Up on The Hill

Birds

2009-05-12T07:53:00.001-04:00

Mid-last week, bobolinks and American goldfinches. This morning (at 5:00 a.m. on the wire outside the window), barn swallows.

Throwing down the proverbial sword.

2008-11-22T09:15:00.003-05:00

I realized this morning that, after the goings-on of last year or so, I am tired. Tired, not so much physically, although that may be so as well, but emotionally. Just worn out, and with no patience or enthusiasm for even the slightest verbal fencing match. I hereby throw down my sword.

I'm considering having little cards printed up, (or, given the snow-covered state of the roads this morning, perhaps breaking out the Avery packet and printing my own), that will say something like the following:

"You're right. I am (check all that apply):

unreasonable
overly analytical
illogical
stingy
wasteful
selfish
stupid
belittling
plotting
manipulative
irresponsible
delusional
unhelpful
self-indulgent
thoughtless
untruthful
unappreciative
sloppy
disorganized
and just generally a bitch of the first water"

I shall have a pocketful of these cards - maybe even have little pencils to go with them, like you get at mini-golf places - and whenever someone starts to pick a fight with me or object to whatever I seem to be planning, instead of rising to the occasion I will simply hand them a card, smile politely, and drift off into the crowd.

And for anyone who is wondering what they can then do with the card - and then pencil - well, do I really need to explain?

Andy Rooney, November, and other stray thoughts

2008-11-15T17:15:00.009-05:00

In case you missed it on 60 Minutes, this is what Andy Rooney thinks about women over 40:

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting. Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it. Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk or if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her. Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?', here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

----------------------------------------

You tell 'em, Andy. Thanks, Katrina - I missed that one. I don't usually watch 60 Minutes - if I'm in front of the TV at all, it's either cartoons, food, or football.
----------------------------------------

Everything the word "November" conjures up, we had today. Except sleet - somehow that missed us. But the dreary gray (grey?) raining yucky...all that we had. In spades.

I spent the majority of the day in bed. No, not sick. But I seem to be recuperating...I'm not even sure what from (ignore that nasty sentence structure, please - bear with me, here.) This has been one heck of a year - off the charts, stress-wise - and yes, there *are* charts for that sort of thing. Here's one: http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Psychosocial/notebook/PSS10.html
here's another one:
http://www.peacefulplace.com.au/cgi-bin/stresstester/stresstest.cgi?stresstest

That one gave me a "category 5" stress measure - chance of serious illness within the next two years = 90% Category 5, like the Finger of God for tornadoes. Yeesh.

Great. Just great. *That* didn't add to the ol' stress measurement, now did it?

But reading about stress ( for everything you ever wanted to know about stress: http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Psychosocial/notebook/stress.html )
doesn't help us much. Neither does the advice to "meditate" (you have to say it with an Indian accent.)

I've just been sleeping - 10, 12 hours a day - soaking in the tub, taking tons of supplements, trying to lay off the sugar, wheat, alcohol and other baddies, and generally avoiding life whenever possible. I hang mostly with my dogs and cats - husband has a biological rhythm that is 180 degrees off mine - he's just getting up now, right as I'm getting ready for bed. But that's okay. I've been reading for pleasure, too; not even trying to learn anything, and usually I only read fiction during the summer.

And slowly, ever so slowly, with many "two steps forward, one step back", I seem to be recovering my balance. I do trust the process, and myself. And today is just the sort of day to lay low, stay warm, and...recover.

(and it didn't help my stress levels that I had to edit this three times - make it four times - to get those links to function!)

Winter...already.

2008-11-10T17:20:00.003-05:00

What happened to autumn? And were it not for Katrina, who sent me Halloween-in-a-Box, Samhain would have gone by virtually unnoticed as well. But now that it's officially WInter - to me, anyway, and others who find the old calendar more sensible as well as comforting - I'm trying to institute a few gentle changes.

There's a new look over at mumsananarchist. Would have been one here as well, only there are few choices at blogspot and none that I like nearly as well as I like this one. That's my main issue with blogspot - so few choices and none like the little mood characters. Anyway, over there will be for ruminating, alarums, diversions, and endless commentary on the passing scenery. Here will be for more personal chitchat. At least until I get bored with that format too.

So without further ado, today's personal chitchat:

I was going to go to the Y this morning and swim, really I was. I got plenty of sleep and even had dreams about swimming at the Y. Problem was, I failed to factor in the apparent consumption of something toxic. Spent the day in bed (the part that wasn't spent in the bathroom.) Still not feeling too tiptop.

But I am feeling abnormally psychic, even for me. Which is making me uncomfortable, to say the least. Black dogs circling, too.

And I miss the children.

And all the various lost but not forgotten. Even if they are only Over There and not actually gone. I miss having them around the table.

John took the opportunity of no wifely supervision to mess up his knee again, so he's bedridden for the forseeable future - or until I get tired of feeding fires and dogs, watching over Clowns, running errands, and generally stepping and fetching for all I'm worth, at which point he had best be healed.

Invalid. Interesting word and concept. First definition is of one who is sick or injured, but quick on its heels is the adjectival form with the general sense of unworthiness. Not fair to pick on a person when he's down.

I guess maybe we'd all better get some rest.

I like this.

2008-08-29T16:18:00.000-04:00

Thanks, Katrina.

Things that go bump in the night...

2008-08-28T19:43:00.002-04:00

All right. Technically, it wasn't night yet and it didn't go bump. But still. John went in bathroom. Water in the sink turned on. He looked. Water in the sink turned off. He came out.

Umm...yeah.

Next!

ps - this had better not have anything to do with the fact that I was homesick and looking up stuff about the Jersey Devil. No, I don't mean the hockey team. Nah. Probably more to do with all the work we've been doing around the house, and the fact that the kids are gone.

Some days you get the job, and some days the job gets you.

2008-08-08T17:31:00.004-04:00

It's not always great being a one woman show. True, I do make a lousy employee, always thinking for myself and nonsense like that. And it's God's own truth that I hate being told what to do, even if it's what I would have done anyway. I like to stand or fall on my own, you know? I make as much money as I want, for the most part, between April and November - work as much or as little as I want to, then cruise through the rest of the winter...somehow. It does get a little dicey sometimes, but there's always a way to make things work. Not always absolutely on the up and up, maybe, but I prefer to think of it as fiscal creativity.

Then there are weeks like this one, where it rains every blessed day (and I loathe working in the rain - snow I don't care about, but I hate the sloshing around and mud everywhere and water constantly dripping in my face) and everything I come in contact with has thorns. I mean, come on. There are hundreds of plants to choose from, even up here in the frosty zone 4b, so why, WHY plant something with stupid thorns?? Especially the little bitty thorns that you can't even see, so you have to wait for them to FESTER and then eject themselves from your thumb.

(Incidentally, a synonym for fester is suppurate - to fill with pus. Kind of makes you wonder what on earth the motel folks were thinking when they named their chain.)

Roses are okay, despite the thorns. I guess. I'm not a rose person. People are, for the most part, either rabid rosarians or they just Aren't Rose People. No one really has a rose or two in with everything else. (Okay, I do - but they were there when I bought the house, and I just haven't gotten around to either selling or killing them yet.) But barberries! And flowering quinces! And giant "ornamental" thistles! Gah!

And customers who hire you for a full day to overhaul their garden, then come out at 10:00 and tell you that since "you charge *how* much?" you and your helper should really be going in about an hour. Yeah.

Or the one that asks you to draw up a plan for a new garden, and you spend all weekend doing just that, and calling around to check prices and availability and generally being a good little design person. And the client studies your design, then says no, that isn't really what they had in mind but thanks anyway. And three years later you just happen to drive past and see that they installed your design, tree for tree, themselves. We live and learn, I guess.

But on the good days, you spend all day doing gentle gardening (as opposed to eight hours with a pickax or a chainsaw, which also happens - on not-so-good days) as soft breezes blow and you get a nice tan and get to be the only 53 year old woman you know with visible triceps. Glug down some water, smile at the world and think "I actually get paid to do this."

This week, too, I saw both the smallest and I think the largest toads I've ever seen. The small one was maybe 3/8 of an inch long, the other day, in a garden. Quick li'l bugger. The large one was almost as big as my hand. He was sitting on the side of the road, and I never would have seen him if I hadn't scared him with the sound of the "big money Dodge" and seen him do that hunker down thing that frogs and toads do. I got out and helped him to the other side, to a safe place. That was today, and despite the wretched clay and rock "soil" we were working in, despite the rain, despite the crazy leave-early woman, that big toad alone was worth the price of admission.

So, yeah. Owl Hill and Owl Hill Organics. An independent contractor, up on the Hill.

What the @#$% is wrong with these people??

2008-07-22T17:50:00.004-04:00

"These people", of course, being the ones who keep taking some of our favorite songs from the 1960's and 1970's and using them to sell products. I'm not saying that there is anything terribly sacrosanct about these songs, as some might believe; I just think that someone who knows all the words should be called in to consult now and again.

It's always a little off-putting, I think, to use music that we thought of as sort of defining of our generation and our times to sell a product, but I'm generally put off by advertising anyway. This is much more interesting. Don't these people even listen to the lyrics? Or do they just remember the titles or the hook lines? Consider Fly Like an Eagle (Steve Miller) being used to hype the US postal service. Superficially it sounds like a good enough idea - hey, eagle = US bird, fly + fast service! But do you remember the actual lyrics?

Feed the babies who don't have enough to eat
Shoe the children with no shoes on their feet
House the people living in the street....

Is this really what any US Government office wants us to think about?

How about using the Violent Femmes "Blister in ther Sun" to sell Wendy's hamburgers? I like Wendy's, personally, but is:

When I'm out walking I strut my stuff, yeah
I'm so strung out, I'm high as a kite...
.....staining my sheets....etc

really the sort of thing they want people associating with their food? And speaking of fast food hamburgers, just because cheese melts doesn't make Modern English's classic "I Melt with You" an appropriate ad choice. Cheese melts, yeah, but...what in the hell does this have to do with cheese:

Moving forward using all my breath, making love to you was never second best
I saw the world thrashing all around your face, never really knowing it was always
mesh and lace

So many examples...Circuit City, praising the glories of casual sex (The Cars, "Just What I Needed"); Chevrolet, apparently deciding that the days of strong and well built trucks are a thing of the past and pointing this up using Bob Seger's "Like a Rock"; what an interesting choice for Fidelity Mutual! (Bowie, ..."well, well, well, would you carry a razor in case, just in case of depression..." - Young American); does Hewlett Packard really want "Teenage Wastelnd" as their theme?; does anybody really want to be associated with "Horse With No Name" or the dreadful "Baby I'm -a Want You"?

More? Sure, we can go on and on: X Box using a song about the glories of LSD (Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit); Saab deciding that their perfect corporate image is a "deaf, dumb and blind kid" who plays pinball...huh? (The Who, Pinball Wizard.) Yeah, we can go on and on.

So is there some reason why no one writes their own jingles any more? Are we supposed to be so captivated by simply recognizing the song that we, the buyer, instantly identify with the product? Sorry, but just knowing that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page and raking in the ol' royalties doesn't make me turn to my husband and say, "gee, honey, let's buy a Cadillac! Those are our people!"

I propose we compromise and hire Barry Manilow. His music may bore me to tears and his hair annoy me, but at least he can write a nice jingle - State Farm, Stridex and Band-Aids all use Manilow jingles, and if I had any more laptop battery left, I'm sure there are many more - he spent a long time in the "jingle jungle."

If the ad folks can't do that, though, maybe they could just hire someone to Google the lyrics before committing to using a particular song. Please. We're tearing our hair out up here on the Hill.

hugs!

2008-07-20T18:53:00.005-04:00

(Wow, Katrina, I didn't even know you were back from your business meeting! How was it?)

Anyway, we've got to talk about this hugging thing.
"When I was growing up in Kentucky (and I have yet to hear this phrase anywhere else), we'd talk about "hugging someone's neck" or "giving someone a big hug around the neck." Out My Back Door

I remember my grandmother singing "I love you, a bushel and a peck. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck" and that is everything that I know about neck hugging. I barely know about the other kind, it seems.

See, I was raised on the outskirts of Philadelphia and spent more than half my life (which is a long story for another time) at my grandparents' house deep in the heart of the old money Main Line. People over the age of three or four did not hug; it simply Was Not Done. Men shook hands - if it were a particularly emotional moment, one might grasp the other's elbow with his free hand - and women briefly touched cheeks whilst making little "mmmwa" sounds. Older female adults were permitted to kiss children, an operation universally loathed by the kissee, but unless so accosted children shook hands with adults of either gender, and did so quite solemnly. Female children might be permitted a shy smile, but that was all, regardless of the degree of gushing on the part of the adult.

But the world is bigger than it used to be, and we now routinely marry outside of our accustomed ...what shall we call it?....genre, maybe. I married into a family of Huggers, a large family of Huggers. People I barely knew would greet me and then clutch me as though I'd been lost at sea for weeks, completely oblivious to my awkward embraces and uncertain pat-pat-pats. Even children - big boys, my size but barely teenagers - would scoop me into mammoth hugs, and the women would not only hug but often actually kiss, leaving lipstick marks. By the end of the evening, I would feel as though I'd survived a peculiarly affectionate mosh pit.

I grew to accept this overdose of physicality as a family trait, and braced myself for it at every meeting. And I do mean every meeting - even if you'd had lunch together the day before, hugs were still in order, both at the greeting and at the parting.

After we'd moved north and I was reconnecting with some friends here, I discovered that these previously orderly people had metamorphosed into Huggers and favored long, close clasps with much patting. I also realized that the family hugs I'd learned about had been mercifully short, while these folks hugged for a long damn time, whole paragraphs being exchanged while still in the embrace.

And how do you signal that you wish to be released from a hug? I tried stopping the pat-patting, hoping that would signal the end of the hug, but no dice. I tried sort of pulling my head back, and had that signal misinterpreted into a kiss-me signal and got kissed as well as hugged. I finally just learned to stand still and eventually the hug would be over. Don't misunderstand, these are all people whom I love dearly; I just wasn't brought up to expect all this hugging business.

I'm trying to get over my anti-hugging training, because I realize that hugging should be a lovely happy thing. I just can't get out of my mind, though, the image of my hugging-raised husband embracing my Aunt Mimi, a big man with his long arms wrapped completely around a slight elderly woman who was standing straight as a stick, arms at her side, looking completely bewildered.

It's telling that on my friend's page, the little people hug, but when I tried to copy it over to here, well:

they just stand there awkwardly.

*sigh*

Today's lesson, children...

2008-07-17T16:38:00.003-04:00

Nah, it's nothing deep and meaningful. Too hot for that.

Today's lesson concerns the phrase "hair of the dog", as when one has a hangover and a well-meaning friend suggests that one take another drink (usually a Bloody Mary, a beverage, in my opinion, much better with the vodka served frozen and separately) in order to cure the condition. At the time, one generally doesn't question the usage, but later one may think, "What dog?"

The answer is the Aesclepian dog. You know, the dog that is often shown lying at the feet of Aesclepius. He (the dog...well, Aesclepius too, but that's another story) was supposedly magickal, and if one took a hair from his coat and brewed it into a potion, it would cure illnesses. After a while (by this point, about 300 B.C.E.), there were often dogs kept in aesclepieions - think clinics or hospitals - and rumor had it that if the dogs would lick a person's wound, the wound would heal.

OK, so Wikipedia doesn't agree with me, citing something about rabies and Shakespeare, but I'm sticking by my original answer.

The other lesson for our interested student has to do with shared cultural heritage, or why we should spend time with people of our own age- and other generalized brackets. The other day it was remarked that roses that looked very sick, one even thought dead, had healed right up when watered. I jokingly remarked "just call me The Seventh Son."

*cricket cricket*

"You know, 'Heal the sick! Raise the dead! Make the little women go out of...." a heh..ehe.

*blink*

Never mind.

That's all for today, kids.

Be well.

Well, the weather's still nice...

2008-07-15T09:28:00.004-04:00

Woke up at 6:30 - realized we were planning to get up and go to the Y to swim, but apparently overslept - and saw the sun streaming in through the windows, felt noticeably good physically and mentally, sat up and stretched, humming a few bars of "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning."

Then I interacted with my loving family.

And now I'm back in bed and I don't care if it is still beautiful outside.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

(And make no mistake, I include myself in that, perhaps most of all.)

Herb and Flower Festival ... check.

2008-06-28T20:21:00.002-04:00

The twelfth (?) annual Herb and Flower Festival was a smashing success. The bad weather we were told to expect held off until 2:00 (festival ended at 3:00 anyway) and even then was just a quick shower.

Anne and I had our free times at the beginning this year, instead of at the end, so we had a greater selection (flip side: no one was frantic to sell off plants rather than pack them back up, so we had to pay full price.) We bought three trees and about a dozen various perennials, including a couple new lilies, some extremely cool wrought metal stuff including a planter shaped like a turkey, and miscellaneous herbal creams and the like.

Our centerpiece was a hit, our cookies declared some of the best. All in all, it was a wonderful day, as always.

Now, too tired to do any actual work, we can start figuring out where to plant our new stuff, shift some of the other stuff around...gardening dreams. *happy sigh*

check list

2008-06-27T22:36:00.003-04:00

-mow dahlia-woman's lawn ... check
-fill prescriptions ... check
- pick up dogs ... check
- do drugstore deliveries ... check
- touch up roots ... check
- attend graduation w/ no tears .... check (well, one minor puddle, but no actual tears)
-make lavender shortbread cookies ... check and...
- create centerpiece ... check (wooden shoes filled w/ sedums, twisted grass, furry thyme and portulaca)

Done! On to the Herb and Flower Fest!

The votes are tallied...

2008-06-26T10:28:00.003-04:00

and the party was, in fact, a success. The guests did have a good time (including the four who were still here this morning), the food was good and plentiful, the fire was fun to sit around and nothing else (barn, house, etc.) was inadvertently ignited, no one was seriously or permanently injured in the moon bounce thingee. One kid stepped on a "rusty nail" - which may or may not have been a nail, could have been any sharp thing, including hay - and had to be reassured at 3:00 a.m. that she, noticing some swelling around her mouth, did not have tetanus/lockjaw and was probably simply allergic to the strawberries in the fruit salad.

I was up at the crack of dawn, or nearly so, to take down the strings of lights (which never did stay lit properly) and scrape the wax off the rental tables (from the candles used for illumination after the failure of the lights.) Gathered up all the napkins that had blown around, dealt with trash and recyclables, folded the chairs and in general picked up and put away. The mess was minor, considering.

Tomorrow evening is the graduation proper - thank gods all I have to do is show up. Tomorrow afternoon I have to deliver tables for Saturday's Herb and Flower Festival, as I seem to have the only pick-up in Cornell Cooperative Extension existence with an eight foot bed, perfect to carry eight foot tables. At some point I should generate a plate of herbal (probably lavender) shortbread and ...some sort of centerpiece.

But first I'm going to try to take a nap, assuming the carpet guys/rental guys/dumpster guys (our world is totally crammed with guys these days) don't make that impossible. But I'm going to try. This celebration stuff is murder.

Okay, so maybe I was right the first time....

2008-06-25T22:43:00.003-04:00

According to Alex, the party is a complete bust - it looked to me like it was going well, and everyone was having fun. Besides, the thing I remember about being a teenager at outside-at-night parties was just the wandering around outside in the dark with other people, the feeling of wild/free. But maybe it's not like that anymore. Or maybe Alex is over-wrought. Or something.

And my husband is totally anti-me now. Not sure what sins or series of sins I've committed this time, but apparently I don't babysit actively enough (I thought kids who were leaving for the armed forces next week, old enough to get married, etc., were old enough to have a small bonfire without a watchman) and poor John once again does all the work. ALL the work. While evil and lax me sits upstairs in my bedroom writing this. Yeah well. Must be difficult to be married to someone who just isn't up to one's standards and is such a constant disappointment.

And like not being 100% ready for this party, I find I just don't care about that either. I've done the whole mea culpa deal, done it to death, and I'm just not that into beating up on myself anymore. I'm learning, finally, to let go, to take what I need when I need it - food, rest, time, whatever - and be a little easier on myself. And if it doesn't suit, tough. We'll get by, or we won't, but either way it'll all sort itself out. All these people - guests and family members - know where the door is. Hope they don't let it hit them on their way out.

I was wrong - I LOVE parties!!

2008-06-25T20:42:00.003-04:00

It's the people I can't stand. I love the prep, the cooking of fun stuff, the decorating, and all the fuss. I'm right there, right up until the people arrive.

Okay, I was good for a while even after that. I was up on the deck turning out hamburgers and hot dogs, and the salads and condiments were all in place. I was good. Then the people decided it would be nice to interact with me, for cryin' out loud.

I tented my remaining food, turned off my burners and declared my work finished. John can take over with overseeing the bonfire and the fireworks (!) while I retreat to the safety of the house.

After a while, I may put in a brief appearance to bring out the Congratulations Alex! cake. Then I'm slinking off inside and staying there. My kids are 20 almost and 18 - surely they can police their own buddies, fold up the leftover food, etc. And I can get at least a partial night's sleep, since coming up very soon is the Herb and Flower Festival, for which I must cook (herb shortbread - yay!) and make a centerpiece and tote the tables around in the pick-up.

That's to look forward to, along with all the party leftovers. It's all good, yes it is. Summer. Yes indeed.

OK, this is pretty silly even for my family.

2008-06-24T13:34:00.002-04:00

So Alex's graduation party, to which she has invited something like 90 people, is tomorrow. And she's painting the dining room today. We have only vague plans concerning food (after I got over cackling wildly at my to-do list, which appeared to contain the item "talk to Alex about men" - actually "talk to Alex about menu" - and then promptly lost) and I think I'm supposed to make a cake of some sort. We do appear to have a moon bounce arriving sometime tomorrow morning, however, which is a good thing...assuming the guys get the lawn/field sufficiently mown.

We had planned magnificently to impress everyone (yeah) with our new living room sofa...which won't arrive for another four weeks...and our new living room carpet...which was supposed to be here today, but in fact is still in Jersey and won't make an appearance until Thursday (when, I hope to God but am not counting on, all the guests will be gone.) The TV man is the only person I'm actually expecting to be here tomorrow morning, to fix/replace the satellite receiver that got clobbered by lightning the other week. (And if I have to listen to DirectTV's tech support "I'm sure this is very frustrating for you" speech just one more time....)

I never did get all the gardens fixed up, but the ones closest to the party (and not under threat of the ever-present bees) look good. Maybe I'll run out tomorrow morning and buy some fluffy annuals to sprucew the place up. Since the hippo pond (alas) is in the path of the proposed sunroom, it isn't even dredged for the year yet; we just hope no one notices its little algae-fied self there in the corner in the tall weeds.

Alex wants traditional American cookout fare - hotdogs, hamburgers, etc., but this is made difficult by the fact that we have no idea how many people will show up - all the invitees have massive (Catholic) families and may/may not bring them. So, dinner for 10 or 100? Who knows? I've also been informed that Central New Yorkers do not eat potato salad (wha? no potato salad at the traditional American etc.?) They apparently prefer pasta salad, which I cannot abide and certainly do not want lingering in my fridge for days because we figured on dinner for fifty and got fifteen. And there's still the cake...I guess it should say "Congratulations Alex!!", although the temptation to put something really ...fun...on it instead is quite strong.

My response to all this is to buy books on Amazon - Brian, our UPS guy, is making almost daily trips out here, between my books and Alex buying grad gifts for all her various pals. Elizabeth Goudge's three volume saga of the Eliot family, four books on pre-Raphaelite art, a book on repairing stairways, one by my friend Jack Elinsky (not from Amazon, but from Rampart Press), a missing Cannell paperback - too many, and it isn't as though we had room for more books, or even for what we already have here.

Ooh, Brian just left - wonder what that's about??

I'm hiding out upstairs, wondering if there's any possibility whatsoever that I'd be allowed to sleep for an hour, or, ideally, until the thing is over. I don't like parties in general (although I usually think the prep and cooking is fun) and I don't like parents much in any circumstance. But I suppose I ought to go clean up the living room or generate a list or bake the accursed cake or...something useful. *sigh*

Then Friday is the actual graduation ceremony (at a church - thank you SO much for that *grumble*) and yet another ending. I know, I know - endings are just inverted beginnings, or some such nonsense. It's like telling someone who's going through some form of hell that it's a learning experience they will some day appreciate. I'm sure it is, but at the moment, well, it sucks with a pretty stiff vacuum. I need time, maybe, to assimilate some of these changes before moving on to the next one (booting Joe Gunn out of the house in Media, selling the house, disposing of the goods, all that still awaits) but that just never seems to be an option. I feel like I'm going over the falls without my barrel.

*knock knock* "Who's there?" "It's not the cake."

Whew!

2008-06-10T19:28:00.002-04:00

Just a breaker, not fried electrical wiring.

Still...I kind of liked that tree, and I don't have a lot of hope for its survival.

And I feel sorry for Anne - she's such a weather fanatic, and when lightning strikes a few feet from her head, she's not here to see it.

Excitement on the Hill!

2008-06-10T18:55:00.002-04:00

Okay, kids, let this be a lesson to you: it CAN happen to you!

Getting struck by lightning, that is.

After the heat (up to 94 degrees, which is unheard of in Central New York) of the last few days, we're supposed to be getting a cooler spell, ushered in by strong storms. Okay, a little thunder, some far away lightning, maybe a stiff breeze or two.

Not.

Winds up to 80 mph (didn't see them, but I'd estimate 60 mph here, briefly), 2 1/2 inch hail (didn't see that either, for which I and all the little flowers I've been slaving over are grateful), and dangerous lightning. Guess I got that. Sitting in the bedroom, watching the storm come over the hill, got all pringly on the backs of my hands and WHAM! BIG CRACKING SOUND!

I thought maybe lightning had struck the big barn, which - in theory - shoiuld be okay since there are these really cool lightning rods all down the roof of it. Still, when the rain let up a bit I thought I'd look outside. I opened the back door and the tree that sticks up through the deck is split down one side - the side nearest the house. *cough*

John just came in holding big pieces of wood that were blown out of the tree - the bark is totally off, totally smooth.

The lightning that struck the tree also fused - FUSED - the wiring on that side of the house at the outside outlet (forget that electric fence)- there's no electricity from the dining room on. I'm hoping it just tripped a breaker rather than frying all my wiring.

The interesting thing to consider is that my daughter's bedroom is on that side of the house, and if she'd been sitting in her bed doing computer stuff, as usual, the lightning would have been five or six feet from her head.

Gratitude - and possibly homeowners' insurance - may be in order.

Pictures as soon as possible - have to wait for the rain to stop.

In Memorium

2008-04-30T08:22:00.001-04:00

My mother, Shirley MacNeal Kerbaugh Bach Wilson Gunn, died in her sleep yesterday morning. It's a sad day up on the Hill.

How long?

2008-04-03T09:27:00.002-04:00

("That's a rather personal question, isn't it?")

I've determined that, while I haven't yet actually taken the break from myself and my problems and all those other tedious things, I haven't been able to post either. I haven't been home to Jackass Hill for more than a couple days in the last two months, so ruminations about life on the hill have had to take a necessary hiatus.

if anyone is interested, I've taken up whining, observing, and endlessly commenting on the scenery over here: http://mumsananarchist.livejournal.com/

I have no idea how long I'll be gone, but believe me, I'll be back as soon as possible. I miss my life Up On the Hill.

my birthday

2008-03-17T09:27:00.002-04:00

although it doesn't feel like it. I didn't have that little "specialness" tingle when I woke up - not even a twinge of a tingle. So I'm thinking maybe I'll skip this year and have two next year.

I'm not even home. I'm still in Media, where it's spring and everyone is miserable. There's a lot to do, so I guess I'll get on with it.

I wish I were home, up on the hill.

minor announcement

2008-01-23T17:13:00.000-05:00

Winter, they tell me, is the time to reflect, plan, and generally stay out of trouble. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm generally overloaded, overwhelmed, over-just-about-everythinged and nothing is going particularly well, so I think I'm just going to shut the hell up and take a break from me.

unseasonal

2008-01-08T15:24:00.000-05:00

So, yeah, it's 68 degrees here today and I feel totally and completely confused, stupid, nostalgic, lost and in general a complete mess. I think it's because when you more or less grow up and stay in one place, combinations of temperature and light and wind and color all signal a particular season, and, just like smells, these seasonal associations are directly bound into one's limbic system, complete with emotional rather than rational responses. Then when we get an unseasonably nice day (or, at the opposite end of the wheel, an unseasonably cool and breezy day) I start coming off the spool. Like my thinking brain hasn't had time to process clues about changes and so was caught completely off guard.

My family, god bless 'em, is used to this behavior. They don't understand why I walk outside, burst into tears and run back in, and when pressed for reasons, sob something about it being "so ni..ni..nice out!" but they are patient with the poor crazy old cat lady.

John's outside screaming curses to the heavens again. Must have blown a fuse (literally - the air compressor, I'd guess.)

Still haven't taken down the Christmas decorations. First I was still enjoying them, now I'm just too lazy. Spring fever in January? Sure feels like it. Stupid January thaw.

Maybe I'll make some Garlic Soup for dinner - see if I can shake both the sore throat and the doldrums. So many interesting things I want to do this year.

But maybe I'll start tomorrow. Tomorrow's another day...up here on the Hill.

This has got to be some kind of record

2008-01-08T14:16:00.001-05:00

Syracuse Hancock International Airport
Lat: 43.12 Lon: -76.12 Elev: 404
Last Update on Jan 8, 1:54 pm EST

Mostly Cloudy and Breezy

68°F
(20°C)

Humidity:	45 %
Wind Speed:	SW 22 G 30 MPH
Barometer:	29.90" (1012.1 mb)
Dewpoint:	46°F (8°C)
Visibility:	10.00 mi.
More Local Wx:	3 Day History:

I spent the afternoon planting bulbs. I haven't planted bulbs in January siince we moved up here.

My thoughts exactly.

2007-12-25T15:33:00.001-05:00

Black Friday

2007-11-23T18:05:00.000-05:00

I think it's terribly interesting that all day yesterday we were told to be thankful for what we had, realize our abundance and count our many blessings.

And all day today we're told that we really don't have any where near enough, certainly not our fair share, especially if we want to please others, so, by god, get out there and get MORE.

sigh

Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T20:32:00.000-05:00

Since I've been grown and married, we've always used the Catholic grace:

Bless us, o Lord, and these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord, amen.

When I was a kid, though, Thanksgiving and Easter were always at my Grandmother Bach's house, and she spoke, along with English, pretty good German. A good Lutheran, grace was always said before meals, and always this one:

Komm, Herr Jesus, sei Du unser Gast
und segne, was Du uns bescheret hast.

I was in high school before I learned what it meant. I still say it, in German, at Thanksgiving and Easter. Thanks, Nana.

Other holidays were spent with the Kerbaugh grandparents and relatives. Presbyterian and High Episcopal, they got right to the point:

Bless this food to our use and us to thy service, keeping us ever mindful of the needs of others. Amen.

If I feel formal, that's what I say. More often, though, I just say "Thank you, Mother, thank you. For everything. I am so blessed." Because that's pretty much how I feel.

I was going to do some big Thanksgiving post about what I'm thankful for (the hardships from which we learn, and hot water. Especially, hot water.) I found this, though, in Susan Wittig Albert's newsletter, and she says it perfectly:

Give thanks for material and spiritual blessings and for the challenges that teach us who we are and what we're made of. Spend time in the holiday kitchen. Love the kids, your partner, your parents, your neighbors (on this small planet, we're all neighbors). Share.

Aha! Here I thought it was my fault!

2007-11-19T13:06:00.001-05:00

Will ye go, lassie, go?

2007-11-18T20:38:00.000-05:00

Not sure why that's always the song that I hum (like a camel) when things get really bad. Maybe it's just in my key. More likely it's that the version I know best is the Fred Neill one, and his voice is always a comfort. 'Ev'.

So, let's see where we are... everyone (except me) is sick, and John, a.k.a. Spleen Boy, possibly seriously. We have pretty much no money and, with half a foot of (unexpected) snow outside, no work likely for me. Everything needs tires and the electric bill came in a gray envelope (blue=normal, white=not so good, gray=give us the money dammit.)

Did I mention that I almost burned the house down? Just finished sweeping up the shattered light bulb and vacuuming the soot off the bed. And after I just changed the sheets and vacuumed the room yesterday. Insult to injury. Yeah.

No wonder I'm singing about pulling wild mountain thyme. Wish it grew up here on the hill.

Day 5 without water.

2007-11-03T17:27:00.000-04:00

You have to read that aloud, in the tone used to read the journals of the arctic explorers, to get the full effect.

Actually, it's not quite that bad. Cold water we have plenty of - it's the hot variety that's missing, meaning no restorative bowl of water to sit in for hours on end, recuperating from the woes of the world. Something is wrong with the hot water heater, and John has been trying to fix it, on and off, since early in the week. For a little while we had no water at all, making plenty of the cold variety seem such a luxury that I've quit complaining and/or beseeching the gods.

All the clothing and dishes are dirty, as are the humans (well, this one, anyway, although I do sponge off using a big basin of water heated on the stove. The others take *shudder* cold showers.)

I was all set to go get a room or two at the Lincklaen House and order up turkey club sandwiches and a bottle of Alsacian rose, but I realized that the bill for that would be about the same as for a new water heater, so I've taken to my bed for the duration.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll shovel a path through the kitchen, heat my big basin of water and start washing my way through the dishes. I suppose the clothing could be washed on cold. (I suppose I could as well, although it's not too bloody likely.) I could get a fire going in the woodstove and the fireplace and make something warm to eat. But for now, I'm staying in bed, drinking room temperature beverages (read: chilled) and reading, drawing warmth out of the cat instead of the inverse.

Things are nippy up here on the hill.

It begins.

2007-10-28T11:34:00.000-04:00

It's that lake effect stuff that looks like picked apart styrofoam coffee cups. It's snowing here, up on the hill. *sigh*

Confusion...epitaph

2007-10-21T19:46:00.000-04:00

I always liked King Crimson, although I did (and still do) find their lyrics a little pretentious - except for confusion being one's epitaph. That, I can relate to. Oh yes indeed.

Musically, I preferred (and still do) 21st Century Schizoid Man. Ah, those days of wildly misspent youth.

Anyway, today's puzzle is this: everything that can go wrong either has done or is in the process of doing so. So why am I not concerned? I can't decide if it's some new spiritual maturity or if I've simply slipped a very vital cog. Hope the former, fear the latter.

As the Pennsylvania Dutch (who weren't, of course, Dutch at all, but German - they were called "Dutch" as a perversion of the German word for "German": Deutsch) back home would say:

Yah well.

First Frost

2007-09-17T09:16:00.000-04:00

Yes, folks. The grass is all silvery. I think I'll go outside and take some pictures of my world. If I can figure out how, I'll post them.

Bootstraps

2007-09-10T13:39:00.000-04:00

bootstrap |ˈboōtˌstrap| noun 1 a loop at the back of a boot, used to pull it on. • [usu. as adj. ] the technique of starting with existing resources to create something more complex and effective : her willingness to work night and day in a tiny basement office was evidence of her trademark bootstrap.

"The origin of this descriptive phrase isn't known. It refers of course to boots and their straps (laces) and to the imagined feat of a lifting oneself off the ground by pulling on one's bootstraps. This impossible task is supposed to exemplify the achievement in getting out of a difficult situation by one's own efforts.

It was known by the early 20th century. James Joyce alluded to it in Ulysses, 1922:

'There were others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps.'"

We'll ignore, for now, the meaning of inputting simple code into a computer in order to get it to self-load more complex code. I doubt if anyone does that anymore anyway.

So, starting with existing resources, eh? What if all your effing resources are already used up?? Huh?? What THEN?

Simmer down, there.

So many things are unravelling simultaneously, we are deep into the land of Not Funny. As I reviewed them in my mind, they all at first seemed (1) financial in nature (rugby dues, bankruptcy guy payment, phone turned off, insurances seriously screwed up [homeowners' cancelled, auto cancelled despite being paid through next December and all in the hands of someone named Alvarez...], other forms of Stuff due immediately if not sooner) but upon reflection, there are so many, many more.

There's the (2) house, which is in worse shape than the one that Dr Phil spent an hour tsk-tsking over.

There's (3) my body, gaining fat cells and losing brain cells like nobody's business.

Speaking of (4) business, I don't have much these days. That's typical for this time of year, certainly - everyone is sick of his garden and not about to put more money into upkeep. It'll pick up again in a couple weeks, and I do have a major job pending. Still, at the moment, thins are a little dicey.

(5) Family members, too...my mother, my husband, my daughter, all have their health challenges.

I have to stop hiding from this. One can only take so many baths (especially when one has (6) impressive amounts of poison ivy plaguing one's person), and even I can't sleep continuously - although I'd like to try. "Just keep sleeping...sleeping...sleeping."

And always lurking around the corner, the old demon (7) Black Dog. Winston Churchill used to build things out of bricks when things got bad for him. Maybe I ought to try that...maybe stone,though.

And let's not forget (8) the bees that live behind the chimney. How could I forget, with that constant infernal buzzing sound?!? Slowly I turn...

So I guess what I need here is a plan. A plan to use existing resources to make something more effective (please, not more complex.)

That's what I'll be working on in the next few days, up here on the Hill.

Alas, no.

2007-08-30T21:38:00.000-04:00

It apparently is not done. At least not correctly, as when I try to log in, it says I don't exist - ven though I get greeted by name.

Ah well. Perhaps it's a sign from the gods.

Maybe I ought to find another way to spend my time, up here on the hill.

It is done.

2007-08-30T21:30:00.000-04:00

I am now a myspace-ette, URL of myspace.com/mumisananarchist, assuming sign-up worked properly.

Now if I only had friends. I don't have any actual friends, (no, that's not fair - I do have two in the flesh and one in cyberland ) so I guess I shouldn't be all shocked that I can't get the whole myspace friends deal. I'm just feelin' sorry for myself. I'll shut up and go to bed now.

Decisions, decisions!

2007-08-30T20:14:00.000-04:00

How annoying. I do like my blogspot, here, but for some reason have decided that I must also have a myspace. I know, moms with a myspace are creepy. But I want one anyway! I just can't decide on a URL. I'm leaning towards myspace.com/mumisananarchist but feel, for good or ill, that I must run it by my daughter first.

"Creepy", huh? I'll show ya creepy! (Wait, maybe that proves it...)

Try.

2007-07-09T20:00:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about trying. Not trying anything in particular, just trying, as a concept. And I think it's not all it's cracked up to be.

"There is no try. Only do or not do."

I was so sure it was Lao Tzu, or maybe the Buddha. But no. My favorite Sweet Potato Queen informed me that it was, in fact, Yoda. So much for that college minor in philosophy.

But the little dude was right. "Try" doesn't exist - the only thing that's real is the result, is whether or not one performs whatever task. No one bases their activities on your "try" - they need to know if you do or don't do the thing. And generally speaking, they'd be happier if you were up front with them.

You'll "try" to be there by noon - no, that's not okay. That means you'll show up if it's convenient for you, doesn't put you out too much, and you don't run into traffic. Can you be there by noon? Good. Then make it happen. Not sure, or don't think you can? Fine. How about 12:15, then, or 12:30? The point is to decide, commit, and make it happen.

"Try" gives us an automatic out, an opportunity to cop out on whatever we were doing or offering to do. "Try" means that we have real doubt as to whether or not we'll be willing or able to pull off whatever it is, from losing weight to showing up on time to meeting financial goals. It gives us built in weasel room, and I think that makes us sloppy about commitment. We need to define what it is that we're willing to do, then commit to doing that, and follow through with integrity. Not willing to do the task at all? No problem - be honest with yourself and with others and say that.

"Try" can also take away from us the satisfaction of having completed something - if you don't define what it is you're going to do, how do you know if you've done it? "I'll try to get as much done as I can". What does that mean? Bupkis. Everything's in there, from doing absolutely nothing (say it again) to completing the work. How much better it would be to say you'd work for an hour or a page or a room or whatever, then simply do that much. Then, when you've finished the amount to which you committed , you know that you've met your goal honestly and honorably. If you want to do another hour or room or page, then you can reset the intention and new goal.

Maybe it comes down to a combination of "know thyself" and basic integrity. In each situation, we need to figure out how much, if any, we want to commit to, which means that we know we have the time, willingness and ability to perform the task. Then, state what we want to commit to, which includes "nothing" if time, ability or willingness are lacking, and follow through (that's the integrity part.)

"I'm gonna lose thirty pounds this month!" Come on, you know that's not going to happen. And "lose as much as possible" is a cop out. Decide. Ten? Good. You know you can do it. Commit to it. Then follow through. Lose the ten. You're good to your word. "I'm gonna exercise every day!" Oh sure. Just like the last ten times you said that. How about three times a week? If that feels okay, commit to it, then do it. "I won't go to bed til it's done!" then you sneak off and sack out. No honesty or integrity there. Figure out how much you can and will do, name it, do it.

You can be wrong, if it's an honest mistake - an emergency or a genuine misassessment of a situation or of your own abilities. It happens, and that's one of the ways we learn about ourselves. One caveat: don't intentionally lowball yourself, committing to an absurdly small amount in order to succeed easily. Your integrity knows when it's being undermined.

So here's the challenge: eliminate the word "try" from your speech for a week or even just a day. (Did you just say "Okay, I'll try"? I did, when I first thought about this.) I've been working at this on and off for a week now, and it's made a genuine difference. I now think before I speak (what a concept, huh?), then assess the situation, make a determination, commit to it, and follow through, whether I feel like it or not. It's been a real lesson, in many ways, but absolutely worth the time and effort.

If you want, let me know how it works for you. Maybe we can start something.

Oh, my. Crow on the menu again?

2007-05-06T11:11:00.000-04:00

In re: Sactuary, emc2 (sorry, I don't know how to make the 2 a superscript), Max and Jennifer and the whole energy pattern/frequency adjustment/bad frequency elimination deal. If you don't know what I'm talking about, my unfortunate rant is the April 24th entry, below.

I may have spoken too soon. (Gee, like that's never happened before, right?)

John sent off his money along with his photo, and a local (within 200 miles, which is local around these parts) representative called him to answer questions and generally act as go-between. She said he'd be "on the tray" - which our over-taxed brains have begun referring to as "sleeping with the dishes" - in a few days and feeling the effects anywhere from immediately to within a few weeks.

Immediately it is. Not better, at first, but a weird constellation of effects including odd skin sensations, leg restlessness, "spaciness" and other ill-defined mental states. Then, other things began happening. He woke up yesterday morning and noticed that the nasty toenail infection he's had forever (and not been able to treat because of his liver issues) is gone. And his hands: the last year or so he's had real trouble with the ...I don't know what it's called - that big area of the hand right below the thumb, over to mid-palm. It's been very swollen and painful - the doctors said it's a combination of carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and general overuse. The swelling is gone. The pain is gone. The mobility and dexterity have returned. And it's just the first week.

It'll be really damned interesting to see what happens. Back pain. Liver. Who knows what else. Am I converted? Not.....necessarily. Not yet, anyway. But I do apologize for that quick judgment, that eye roll, that immediate cynicism that precludes this sort of experience.

So read the book. (Katrina - I ordered one for you - it's coming.) See what you think. I'll keep you posted.

A couple other notes:

On my unfortunate tendency to a life capsulized by the phrase "You can't make me!", it was recently pointed out to me that it's at least partly genetic. My ancestors weren't just Scottish, they were Highlanders. Island Highlanders, to be exact, and "you can't make me!" is their birthright and motto, right after "vincere vel mori" ("conquer or die.") Those same guys who painted themselves blue and spent the long Highland winters figuring out how to pick off the Vikings. Bonnie Prince Charlie. Sheep and rocks and truly bad weather. Fierce individuals for whom cooperation is largely associated with weakness. Yep, those are my people. Slainte.

On my recent lack of availability and communication, I offer the following as partial explanation (as distinct from excuse, for which there is none.) Between April 19th and now, I have driven far enough to be across the country and halfway back - four round trips to Geneseo, a trip to see my mother in Philadelhia, a concert in NJ, and a conference in Toronto (a Landmark Forum - we'll cover that another day, because there is Just So Much to talk about with that one.) I'm exhausted - beyond exhausted, really - and have been put through several emotional ringers, topped off with an immediate full body plunge into twelve-hour work days, May being the gardener's equivalent of Fashion Week. I think of you, I do, and I'll be back, sane and whole, god/dess willing, in reasonably short order. All we have to get through first is the Mother's Day Plant Sale, the Herb and Flower Festival, and a few hundred gardens and plantings and clean-ups and designs and ... somebody better do a general clean-up on the house or there won't be any sanctuary at day's end.

Which brings us back to Sanctuary. Maybe, if I order the Family Plan, it can cure me of my lack of energy, perpetual low-grade sinus infection, inner ear dizziness thing and sore feet. Stay tuned.

And more energies.

2007-04-24T07:27:00.000-04:00

Been listening to our buddy Wayne Dyer on the CD player during the long and frequent drive to Geneseo and back. He talked about an energy healing method I'd never heard of (and I'm pretty well versed in all things fringe and woo-woo), so I ducked into the bookstore in Geneseo to hunt up the reference:
http://www.amazon.com/Sanctuary-Path-Consciousness-Stephen-Lewis/dp/1561708453

Despite much help from a bookstore guy who looked like he'd spent too many hours in the hallucinogenic plants section, no book was forthcoming. Not wanting to have to cope once again with the inexorable slowness of the accursed Media Mail, I popped into a Barnes and Noble on the way home and paid full price *shudder* for a copy. John read it in one sitting and is all set to have an energy frequency adjustment or whatever the hell it's called.

Okay, maybe it's my Scots blood, but I have a little trouble with just sending a check (and a not insignificant one at that) and waiting for someone, somewhere to heal me using cosmic rays. So what if it is endorsed by not only Wayne but a slew of 1980's B list actresses? I'd be a lot more enthusiastic if I could go to Arizona or California or wherever-the-hell and meet this "Max" person, see his magnificent machine, talk to "Jennifer". I wanna believe, really I do - I'm clapping like crazy here - but I have the same problem, essentially, that I had with Redfield (Redfern? Redsomething...) and the Celestine books: retreaded philosophy being passed off as discovery in a penny-dreadful novel. Tossing in occasional Einstein and Plato quotes doesn't elevate the material so much as convince us that the author has a Bartlett's nearby and isn't sure that his audience would recognize other names. Calling it a "religion" sounds to me like a simple tax dodge. As I said, maybe I'm just a cynical Scot.

But I do believe in the ability of the mind to heal, and even if it can all be written off as coincidence (which I don't believe in, incidentally), placebo effect or some other more esoteric cause, bottom line is whether or not the patient is better in his own eyes. So if your back is so bad that you can't get out of bed for more than a few hours at a time, or your liver is compromised and western medicine can't offer you more than a 5% chance of remission after 18 months of torment, maybe you go for it. Maybe, for whatever reason, you feel better. That's all that matters.

So I'll keep clapping just as hard and as fast as I can.

Energies

2007-04-18T07:46:00.000-04:00

Ah, the things we learn. Things that absolutely cannot possibly work, yet...do.

To wit: being able to discern the desirability of a given substance by pressing it into one's solar plexus while someone presses down on one's extended arm. If the arm is more easily pressed, the food, drink, drug or what-have-you is a poor choice for the individual; if the arm seems to grow stronger, then the individual will benefit from the substance.

I have not yet read the studies, so I withhold judgment until I've seen some of the experimental details, but David Hawkins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_R._Hawkins
appears to have done quite a few interesting pieces of research. I've got his book, Power vs. Force, coming from the library

And I've done the testing myself, on family members, and had them do the same to me. Fascinating stuff. Of course, it cannot possibly work, yet it does. Go on, try it - you know you want to: Stand with your left arm out and have your partner put his/her left hand on your right shoulder and try to push your arm down using the index and middle fingers of his/her right hand. The strength with which you can resist this pressing supposedly is an indicator of your general energetic health. (http://www.innersource.net - we love Donna Eden. Thanks, Katrina.) Now you hold the substance in question in your right hand, pressing it firmly into your solar plexus. Arm stronger = good for you, arm weaker = bad for you. We've even done rough double blind testing, and still the results come back: aspartame is really bad for everyone, sugar is bad for my husband (mr. pre-diabetes) but not so bad for me, various vitamins are better or worse for different family members. Those are the ones that get me - different results for different folks.

Can't you just hear Horatio muttering something about this being wondrous strange?

My next odd-but-true is a well-documented phenomenon in persons suffering from multiple personality disorder (itself, in my book, an odd-but-true.) It seems that one personality can be diabetic -or allergic, whatever - and another personality can be not so afflicted. Same body, different energies.

Next week sometime, assuming it Does Not Snow Any More - we got another 18" of the sloppy wet white stuff - I'll be getting back to work. Before I do, though, I'm going to a therapist (hold your applause, please) to be regressed through my past lives. This is another thing that cannot possibly work, yet appears to, and from my standpoint, whether or not something is "true" or understandable from a certain perspective is not nearly as important as whether or not its practice helps the individual.

Strange doin's on Jackass Hill.

Horatio: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Waiora and the weather

2007-04-12T07:24:00.000-04:00

Today

Wintry
Mix
Hi 42°F

Tonight

Rain/Snow
Likely
Lo 32°F

Friday

Rain/Snow
Likely
Hi 39°F

Friday
Night

Chance
Snow
Lo 28°F

Saturday

Chance
Rain/Snow
Hi 43°F

Saturday
Night

Rain/Snow
Likely
Lo 29°F

Sunday

Rain/Snow
Likely
Hi 40°F

Sunday
Night

Snow/Rain
Likely
Lo 29°F

Monday

Snow/Rain

It just Really. Never. Ends.

Okay, so it seems that life as A Professional Gardener is sort of on hold. That's okay. I go back and forth in my estimation of my occupation. On good days, I'm doing what I love, beautifying the world for others, living in nature and helping all green growing things along, organically even. On bad days, I'm spending my dwindling days tugging the errand blade of grass from an area no one sees anyway, or shoveliing rocks. Usually, it's somewhere in between: I am doing what I love, which just happens to be tugging out errant blades and digging in the dirt.

There are other things that I want to pursue, however. I do want to write another book, dammit. I do want to draw more than I've been, and work on my colors. I've pretty much given up watercolors, incidentally - to work in watercolor, you have to be decisive, and I'm not, or at least not sufficiently, so I'm back to oil. If only for the smell. Linseed oil smells like....happiness.

We all know I want to fix up my house. We also know not to hold our collective breath; if we didn't, we asphixiated long ago.

One other thing I want to pursue. Waiora makes health products, and I've been using them for some time and been impressed with both the products and the company. http://my.waiora.com/home.php?255701 Yeah, it's a network marketing thing, although I didn't get into it for that - it sort of evolved after experience with the products and wanting to tell others about them. I'm not a bandwagon kind of gal, but someone I know personally has gone from working five days a week at an opthalmologist to working one day a week plus doing the Waiora thing, and that sounds good to me. It's not in my long range plan for my life, but I need to make more money and I'm trying really hard to learn to be open to anything instead of only what I think is appropriate or part of The Plan. So I'm willing to give it a shot, and to do that I have to sink a little time into it. And from the weather above, it looks like time is just what I've got along about now.

Pareidolia

2007-04-09T12:31:00.000-04:00

Remember that woman who had a cheese sandwich with the face of the Virgin Mary on it? Seeing the face of anyone, mortal or immortal, in a thing such as a cloud, a sandwich or a water tower is called pareidolia - betcha didn't know there was a name for that sort of thing. (I'm sure there's a name for someone who pays $28K on ebay for said sandwich, too....such buyers being born every minute.)

There are names, words for just about anything - the trick is looking something up when you don't know what it call it. The only daily arrival I allow in my email box is about words, and if you aren't familiar with it, you're missing out on something cool and worthwhile: http:wordsmith.org

I'm getting ready to paint my bedroom, and while it'll be nice to have something clean and pretty and from this century (I currently sleep in a room with 1940's cowboy-and-Indian wallpaper), I'll miss my own form of pareidolia - making faces, characters and shapes out of the ripped off areas of wallpaper, plaster patches, and the old water stains on the ceiling. I have, among others, a big fish, a camel who's thinking a thought (when he acquired two more thought balloons it was time to repair the roof) and Mike Doonesbury in profile. Yes, I'll miss these guys.

I once grew an eggplant that looked like Richard Nixon. If I can find the pictures of it, I'll post one. Meanwhile, I'll sand plaster and work on refining my vision of the farm, watching the snowfall...here on Jackass Hill.

Jackass legend

2007-04-05T18:03:00.000-04:00

This
Afternoon

Heavy
Snow
Hi 27°F

Tonight

Snow
Likely
Lo 18°F

Friday

Snow
Likely
Hi 31°F

Friday
Night

Chance
Snow
Lo 18°F

Saturday

Chance
Snow
Hi 33°F

Saturday
Night

Chance
Snow
Lo 20°F

Sunday

Chance
Snow
Hi 37°F

Sunday
Night

Chance
Snow
Lo 23°F

Monday

Chance
Snow
Hi 37°F

I guess we won't be having Easter egg hunts outdoors this year. This is ridiculous even for this part of the country. And up here on Jackass Hill, it'll likely be a few degrees colder yet.

No one knows for sure how Jackass Hill got its name, but it appears just that way on the maps from around 1850, so it's not a recent development. I believe it was a past town historian who offered the following local legend:

It seems there was a farmer at the top of the Hill who raised mules for a living. A traveling preacher came up the hill one evening in his horse-drawn buggy, and the mules made such a ruckus that the horse spooked, overturning the buggy and updumping the preacher and all his belongings. The preacher, beyond angry as he gathered himself and his gear from the dirt road, shouted, "If Our Lord rode into town on one of those creatures, it's no wonder they crucified Him!"

Happy Easter.

Entropy, fiddle-de-dee.

2007-03-25T14:53:00.000-04:00

My thermometer lied.

I woke at my usual 6:30ish (when it was light out only two weeks ago, but now that the Oh So Wise Ones have laid the curse of the Saved Daylight upon us, it is once again like the bottom of the proverbial well.) Went downstairs, navigating the cat-icade that keeps the downstairs cats down and the upstairs cats up, made coffee, fed the four-leggers, and checked the thermometer that tells what the temperature is outside. It's made to be in a car or truck, so the little sensing pad is on the end of a long string, with the digital readout bar at the other end. I glanced at it - it was foggy out, but when there's snow on the ground that can be good or bad - then did a double take - 61 degrees!!

I did a little springtime jig and put on some Crocs to go get the newspaper - no coat needed when it's 61 degrees! Danced out the door, thought, "Boy, it's nippy for 61", and promptly went butt over teakettle when I stepped on the ice-covered flagstone.

I limped down the drive and back, came in and checked the temperature on the NOAA - 31! Limped out to the kitchen (had to get the coffee anyway) and checked the thermometer again: yep, 61. The little lying bastard.

So I was already feeling sorry for myself, allowing me to segue into today's topic: Accomplishing Nothing. Meeting No Goals. Perhaps we should just refer to it as Entropy.

Yeah, yeah. I know about $d S = δ Q / T$ , where $δ Q$ is the amount of heat absorbed in an isothermal and reversible process in which the system goes from one state to another, and T is the absolute temperature at which the process is yakkity yakkity (thanks, Annie) ho hum. I'm talking about personal entropy here, and you know it, so shelve the thermodynamics crap.

Let's just define Personal Entropy to mean progression from a more ordered to a less ordered state. (There's something about the Heat Death of the Universe here...it's right on the tip of my brain...) Hell, I can see it everywhere in my immediate environment - cat boxes need cleaning, as do human bathrooms, no clean clothing really, no clean dishes - hey, there's always paper! - but the dishes don't matter since no one has food shopped in a while. Have I started that diet and/or exercise program I was talking about a few days ago? Um, that would be no. Not so much as a toe-touch. Paint a room? Pfft.

I did get some diet- and exercise-related stuff from the library. I dug out the faux finish books and tentatively chose a couple color schemes - and I want to paint a trompe l'oeil mural on the big staircase. I made a shopping list, even, before I discovered I was Without Merit or Hope due to my lack of doing.

Oddly, though, I don't feel like all is lost. I feel more, maybe, like the green shoots outside under the snow. It's all there, just waiting for the time to be right, for the waiting to be filled, and when it is, boy, I'll just leap into action. Just leap...yeah...right there...leaping.

In the meantime, though, there's still frozen stuff falling from the sky, and besides, who am I to argue with thermodynamic laws? I'll rinse out a mug, make some tea, and watch the fifth replaying of Mean Girls.

Fiddle-de-dee (say it with me, Scarlett.) I'll think about it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day.

2007-03-20T16:19:00.000-04:00

Interesting couple of days.

Because of a casual remark concerning long-lost friends, I've spent quite a bit of time ferreting out a couple of folks I haven't seen or heard from in 25 or 30 years. As it turns out, they've turned out rather well. Both have PhDs in their chosen (and beloved) fields, both now have professorships, both have published, toured, etc. Granted, I have no idea about more subtle achievements such as family or that vague marker, happiness. Also granted, neither were exactly the Wild Child that I probably was, but they did manage to make something of their lives, something special, noteworthy; something to make a person proud of his accomplishments.

So now the logical next question: what exactly have I made of my life? Despite the "...gotta wear shades" early promise, I have no doctorate, no book, no professorship - no achievements of any kind, really. Yes, I do have two daughters of whom I am immensely proud, a marriage of twenty years and counting, a 200 year old house in the middle of a couple hundred acres of beautiful country, and countless other blessings, but that's not the issue here.

Maybe it's part apples and oranges, part rationalization, but while it may look like I've got bupkis to show for my half century here, I don't really feel like that's the story. I'd at least like to believe that if money and professional accomplishment had meant that much to me, I would have achieved a fair portion of each. (Hell, I'd at least have married money, even if I didn't make my own.) I took the road that led in, into places that were messy and dark and frightening, and I've managed to clean it up quite a bit. I've thought through some things that most folks aren't about to bother with, and arrived at conclusions that are pretty much my own. I'm comfortable with myself and my place and my life, and look forward to the second half of it.

I received a pair of books for my birthday: Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton's Little John? Music's Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths and Rumors Revealed, by Gavin Edwards, and What the Bleep Do We Know?, by William Arntz et al. Both are wonderful ways to spend a few hours, and it pleased me to realize that I was equally at home in either world - sex drugs and rock n roll vs cosmology and quantum theory. Twenty five years ago I was cocktail party conversant in either world; now I'm truly at home there and, more to the point, can be myself in either place and crowd. That's gotta be worth a graduate degree in something or other.

Today is the equinox and I feel big changes on the horizon. Balances shifting in more ways than one.

Starting tomorrow, I will be fierce.

2007-03-18T08:50:00.000-04:00

My apologies, Gentle Reader.

"Silly." What an incredibly poor choice of words! Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

I have to learn that this blog thing is different than sitting on the three-legged stool in the studio mumbling to myself - I always know what I mean, but here I have to be more clear, explain myself, even to myself, more carefully, more precisely. ( Thus, I suspect, my dear friend's comment that, " it really is a nice clarifier for me and I get great input from others." I need all the clarification I can get. I suppose the input-from-others part largely remains to be seen, but we're off to a good start.)

I probably should have said something more along the lines of "dangerous", "reckless", "frightening"; tossing one's innermost thoughts, fears and plans out there for the entire cyber-world to see and conceivably criticize, virtually (hah!) begging for blows. Private, shy, even cowardly is normally my first response, so this is a completely new venture for me. Yes, I've written lots of stuff that's gotten more air time than I'm sure it deserves, but this is different. I've always held either the instructor's or the critic's pen, but not this time.

I've said that I wanted to be a "real" writer, to learn to put myself out there. I wanted, I said, to learn. So it seems I've had my first lesson.

My New Year only started yesterday - I had no idea we'd be off and running so soon!

Now if it would Just. Stop. Snowing.

New Year

2007-03-17T11:54:00.000-04:00

It's my birthday! I'm making lots of changes this year, and anyone who is interested is invited to follow along. I'll be posting when it occurs to me, and I can't make promises about content. You're welcome to make comments, but please don't be too harsh - I'm perfectly capable of self-criticism, and if your remark is too unprintable it'll just get, well, unprinted. This is mostly just for fun, although if we learn something along the way, that'll be okay, too.

I live on Jackass Hill (hence the blog's name) and am a professional gardener. We also do organic farming - mostly field crops at the moment, but I want to expand into medicinals and magickals, flowers and food crops, selling the excess at the Farmer's Market or at a stand in front of the house. The house next door, which we bought at tax auction, is falling down, but if I can, I'd like to save and repair it and call it The Hermitage (we called the previous tenant The Hermit.) I'm not sure what comes after that- maybe a store of some kind.

I'm surprised that I'm starting a blog - I always thought it was silly, putting oneself out there for the world to see (and take pot shots.) I have this new Mac, though, you see....

So, for this, my *clears throat self-consciously* 52nd year, some ideas:

getting the house clean and organized and ridding ourselves of The Excess Stuff
getting control of the up-again, down-again weight thing
learning astrology, cards and runes well enough that I can read without having books at hand
a regular meditation practice
and last, or perhaps it should be first, asking more of myself - being firm enough with myself that I get up and do what I have to do rather than staying seated and fussing because not enough is tackled, let alone completed.

On that note, it begins! Welcome aboard!