Thursday, November 17, 2011

Blue & Blue Ridge Mountains, too

So I've been watching some episodes of NYPD Blue (via Amazon.com).  And I've hit a spate of episodes I don't even remember seeing the first time!  Baldwin and Maya ... John coming into an inheritance, buying his dream car, and getting carjacked ... especially how very slowly things really did develop between Andy and Connie.  Since I've been an avid Blue fan from the beginning, I was puzzled AND THEN I looked at the original air dates -ah! these aired right around the time my marriage hit the jagged rocks; and as watching Blue was our thing to do together, apparently, that last gasp year, we surely missed alot of tv - would you want to sit down and share something with someone you know is emotionally detaching from all your bullshit and gathering herself up?!!  Apparently the answer is sometimes 'yes', as I  certainly remember Connie being w/ Andy and Connie adopting her sisters baby BUT as I didn't see it develop, it just seemed like all of a sudden, they're together, and I neither understood nor cared for that, and I can remember my dh and I fighting about the Connie-Andy scenerio.

And speaking of things that are blue --

Am getting very, very ready to move back to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Va!!!  So soon I'll be offline, until I get resettled.  More I can say, but that's it for now ....

Sunday, November 13, 2011

No Moral to This Story

No Moral to This Story

I heard about the horrible shopping cart incident, but I didn't know "the rest of the story" - which this article provides, like this: Mrs. Hedges‘ attackers, known in court documents as Jeovanni R. and Raymond H. because of their ages, live in the very neighborhoods Mrs. Hedges tries to help through her volunteer efforts. Altho I don't care for some of the heavy-handedness the writer has in here, it nevertheless has some excellent background information on the poor woman who got clobbered.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Snoopy's tree and your own personal bodyguard

I had the double shock today of finding out two people I knew, have passed away:  one a friend I used to be very close to, Sylvia; and one a woman I worked with, Louise.  And that's one of the reasons I have this blog, you see:  to share stories about loved ones <3

Now, w/ Sylvia, umm - some I don't want to put on the Intrawebs, because other parties involved may still be alive ;-  BUT - I can tell you the story of her first job!  It's Sylvia's Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, story:

Everyone advised Sylvia -who was about 15 at that time or so - NOT to work for this guy who had a Christmas tree lot - because he would pay you as cheap as possible, promising some incredible amount of something like $150 on Christmas Eve IF you sold every last tree.  A person would say, oh I can do that - and then - uh-oh.

And then came Sylvia, who literally had the personality of being able to sell sand to Arabs!

On Christmas Eve the owner came back and was quite chagrined the lot was cleared-out, and looking for an excuse not to pay her -a-ha!  You missed one!  That straggly thing leaning against the fence!

Sylvia picked it up, walked out in traffic, on the divider line, reciting the story of Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree at the top of her lungs -interjected with "don't you want your kids to have Charlie Brown's tree this year!".  A guy beeped, said "yeah, lady!", handed her five bucks, she handed him the tree.  The owner was forced to pay her,too - he never wanted to hire her back again ;)

Ah, Louise ... I worked with Louise in the housing inspection dept of a major city.  Louise was a lady - she never smoked outdoors, for example, and she always had Chanel suits and high heels, with perfect hair, the whole 9 yards.  When her husband died, very young, his political connections got her this job.  Seeing how she was a lady, the boss always assigned her the best neighborhoods ....

Charlie was a big ol' Irishman who was sweet on her.  It was literally like watching a 50-something year old puppy dog.  Louise was clear:  she valued his friendship, but it couldn't be more than that - her children wouldn't approve and even more so, she couldn't get remarried, she'd lose her husband's pension. And she couldn't so much as kiss anyone she wasn't married to, you know, because she was a Lady.  Charlie just smiled and followed her around, anyway ....

So we had something like a flu go through the office ... half the inspectors out.  Louise said to the boss she'd take the slack.  OH NO, roared Charlie - dem's are crack houses!  Too dangerous for a Lady!  Louise said she would be fine.  Charlie insisted he was going along as her bodyguard.  Well, it made sense to everyone else - Louise was a Lady, maybe five foot two, and Charlie was this Irish toughie over six feet tall!

A couple of hours into the morning, we that are staff are startled to see -CHARLIE IS BEING CARRIED IN?! with Louise walking behind him?!  What happened!  Get that man some coffee!  Charlie was not unconscious, tho, and he was adamant Louise was not to tell any of us what happened!

Louise patted him and told us anyway...

Louise walked into an active crack house.  "Listen, I'm here to inspect the building, bud," she said.  Okay, lady, sure - and they left HER alone - but pulled a gun on Charlie!  Charlie started shaking, tossed his wallet, begged for his life, and then -um - fainted.  Louise took off her high heel, knocked the gun out of the guy's hand, knocked the guy out, and then dragged Charlie by the jacket out of there, whistled for a cab, and had the cab driver lift Charlie in the back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poor Charlie - his love was undaunted, but he never, EVER lived that down!!!

The Loneliness of the Military Historian

The Loneliness of the Military Historian

11-11-11 Veteran's Day +

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Yesterday - thoughts --

If I was walking someplace, and I saw a gang of young men eyeballing me, and wearing certain clothes, and making the signs with their fingers ... c'mon.  I would know I was in trouble!

What happened yesterday, tho, falls into the line of someone who befriends me.  Someone with whom I let down some of my walls and I do this because I think we have some connection to one another - in this case, with being disabled and living on a daily basis with the inability to do things as well as physical pain.  The ol' "this is one of my peeps, yo", as they say.  For yet another person to get next to me just for their financial gain, makes it even harder for me to want to be next to anyone at all anywhere in my life.  So -yeah, okay - I'm going to go the bank and flag my account, because you have my information and even tho I cancelled ... but there is the intangible part of this - the part that involves my ability to be able to smile and laugh and talk freely with other people walking this planet - and once you damage that heart in someone - well, that isn't as easy to fix as going to my bank this morning, will be.

And mine has such deep scars on it already, you may have just nicked an artery this time, you dammed cons of the world!!!!!!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Caught me a con



I'm still desperately searching for a mover.  I put out requests online, still looking, still looking ... one particular company calls me.  This lady and I, we talk and talk.  Oh, she has health problems too -far more serious than me!  We talk about my inventory.  She gives me a quote.  And you know what?

I'm tired.  I'm desperate.  I want to move forward already.  Yeah, I'll contract with your company.  Except for some odd (God) reason, my credit card is declined.  So we decide I'll ok it at my bank tomorrow and call her back.

I get off the phone.  I'm looking at my notes and I realize I didn't take the name of the company -duh, Jean!  No problem!  I'll go online and do a reverse phone lookup.

Number doesn't exist?!

I type in her name, Lissa Chovon.  Another good one to look up is United States Movers - don't look at their website - look at the complaints. 

Complaint after complaint after complaint.  This woman poses as whatever you are.  Worse, they subcontract to some local, uninsured guy who happens to own a truck.  Stuff is lost, never recovered, damaged, broken, stolen.

I'm sitting here shaking and crying and feeling like the world is ablaze with con artists and I'm just another mark.  But wait Jean wait - you caught it, didn't you?!

I called her back.  I didn't want to get into a long-suffering conversation about all the outrageous things that you wouldn't even think could go on without someone being arrested, that she's done - I simply said friends are going to move me, so, thanks, but no thanks.

I'm still shaking. 

And I still don't have a mover.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

I didn't think I was 'one of those'

In my email arrives a subscription from Marci Shimoff.  The one I was just reading was from someone new she is collaborating w/, Rick Hanson.  It was an entire post on how to handle it when someone hurts you (very short form there, sorry - but that's the jist).  The quote that got to me was this one:

Recognize the humbling yet wonderful truth: most of the time, we are bit players in other people's dramas.

Today is a wedding of someone I once thought of, as a friend.  No, not invited ; in fact, I was frozen out a couple of years back - as I see it, when there life shifted - rather than see if Jeannee was cool with the shift and could adapt to the change, roll with it -- they simply froze me out.  OUCH!

So I read this email thinking, 'Well, this might pull me out of the underneath it all funk I've had going on today because of what day it is" -- and then I came across what  I've quoted above.  Um - really?!  Gee, I felt like I was a pretty important and solid friend - and now u r telling me I was only a bit player?!

OUCH!!!  Screw the self-help crap today -now, I need help, to get over the help ;-

Friday, November 4, 2011

There's Many a Gray Head in Occupy Wall Street Crowd | Truthout

There's Many a Gray Head in Occupy Wall Street Crowd | Truthout

Now this guy, I agree w/ - Jerome Cirie, 66, said he was concerned with what he saw as excessive imports and not enough manufacturing jobs in America.

Whatever you think of the Occupy movement, I personally find it fascinating ... btw, I was driving through downtown here (Lexi, KY) the other day and saw one of those awning covers on the sidewalk, with people in lawn chairs under it, and honestly I thought they were an extension of the farmers market, UNTIL I saw the signs --- maybe four, five people?! in a college town?! oh, wait, it's Kentucky, that might explain it ....

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Especially for Catholics in recovery

I was trying to remember, trying to remember ... there was this daily Catholic email I used to get, from a priest in Wisconsin, named Father Pat.  I distinctly remember it because other Catholic friends in AA recovery also received his emails and in fact we used to discuss them.  It took a little digging, but here is the guy I used to sub to --

 a web ministry that included the award-winning St. Bronislava Parish web site.  During these years he began sending a daily e-mail Morning Prayer that now goes to thousands of people all over the world.  He also began sending weekly e-mails containing the Scriptures for the following weekend, Reflection Questions and a weekly Spiritual Reflection.Father  Pat's Web Ministry has been featured in USA Today, the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel and around the USA and Canada in articles carried by the Scripps Howard News Service, Saint Anthony Messenger, National Catholic Register, the Ligourian, Catholic Newspapers of the La Crosse and Green Bay Dioceses and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and many other Catholic publications. 


But that's not how what I first found on him - in fact, what I first found horrified me.  Not being able to recall his last name, I thought it was some freaky coincidence.  But, it's not.  It's the same guy we knew and loved from emails that is now known for: 


The Rev. Patrick A. Umberger, faces one felony count punishable by up to $100,000 in fines and 25 years in prison. Among several images of children that state department of justice agents discovered on Umberger's computer were three photographs depicting boys and possibly a girl in sexual positions, according to the complaint.  The case against Umberger began when police received a report that he had been acting 'suspiciously' at a Lake Delton water park in July 2009, according to the criminal complaint. A family had told Noah's Ark Water Park employees that Umberger was sitting near a kiddie pool and following boys into the men's restroom, and the employees called police, according to a Lake Delton Police report. Umberger told an officer he had a season pass and was near the restrooms because he had prostate problems and had to urinate often, the report said. The officer told Umberger that park officials had revoked his season pass and drove him to his car. The officer noted she questioned Umberger for an hour and he never had to use the restroom.   Lake Delton officers shared the report with police in Onalaska, who discovered Umberger had a website as well as a Facebook account that listed many young boys as friends. Onalaska police turned the case over to the state Justice Department.  Umberger allegedly told the agent, however, that he found people could become sexually attracted to him when they were 12 or 13 years old and he was attracted to boys between the ages of 12 and 15 or older.

Now, at this point, I want to stop and say that this is the identical attraction that Father Bruce Ritter had that almost brought Covenant House down around its ears.  This specific type of sexual attraction has a name: Ephebophilia is the sexual preference of adults for mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19.


 
Now, the story on Father Pat only gets worse.  Just when I was upset and sad and shocked, people, it got worse:  Father Pat, at age 60, died, of cancer, before he could get his day in court.  There is an excellent article, with links to Father Pat's cancer blog, @ ; badgercatholicblogspot.com  -- in there section for 2010.  The thing is, I remember him having cancer of the eye when I was subbed to him - and I remember thinking;  what an odd place to get cancer!  Years later, a friend's husband also developed cancer of the eye and was told it wasn't a primary cancer -it broke off from somewhere else.  So that too explains Father Pat's death.

One more thing:  for historical accuracy, I checked on Father Bruce Ritter when I was typing this article.  I didn't know that he was allowed to be a priest after 15 people came forward -he was just shipped off to India; allowed to come back to upstate NY to die (ironically ? also of cancer).  YOU SEE HERE CATHOLIC CHURCH, WHY I'M ONE FOOT IN, ONE FOOT OUT?  YOU SAY I SHOULDN'T RECEIVE AFTER BEING MARRIED AND DIVORCED TWICE -YET YOU ALLOW THESE GUYS TO STILL BE PRIESTS?!