Nothing a little paint can't fix

Many of you know I bought a new house last month. The layout is just what I wanted, and the house has been totally stripped to the walls and redone inside. Everything is fairly new and I just adore it!

That said, the previous resident must have smoked like a forest fire. Everything was coated in that yellow, greasy nicotine film. The white ceilings were yellow, and there was an acrid smell throughout. I knew I was going to need to paint every surface throughout the house. 

I had the paint for my room. A pastel yellow, I thought, would brighten my room, and perhaps help my mood stay cheery. I like to let everyone pick the color for their room, so they feel comfortable in their space.  Madi chose bright pink and blue. Alexis wanted pick and black, and Ryan chose a steel grey. The communal bathroom and utility room needed a nice seafoam, I felt. 

I found a color at Lowe's that I just loved. They had 8 oz sample jars of paint, and the jars were clear, so you could see the color. The one I fell for was called magic mist. Well, heavens, even the name suited me! I grabbed three gallons of it, along with gallons of everyone's colors for the rest of the house, and we began! 

Magic mist was for the main living areas. The paint was a greyish, neutral color. My nephew had the honor of rolling it on the wall first. I was in another room, otherwise occupied. I hear him call, "Aunt Sheena, Did you mean for the paint to be purple?". 

Well no, no I didn't. I went to the hallway, and sure enough, it looked purple next to the baby-poop, brownish-yellow we were covering. Anyone who knows me, knows purple is my fav color. My bathroom is r e a l l y purple. Purple isn't known to be neutral, though. 

I had shown color chips to everyone in my family.As a matter of fact, I gave them a little booklet of 30 or so colors for them to choose the one on which they though I had decide. This color wasn't even on their radar as a contender for my flamboyant taste! They chose all the purples and burgundy colors, as well as the startling blue ones. 

When the paint was spread throughout the space, and covered over the yellow it contrasted against, it looks a little grey. And lavender. My family all say they thought the paint chip looked grey. You know, I don't regret it one bit! Anyone have any purple furniture for sale, cheap?

I can't figure me out some days. Well, truthfully, most days. I love being all connected with technology and electronic thingies. I love Kindle and Samsung and all that. But I also love books and paper and exquisite writing tools.

If I had a lot of money, I would buy tons and tons of books, old and new. I would have a library with a ladder like you see in movies. I would sit in the room, inhale the fragrance and write intriguing, quirky poetry with flourish.

Then, as I wearied of writing, I would walk down the hall to a room filled with electronic gadgetry all done in steampunk style. I would see amazing televisions and computers and steam age gadgets turned to the electronic age. It's wonderful the way the two could be melded in such a wonderful way.

It's funny, though, that I am strongly drawn to such opposite worlds. Both move me.

I've no doubt most people have such opposites within. Yin and Yang, Positive and Negative. We are all filled with paradoxes. Which makes it not a paradox at all.

The Solstice is coming!

We are past the midpoint of Autumn, which occurred on November 5. We are approaching the Winter Solstice, December 21, which is the longest night of the year. The people in the Southern Hemisphere are anticipating Summer right now, while many in the North are lamenting the coming of the first day of Winter.

Don't waste all your time worrying over the arrival of cold Winter winds and the blustery days filled with snow. After the 21st of December, our days are lengthening again. The Old Ones celebrated the season, because they watched the Sun far more than we do. They knew the first day after the Solstice brought a little more daylight, and that was cause to celebrate. 

The cycle of the year is a wonderful part of life for those who live where the seasons are vastly different. If you are depressed because of the daylight spinning shorter day by day, focus on the Solstice, and remember darkness doesn't last forever!

Depression

I love those who love me
a few who don't, as well
Some try so much to grow
I forgive them when they fail

I love a lot of pious folks
and some I do revile
I swoon at strangers on a screen
who always make me smile

Yes, I love so many
a few I'll never admit
I deeply love my friends
Even those I've had to quit


There's one I don't know how to love
I see all there is to see
Seems imperfection and weakness
Is all there is in me

Spider Strip Tease (or the Tarentella)

Copied from my blog at myspace:

Spider Strip Tease (or the Tarentella)

Current mood:amused

  My family have long been known for the ability to perform the Tarentella.  The Tarentella is a dance that originated in Europe, and was believe to cure the bite from a Tarantula.
We were born knowing the steps to Hillbilly Tarentella.  If a spider gets on...  even near any of us, we begin to thrash, gyrate and contort.  This elegent display is accompanied by the haunting notes of the Sweet Spider Song, otherwise known as screaming like a girl.

The women in my family only scream like a girl when a spider is involved.  We have husky voices that are best suited for singing bass, and the men have voices that are so deep they are virtually inaudible. Ah, but when we sing the Sweet Spider Song, we reach such exquisite high notes, the neighboring dogs howl in pain.

A few in the family have learned the seductive and mysterious Spider Strip Tease.  I believe my son was the first to perform this dance.  He was a lad of 13 or so.  It was on a snow-covered winter day.  He and his friends went to play in a place called "the bomb shelter".  It was a former bomb shelter, built partially underground, and abandoned.  Their flashlight went out shortly after entry.  My son began to feel something crawling on him, and the boy with the flashlight got it turned back on.  My son thought he felt something crawling on his hand.  He looked down to see dozens of small spiders all over him.

He began to dance and sing as he ran for the out-of-doors...  As he danced and sang, he began removing his clothing.  All his clothing.  Even his shoes.
He was so transported by the joy of the dance, he laid in the snow and rolled while continuing to sing the Sweet Spider Song.

His comrades were less enthusiastic, contenting themselves with merely brushing a few spiders off while enjoying my son's dance and song.

The next to show promise with the Spider Strip Tease was ME.
I had been in my pool, and had on a two piece bathing suit that was modest for pool wear, but not errand material.  I threw a long, sleeveless dress on, and hopped in my car.  I brushed against a bush as I got into the car.

I drove a block or so, when I saw a spider on my dress.  I thought it would be a good time for the Tarentella, so I began singing as I jumped out of my car.  I did have the presence of mind to throw the car into park before I danced.  I beat, slung and slapped, and finally flung my little friend to the ground.

I stopped dancing around, and continued my journey, when I looked down to see two more spiders on my dress.  I was compelled to get out of the car and start the dance anew. I went through the same song & dance routine and continued my journey.

I was now on one of the busiest roads in my town, and was making good time, when I looked down to see more spiders than I could count in an quick glance.  I whipped the car into a busy parking lot, and began the Spider Strip Tease, which resulted in me standing in a busy parking lot, next to an even busier road, in what appeared (to the many passers by) to be my underwear.

I was singing, dancing and swatting in said underwear-type garb when I managed to get a closer look at the offenders.  Ticks.  Not Spiders, but arachnids nonetheless.  I very calmly put my clothing back on as I contemplated the melody  of horns blowing as the traffic went by.

I had no idea my daughter was well-versed it the Spider Strip Tease until a phone conversation last night.  She and my sister were discussing the Brown Recluse spider bites they and my son had in the past.  All three of them had horrible experiences with the bites... literally rotting flesh dropping off around the area of the bite... holes over an inch deep, and pain that lasted months.
Then my daughter told about an incident that happened three weeks after she was bitten.  She was sitting on her deck, watching her neighbors as an occasional car drove down the street. Something fell from the tree above, and began crawling around inside her shirt.  She had a moment's pause, when her brain processed the info, and she realized it was a spider.

The song began as my daughter frantically ripped her bra and blouse off in a single, swift motion and she sent them sailing into the yard. She was dancing the Spider Strip Tease as she began trying to rip her jeans off while she ran into the house.

Her daughter and sons were stunned as she sang. She added the lyrics "Do you see it!?, Do you SEE IT?"  She was still unclad and jumping, contorting and thrashing in a circle
The children were perplexed. Their mother is an extremely modest woman.  She does not often show cleavage. She never shows her entire bosom.

When she finally established the spider was not on her, she got other clothes to put on.  I daresay to this day,  years later, the bra and shirt are still laying in the back yard. 

Mel Gibson as Psycho? Aug 13, 2006

What is wrong with Mel Gibson? The man has lost his marbles. Kirk Douglas spoke out about Mel's drunken tirade during which Mel had some horrible things to say about the Jewish people.

According to Douglas, there is a Talumidic saying to the effect of "When the wine goes in, the truth comes out." I guess he's not buying Gibson's excuses.

It's really hard watching the fall of Mel. He's been one of my favorite stars of all time. He's sexy, and seemed smart and together. You didn't hear much out of him participating in far-out behavior. He appeared to be a devoted father and husband.

I guess he saved all for one fatal incident. His career is dead. The only future he has would be as spokes-ass for a white supremacy group.

Born and Die in Kentucky, August 11, 2006

I discovered a stupid opinion I have.  I have lots of opinions, but I usually manage to agree with myself.  It's a rare occasion when I disagree with my own self.
I have this superiority issue in re: my neighboring states.  This is quite incongruous, because I'm not prone to being clannish about anything.  I don't have "school spirit" when I think of my alma mater.  I don't have a great deal of pride in the city I live in. You won't catch me waving an American flag.
But for some obscure reason, I'm proud of being from Kentucky, and would not want to be born or die in Ohio or West Virginia.
I was at work when this profound knowledge was revealed.  I have to make copies of people's personal documents on occasion.  Social security cards and birth certificates are rather interesting to me.  I can tell from the number on a social security card if a person got their Social Security card while living in a state other than Kentucky.  Kentucky numbers begin with 40*.  Though I can't tell you off the top of my head which numbers Ohio and West Virginia have, I do recognize them when I see them.
Of course birth certificates tell where a person was born.  You get a little snapshot of their life.  If their parents were married when they were born, and what the mother's name was.  Old birth certificates tell the race of the parents and the occupation of the father when the child was born, as well as where the parents lived at that time.
I must have been unusually contemplative today, because I noticed a woman's birth certificate showed her mother had been single when she was born about 30 years ago.  That was rare then.  She is a single mother herself.  I wondered what impact it has on a person to be born to a single mom.
The next person had been born at a hospital across the river in West Virginia.  About 25-30 years ago a lot of the locals had their baby at that hospital because they had a Neo Natal Intensive Care unit and neither of the hospitals here had them. 
I found it disturbing that a native Bluegrass resident would have their child in West Virginia on purpose.  I then found it ridiculous that I felt that way.  What does it matter? 
We are all born and then we die.  Does it matter where these events occur?
I thought about it, and I guess it's about geneology.  It's a lot more difficult to find your roots when people are scattered to the four winds.  At least that's what I hope it is.

August 8, 2006... How young is too young?

A lot of times I have  young guys that show more than a passing interest in me. 
I have to admit it is a bit flattering to have guys half my age hitting on me, though we all know WHY most of them are doing it.
Then there are a few that fall into a more serious category.  They seem to have a genuine interest in establishing a real relationship.  That's when I start getting confused.
Let's say he shares a lot of my interests.  Likes the same music, can hold a conversation with me, and is really an interesting person.  He is someone I think I wouldn't mind hanging out with.
But he's younger.  HOW MUCH YOUNGER IS TOO YOUNG???  Anyone who is 8 years younger than me is closer to my daughter's age.  I don't  know that I'm comfortable with that.
It is said age is only a number, and that's not entirely true.  It is a number, but it is  not only a number.  There are differences in perspective based on how long you have lived.  Understanding comes with age. 
How can I decide how young is too young?  Perhaps I need to look the other direction?  If  a fellow is older than me, how old is too old?  Perhaps that would clarify things for me. 
I would date a guy 10 years older than me with no thought about it.  15 years ....  if the fellow shared a lot of my interests.  20 years..... that's pushing it.  I can't see me dating someone that's 70 at this point in time.  I won't categorically say no, but I do doubt it.
So?  I guess I would consider a fellow who was 43 or so, but any younger?  Nah.  I think that would be pushing the limits of rationality

Aug 5, 2006 The Barnyard

Current mood:calm

I went to see "The Barnyard" with my children and 3/4 of my grandchildren.  I loved the movie.  It was hootalicious!  My only 2 gripes with the film are:
1)  Male cattle are commonly known as bulls.  It is only in the broadest sense that cow is used to describle a male.  Cow is the female term.  When one of the males in the movie died, the tombstone said something like "Here lies ____ , he was a great cow."  It should have said here lies a great bull.  Period.
2)  Said bulls, or whatever you want to call the male of the bovine variety, DOES NOT HAVE UDDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Great Caesar's Ghost, people, no bull has an udder.  It is the bovine equivilant of breasts!  EVERY bull had an udder.  These udders were bright pink, four teated udders.  I found it to be utterly silly. 
Look.... my way of thinking is this:  It is okay to make a movie that portrays animals with human characteristics in a very absurd fashion.  If they had made fun of the bulls having cow boobies, that would have been funny, but I feel it's important to stick to basic truisms though.  Bulls do not have udders.  That's like making a cartoon where all men have large breasts.... Hm, now THAT might be interesting!

Stomach viruses scare me!

Are you afeared of stomach viruses? Here's a little post from my MySpace blog, written in 2009:

• Countdown to doomsday, t -38 hours & counting

  ..

  There are few things in this world that I have real-time fear of.
  What do I mean by real-time fear? It's a fear I have personal experience that caused the fear. My recent blogging of my arachnephobia is based on real-time experience: My family members have been bitten by mean spiders.
  Fear of nuclear annihlation is not real-time. It's based on the horror I've seen on televison or in print.
  Gastrointestinal viruses are personal. I have had many. In addition, I had some never identified condition for several years. I would awake in the middle of the night with violent, projectile vomiting that went on for hours. Nothing made it stop. This happened from about the age of 3 until I was 8 or so. Extensive testing never identified a cause, and it ended as mysteriously as it began.
  My poor dear children know my emetophobia is deep. (for more on emetophobia, go here:
  http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/emetophobia.asp
  I used to throw a receptacle at them and run as if they were carrying ebola. I would peek in once in a while to see they were still alright, but I was not my loving, nurturing self when they were chucking.
  I had real paralyzing anxiety over regurgitation. The last panic inducing regurgitation occurred about 9 years ago, three days before my first grandchild was born. I got this horrible virus, the worst one I ever EVER had. All the people that got the virus later said it was the worst they had ever contracted. My (now) ex-husband laid in the bed and cried, and my (now) ex-son-in-law begged hospital personnel to give him an epidural for the pain.
  So, in the midst of this horrid event, my darling, nine-month's pregnant daughter came to care for me, proving herself to be much braver than I. I'm still not sure she wasn't proving a point to me for, you see, I had abandoned her to a virus a couple of years before. I stood outside her door, and asked if she was alright, but never ventured into the room. I made other people take her water, whilst I stayed far away.
  My daughter, Athena, waited on me hand and foot. She took wonderful care of me. You know what her thanks were, for mothering me? The most horrible stomach virus on earth hit her in the middle of labor. She was the most stoic laboring mother I have ever seen, and remained so throughout the regurgitation and diarrhea.
  I will be sent to one of the circles of hell for this, I am certain. Not only did she lovingly take care of ME when I was sick, but her kindness was rewarded with misery.
  So, present day.... I learned my lesson. Stomach viruses are not likely to kill me. My granddaughter came down with one about 14 hours ago, here at my home. She brought it here from my nephew and his wife, who had it two days before.
  So here I sit. I know I will get the virus, because I ate a cracker my granddaughter had taken a bite of.
  And I am not afraid. Thanks Athena. You cured me.

I'm Ferally female

Wow! Went riding with my son this evening and I am hooked. I am a huge fan of wind, as some of you may know, and what better wind than on a motor scooter? The heat was bearable as long as we were moving, and the smells... If you've never ridden on a cycle, in a convertible, or in the back of a pickup truck, you have no idea the things you smell. 

There are the smells people make, and they are varied. Everything from gasoline, exhaust fumes, and lawn chemicals to burning wood, freshly mown grass, and food being grilled.


Then nature assails the nose. Bogs smell putrid. Places dense with trees smell woody. Patches of wildflowers would make the best perfume on earth, if the scent could be drawn from the air.


The temperature changes as the landscape changes. Areas without trees feel hot and dry. Where trees arched over the road like a canopy, the air was cooler and damp. Temperature varies even in stretches of the same vegetation, but I think hills and valleys sweep currents of air around me.


Lots of odors gave me a snippet of a childhood memory. The best one was something that smelled like freshly picked green beans. It reminded me of a summer when I was about 7 years of age or so, but the scent was very quickly replaced with another.


The extra nice thing about this evening's ride is the friends I got to see. There's something entirely informal (in my mind) with pulling up in front of of the house, wallerin up off my scooter, and moseying up to the porch. The first stop was at my positively delish friend Larry's house. We caught up on the latest gossip and just had a good time. My poor son bore it all with patience!

We cruised by Rhonda's house, another bestie, and she even fed me a slab of watermelon while my dear old son watched some cooking show on television. Bless his heart.


Now, I have the grace of a ballerina. Well the grace of a 2-year-old ballerina, but grace nonetheless! For some reason, my takeoff is a wee bit shaky, and my stops abrupt. I guess that's why they permit you to ride solo with a permit for a while before you take your test. What fool would want to get on the bike with me? 


I'm proud to be the geekiest grandma on a scooter. I know at least one grandchild is embarrassed, and I can only assume the others have the potential to be humiliated by me. I know if they come to understand how much I enjoy it, they might forgive me the embarrassment. As we wound up the homestretch, I giggled aloud. I really, sincerely enjoyed the ride, and hope I can find time to do this often!

Pollyanna? Who'd have thunk?

As hard-nosed as I come across sometimes, I'm secretly a Pollyanna. When I engage in political debate, all I want to do is bring people to a place of love when dealing with each other. I believe, with all my heart, if we focused on helping our fellow occupants of this place we call earth, politics would be so easy. 


Those who are unable to work should be taken care of. That's what a compassionate society does. No, this does not mean we should let people cheat the system. There should be big punishment for those who abuse it. 


Those who are forced to live that way are not making a killing, I promise you. Please, have some compassion! If you know someone who is on welfare, take a moment to hear them. Perhaps you can encourage them to find a better way of life. I know I've done it for more than one person. 


We should help with healing the sick. Again, that is what a compassionate society does. Can you turn your back on a person who needs a doctor? I sometimes feel there are way too many in our society who agree with Ebenezer Scrooge, "Let them die, and decrease the surplus population!"


Do not turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the suffering of those around you. If you have not a penny, give a word of comfort, if you have extra, support a loving charity, and give a word of comfort too. 


Pollyanna, signing off for now. I love you!