-27T23:09:00.000-05:002019-11-27T23:09:26.964-05:00Day 27: Wordless Wednesday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-45264889743653608712019-11-26T23:30:00.000-05:002019-11-27T00:38:42.240-05:00Day 23: Get in line<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I don't write about racism very often, not because I don't think about it a lot, but because I'm afraid I'm going to say something insensitive or offensive, certainly without meaning to, and that I'll lose friends or everybody will hate me. Yeah, it's all about me. Tonight I just need to get something off my chest though. And if I do offend any of you, please tell me and I'll do my best to learn from it. I promise that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Someone posted in a Facebook group I'm in that she was a victim of racism. She said a black cashier opened up a lane and motioned past her, a "lily-white woman," and also past the first person in line to the third woman in line, who was also a black woman. A "sistah," she called her. (I know. I cringed too.) Lily-white was pissed. I guess she's used to being the favorite child.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She got her ass handed to her for suggesting that she was a victim of racism. It was swift and brutal. I'm not going to define racism for you, because I assume if you're still reading here, you understand the fallacy. I have faith you wouldn't be here if you didn't have a basic understanding of how racism works and why Lily-white can't be a victim of racism and furthermore, why neither the cashier nor the woman who was third in line can perpetuate a racist act on her or anyone. Honestly, I thought we'd all agreed on that decades ago, so I'm always surprised when it has to be explained again as if we were in racism kindergarten.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here's what I want to say about that though. If it were me, I wouldn't give a shit if she brought the third woman, the black woman, to the front of her new line. For all the black women who have sat in the back of the bus, or stood on the bus while white people sat, who have been denied service in restaurants, who have been denied basic amenities like bathrooms, who have gone to schools with no books, who have been told to get to the back of the line throughout the history of this nation, I would welcome her to bring the black woman to the front of the line.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm going to get even more personal. For my friend Collette, who was my neighbor and close friend years ago when we lived on Robins Air Force Base in the very middle of Georgia in the early 80's, the most racist place I've ever lived. For Collette, who would go out to eat with her husband at a restaurant and sit there .... and sit there ... and ask to be served and then .... sit there until they gave up and left. Who would hold out her hand for her change at the grocery store only to have it thrown instead on the counter by a cashier who refused to pick it up and put it in her hand, even when Collette insisted. Who was embarrassed by the way her mother treated me, because her mother didn't understand why we would be friends, even though they weren't from the Deep South, they were from Detroit. Who had a master's degree in engineering in spite of <i>everyfuckingthing</i>. Why shouldn't Collette have had a chance at the front of the line back then? That's right. She should have, Lily-white, but it wasn't going to happen in Macon, Georgia. Not then. And apparently not enough has changed even now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For all of those women, past and present, who are still practically and metaphorically told to go to the back of the line, who can work and work and work and still the front of the line is too far away, <i>please go ahead of me in the line at Walmart</i>. For fuck's sake. Is it not the smallest possible gesture to not get your panties in a wad just because a black woman goes to the head of the line at Walmart while you wait 5 minutes, Lily-white?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm not going to stretch that metaphor for you any more. I think it's pretty clear. It's not really about lines at Walmart .... and yet, it is. If a black woman can't go to the head of the line at Walmart without Lily-white clutching her pearls and fainting, then how the hell are we ever going to fix the fact that black women have to fight harder than anyone for a place in line at all?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What I hope is that Lily-white learned something from the barrage of comments she had to endure before she left the group. And I hope maybe some other women read those comments and learned something too. If nothing else, maybe Lily-white's faux pas provided an educational experience. It certainly made me think and react.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I hope next time Lily-white has an opportunity to let a black woman go to the front of the line, she will think twice about how often she's been at the front of the line herself for no other reason than she was born with lighter skin. Because let's be honest, that's no reason to always be at the front of the line. Women have to share that line with each other, because we've all been held back from the front of the line, and black women most of all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That's all I want to say tonight. Share the front of the damn line. Those billionaires who own Walmart are the real enemies, our common enemies. They're the ones who are controlling our access to the lines that matter -- the ones the most of us aren't even standing in. The enemy is not the cashier who works there and is certainly not the woman who was behind you in line, Lily-white. Focus on what's really important. We have a lot of work to do. Together.</span><br />
<br />Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5856183318248330085.post-19178798159566660882019-11-25T23:19:00.000-05:002019-11-26T01:24:43.625-05:00Day 26: Inspiration Monday<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb2evjOvmZZJJnMzIdNlZ-sG2aeRqKV1xqoKdQWH9wNcYBRY4Xz9P0Uo46BXAzU3OZUKMiFDz6Famc46Jv0E9I8iEwukQZTiEYVLuG7k7IWIYq7iQZ1pDWRP5jlYL6CusLtVIdKbgl54fT/s1600/bus+driver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="552" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb2evjOvmZZJJnMzIdNlZ-sG2aeRqKV1xqoKdQWH9wNcYBRY4Xz9P0Uo46BXAzU3OZUKMiFDz6Famc46Jv0E9I8iEwukQZTiEYVLuG7k7IWIYq7iQZ1pDWRP5jlYL6CusLtVIdKbgl54fT/s320/bus+driver.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Lunceford<br />Photo credit: Kennewick School District</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My friends, it has been a Monday. I'm not going to describe it, because I need to let it pass on out of my life, but I'll say two things. First, working for rich people is eye-opening and frustrating and often demeaning in ways they don't mean, but that still feel that way. And the second thing I'll say about this Monday is that I'm so far behind getting ready for Thanksgiving I'm not sure how I'll get it all done. But I will, because I always do. And if the house isn't as clean as I like it, my family and friends won't even notice. It's about the food and the thanks and nothing else.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since it's been one of those days, I'm going to share just a few stories that caught my attention recently and made me feel good. I hope they brighten your day too -- even though your day is probably Tuesday because I'm writing this after midnight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here's one about John Lunceford, a bus driver who saw a need and immediately did something about it. It didn't cost him much, but I'll bet he got paid back in a lot of good karma. You can read about his good deed on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KennewickSchoolDistrict/posts/1250773898299050:0" target="_blank">Kennewick School District Facebook page.</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_vg6Jt3xmnYEQEGF3UZXupt1J6hvK45Qw5JvaHhZhGCevBZ8IJ_t29wppkrEILt0HmbOVQqQB1eGR9U5X-5LUvht4fnoScAEBT-Hi_OsGrOBCLLM1Pb55nc-XTYRMIicrrVbpvGrpObj4/s1600/painted+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_vg6Jt3xmnYEQEGF3UZXupt1J6hvK45Qw5JvaHhZhGCevBZ8IJ_t29wppkrEILt0HmbOVQqQB1eGR9U5X-5LUvht4fnoScAEBT-Hi_OsGrOBCLLM1Pb55nc-XTYRMIicrrVbpvGrpObj4/s320/painted+house.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And then there's this story about an elderly retired teacher who was unable to do the upkeep on her house. The city was threatening her with code violations that could have cost her $3000 a day. She shared the information with her neighbors, who put together a work party. Twenty-five people showed up and the results were amazing. You can read more about it in <a href="https://truththeory.com/2019/10/21/kind-neighbors-restored-and-painted-the-house-of-a-lonely-retired-teacher-for-free/?fbclid=IwAR3e6i10Yp_pEWPGldRuIffuGDk83unjRdBNtK3sZef9cYMSYtteigH1COU" target="_blank">this article on the Truth Theory website</a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6FL9AtfQZgEx4pS4vGU_88d28gL_1iICzy7dt2qpvm6LJIa2MruhlUOF0ftlco03kbLlyO6wXqnnGy4PZDVtW65GS1bsX5C0MuErhOwTfe-sV5a6nS9x5OBIrcDoproetKSRlYTPQXik/s1600/plastic+bottle+boat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="640" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6FL9AtfQZgEx4pS4vGU_88d28gL_1iICzy7dt2qpvm6LJIa2MruhlUOF0ftlco03kbLlyO6wXqnnGy4PZDVtW65GS1bsX5C0MuErhOwTfe-sV5a6nS9x5OBIrcDoproetKSRlYTPQXik/s320/plastic+bottle+boat.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And then there's </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ismael Essome Ebone, a</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> guy from Cameroon who <a href="https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/cameroon-man-uses-turns-plastic-bottles-into-canoes/?fbclid=IwAR1u2rroRbfsz0CVABF-WmVLh2CMnsotZvtW-jzxTXAvTTyW0ehkbmtgAKg" target="_blank">figured out how to build boats from plastic bottles</a>. He didn't turn his idea into a corporate money-maker though. He started a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/madiba20161/posts/2419317694988597?__tn__=-R" target="_blank">non-profit for collecting plastic waste</a> and turning it into fishing boats and boats for eco-tourism and plastic-bottle bins he designed to collect recyclables. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Don't even get me started on plastic water bottles. I used to do an exercise about evidence in research writing with my college freshmen where I had them add up how many plastic bottles they used in a week. And then how many the campus probably used. And then the city. It was stunning. Many of them started using their own reusable bottles after that, but we all know our use of throw-away plastic bottles in this country is a sin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">OK, I said I wouldn't get started. I will say though that we can all find ways to help people, both small and large. The ways, not the people. Tis the season and all that. I find these stories inspirational and a reminder that I can always do more -- although probably not this week unless you count that turkey dinner I'll be preparing over the next three days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Do good deeds, my friends. We're all in this together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Reticulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05577343017332273507noreply@blogger.com5