Friday, February 22, 2013

CoCo's Lenten Mizpah

I had a rough time overnight - body pain, much more than the usual lousy normal, due to a combination of moving things in my storage locker yesterday with weather arriving today ...

So around 5.30 this morning I decided to go to "7" : get the papers ... and breakfast ... except there was a problem w/ the idea of a breakfast sandwich already made-up, hot, waiting in the warmer:

Meat.  And it's Friday in Lent.

I figured - ok - well - I'll just have to throw it out, the meat ... can't reheat it - don't have a micro & I haven't yet gotten around to getting a toaster-oven ... and CoCo doesn't like breakfast meats, strangely enough: she of the "eat everything! I'm partially beagle, after all!" variety ;)

So I am sitting here and CoCo is giving me The Eye : her hyperextended staring "can I hypnotize you?!" look she gives me whenever I'm eating something like soup, that she knows she's getting part of it ... "You don't want THIS!" I laughed ... and then ... she. just. wouldn't. stop. staring!

"See?"

SHE ATE THE SAUSAGE PATTY - THE ENTIRE THING!

And that was her Lenten blessing to me, that I didn't have to waste food, and didn't have to listen to the niggling voice inside that was whining that I should eat it, rather than waste it.

BLESS YOU, DEAR DOGGY OF MINE!!!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Icing On My Cupcake: Books, Books, Books!

The Icing On My Cupcake: Books, Books, Books!: On my '30 by 30' list, I've got 'Read 15 new books'. I put this on there to remind to me read. I absolutely love to read. I always have. Wh...

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Daily Prompt for Feb 14, 2013

I don't usually read Michelle's Daily Prompts in writing, which this wonderful woman writes from her blog (and is delivered to my email), ergo, you may just see some of these 'out of time' ;)  However, I actually happen to be 'on-time' today!  (Imagine so! ;) )  Her Daily Prompt for Val Day is as follows:

It's Valentine's Day, so write an ode to someone or something you love. Bonus points for poetry!

The other day I was walking out my front door to go someplace, and I turned back around and said through the open door - "love you!!!".  My neighbor was outside and he looked at me very queerly, as he knows I live alone - or so he would say.  "I'm talking to CoCo!" I had him cracking up in laughter when he realized that I said that to my 16 year old doggy ;)  !

Its true:  I do love CoCo <3 and here is my Ode To CoCo:

I love you because - along w/ your sister of the heart, the late beloved Myndie Ruth - you proved I would be a good mother (dog or otherwise!) ... because you love me ... because you love me even when I'm whiny///irritated ... because you loved your sister so very much! and you even have loved the unloveable, people who need///needed to be rescued from there wounds, as much as you did, when you came to live w/ us in 1999! ....I love you because you loved your Grandpa, even tho you didn't know him when he was well, and he was quite unsure about you for a while - even while he was still uncertain, and rattling around in his dementia - you loved him! ....

I love you because we have such a long, shared history together.

I love you because you're still here, and that means that even a wounded, lonely soul like myself still gets to say "I love you!!!" out loud!!!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Rest in peace, Jennifer & Madison Leigh

Jennifer was a Catholic woman.  She was also a happily married woman who was greatly looking forward to her first baby ever, a baby she had registered for in a store, and already planned on naming Madison Leigh.

So something, somehow, somewhere, had to go very seriously wrong with that baby, for Jennifer, her husband, and another relative, to drive from upstate New York, to Maryland, and undergo a very late term abortion - she was 8 months along - that was going to take part not in one fell swoop, but over days, with not even hospital admission inbetween, but a stay in a hotel.

I think that's where things started to go very wrong - where it went from a personal and private tragedy in the life of a marriage and perhaps even a crisis of faith - because it was treated like an outpatient procedure - like some celebrity getting a facelift trying vainly to avoid the National Enquirer!

She should have been in a hospital, not in an abortion clinic - whatever side of this issue you sit on, the woman belonged in a regular hospital, and not an outpatient clinic in an office park!!!

And so now there are two physical deaths, and a very devastated family, and a grieving greater world ...

If anything at all is to come out of this investigation by the state of Maryland, if anything is to change, can it be that such serious medical procedures belong solely to a hospital - not a hotel - where when it's over, the woman is supposed to ride in a car for approx. 8 hours - just to go home to die?!!

Did this pee you off???

Mike Tyson on ’Law & Order: SVU’: Convicted rapist plays victim

I thought it was him!  Then, I did a Google search, and it was confirmed.  I read about the controversy in casting him into the role of a victim ... how the producer (or someone Big) said 'but he's paid for his crime' ... and here are my thoughts on this:

Mainly because of sobriety, and somewhat because of the maturity that should come with age, I'm thinking///hoping! that Mike Tyson is turning himself around from his former violent ways - AND that he chose to make a major acting debut in such a fashion because it would really make us pay attention & say "whoa!  what's changed with THIS guy?!" 

And there is something else I wonder:  did something like this happen to Mike Tyson?   It might explain an awful lot about him :  the rage, the violence, the literal & figurative chest-beating ... the assaults that go well beyond the assaults he made a living for, in a blood sport - and why he even chose that to make his living in, in the first place.  In fact, looking at this case portrayed on L & O SVU makes me wonder if, for example, Mike bit off someone's ear because the guy said something or did something that provoked that earlier, untreated wound, much like Reggie Rhodes.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

If you ever wondered why women fashion blog ......

Tilly's Notions: Heavier Things...: The wind has left my blogging sail a little bit and I am unsure how to proceed. It seems that people may be getting the wrong impression of...

Saturday, February 9, 2013

And how long for these environs?!

You know, I didn't think that living here, in this apartment, was anything that I could call "permanent" - because of financial issues - i.e. "well I think I can do this for another year, ok, but then ...???"  When I say another year - I'm talking until next November.  And this is Feb.  So it was something in the far back of my mind, surely, but not the forefront of my mind

not until today, that is !!!   ;-

I went and ran some errands and that was mostly okay, you know ... but it was tiring, between the usual stuff I carry in my body + the sinus infection ... all I could think of was - oh, boy!  I'm coming home, putting the leash on CoCo, we'll sit out front, and maybe other people will come out, too, and she can walk companion to companion :)

and there's an envelope taped to my front door - to everyone's front doors

Our landlord has taken out a $3,000,000 note - and what he did with that money, I have no g-d idea, because the place is maintained, yeah, but there are no major capitol improvements anywhere -- anyway, he couldn't pay his note, so now a bank owns it, and you know what that means:  send your rent check to this here lawyer's post office box in this here envelope that we prepaid the postage on because we also want you to get a copy of your lease

yeahhh so we know how long we're stuck with you, in case we have to foreclose and sell

My stomach is humming with anxiety (not boisterously, no, but that's because of some good meds) and I'm just - not happy.  I was talking to several neighbors about it; the one who has a job he goes to every working day, and family with there own addresses that at least have a sofa if not an actual spare bedroom, is calm and cool about it as a salmon going to spawn ...

... while those of us who are disabled on fixed incomes and especially those of us with that going on already, who aren't defined by anything other than ourselves - because for whatever reason we don't have family, spouses, or significant others - are on the border between states of mad and scared ... we talked about public housing - there is actually someplace fairly decent in the next big town, which at first glance sounds like it would be capturing a dream to live there, even more than here:  middle of town, right on the bus line, right near big and little stores, well-maintained --

-- and I defined the problem two-fold:  it's a federally-owned building, so no matter what intoxicating substances your neighbors have - you can't smoke a dammed cigarette in your own home: you have to go outside.

-- another thing, one I haven't wanted to voice before:  cinder block walls.  There would be no bigger symbol for me that I've fallen with a thunk out of the middle-class, than to live with concrete walls like I'm in -- nope, I can't even write it down.  (Do they do this in England, too, or just here, with public housing? make it look like -- nope, nope, nope, not going to write it down!).

I'm having alot of scared noise inside right now, and any prayers would greatly be appreciated, whether or not you're going to a church service this weekend!!!

Friday, February 8, 2013

Things women can identify with ....

Jodi Arias Said Ex-Boyfriend Travis Alexander Had 'Bill Clinton' View of Sex - ABC News

There are a couple of things that struck me in this news story:

(1) Her quote : " I kind of felt like a used piece of toilet paper," she said."  Been there, done that - and how many women (and men!) have had this very experience!

(2) The sexual positions he deemed appropriate because they weren't technically intercourse, so, ergo, they weren't violating the "no sex before marriage" belief system ... that is the absolute most egregious form of abusing someone sexually while at the same time! you are abusing God's word and what it REALLY says!  Many good writers///books that explain this - i.e. Christopher West writing on the theology of the body is just ONE example - that really need to be taught from the pulpit so that such abuses don't continue to occur!!! 

Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Charm of Home: Sailor's Valentine

The Charm of Home: Sailor's Valentine: image source: Romantic Homes Feb. 2013 I always love to join Debbiedoo's Copy Cat Challenge but, I can't always find something to c...