Happy Fourth of July!

So the news is saying that only heavily-political-red-states are celebrating the Fourth of July.
No shit, Sherlock.
Out here we have a town picnic potluck, where everyone brings a bowl or a casserole dish. Then everyone goes over to the ball field where the Fire Department puts on a fireworks display - after the American Legion Honor Guard marches on to the field, everyone says the Pledge of Allegiance, they play the Star Spangled Banner, and then the show begins. Yes, Mike is in the Legion, and I am in the Auxiliary - between his USAF service, my father's and son's USAF service, Mike's father's service in the Marine CORPS (not "Corpse") - we qualify for membership. Mike doesn't get to march and carry a flag; between his disability and trying to walk with a cane AND a tall flagpole, it just wouldn't be safe - for the flag.

Most folks carry guns on their hips out here. I know I've said it before - but it just tickles me pink that they do - and no one has been shot around here in 40 years. Lots of coyotes have bit the big one, of course; as well as snakes, skunks, badgers, and pretty much everything else that tries to kill or destroy folks' property. No one stands out in the middle of the street and fires off shotguns like they did in California; to shoot a gun without a purpose is a waste of ammo, is de classe. No one reaches for their guns at all, unless they plan on killing something. No play, no threats, here; just pure responsibility.

The rain has been pretty steadily coming down this June; VERY unusual weather. Yet yesterday and today it is hot, Hot, HOT - 94 deg and 50% humidity. The hills - which by now are usually a dried brown - are green and covered in flowers, every type, from cactus and yucca to wild roses and marigolds. The grass is THICK in the West pasture; hip-high in some spots, the cows can't graze it down fast enough. Although the West trough area is mowed flat as a lawn, since they graze going to and fro...

Thursday night we had a HUGE storm, 80+ mph winds, heavy rain - we got 1.5 inches in 5 minutes. But, hey, it's the Sandhills - everything drained away within an hour. But it took a LOT of tree branches down, so Friday we spent cleaning and sawing. Saturday we hopped on the 4-wheeler and rode the fence line... 3 hours of checking posts and staples and barbed-wire, securing that which was loose, pulling tight and tapping in. All secure. We checked the washouts and the blowouts; the former we pulled barbed wire up out of and re-secured, the latter - well, they are filling in nicely and getting covered in grass.

Margaret is getting better with 'her' calf. Thursday it was so hot (before the storm) that I had her tie him to the fence and wipe him down with cool water and a curry brush. Ostensibly it was to cool him down - but really it was to get them both more familiar and comfortable with each other. She brought her little sister, Elizabeth, over, who is also afraid of but drawn to the animals. I taught her to scrub Gracie the horse down too. Gracie is the best creature for little ones to learn on - she will stand stock-still for hours to be petted and brushed, and never startles or takes offense at young ones.  Elizabeth's head doesn't even top Gracie's withers, and Gracie is (around here) considered a very short horse, only 13 hands. I believe in starting them young, though... Both girls were raised in the 'big city' of Valentine, (pop 2600) and have never been near farm animals before. It is a good experience for them. Yesterday Margaret went into the corral by herself, fed the cattle and horse, and didn't even have to corral her calf - just walked up to him and put the halter on. They are getting better and better. Now if we could just convince Billie Jean that no one is going to hurt her baby! Oh, well - it'll come.

On a sad note, my son is in jail in Savannah for non-payment of child support. Did I see this coming? Of course. Out of all my children and fosters, he was the only one who got a 4-year, fully-paid scholarship to pursue his dream in music - and three months later dropped out to get married to "the love of his life". He was also the only one who refused to work a job for even a year, jobs were "too demeaning" and employers "didn't respect him" - and who told us that it was our responsibility to work to support him and his love. Um, no. So 13 years later he has two kids that he never sees, can't/won't support, and a lot of friends who enable him in his superiority complex. They'll pay his bills, applaud his every move, and "understand" him and his endless self-inflicted trials and tribulations, because his mean ol' Mommy and Daddy wouldn't and still won't. "I told you so" is pretty much useless - he's 31 and old enough to be responsible for himself and his own decisions.

Love him? Of course, he's my son. Enable him? Nope, I stopped doing that years ago, when he told me he was an adult, TYVM, and would make his own decisions; I knew nothing, he knew so much more than I. Most kids feel that way, of course, for awhile; that's their way of cutting their apron strings and becoming adults. The only thing that cuts me to the quick is that Mike sacrificed so much for him and his brother; he took them in, worked 2 + 3 jobs to support them, raised them, loved them, treated them as his own (and everyone thought that they WERE his own!) and even adopted them - because THEIR biological father, my ex, was too good, too smart to work or to pay child support.  So I feel badly for my son, but not badly enough to pretend that he isn't responsible for his own life path. To us, the fact that he fell for Obama's "Hope and Change!" pretty much said it all... he's always felt that he was owed a living, and that won't change now. And in today's society, he can find an endless supply of folks who will continue to enable him in that attitude, partly because they share it. It's as if they all reached a point in their maturity and growth where they could choose between taking responsibility for their actions, setting goals, achieving them, and working towards overcoming the daily and yearly challenges of life - or slamming into a brick wall, over and over, while screaming "Life isn't FAIR!"

No shit, Sherlock. Who told you that it was? Why are you griping about the cuts and bruises and broken bones you have gotten from that brick wall - and returning to slam into it, over and over?

So as hot and bright and busy and bustling as our days are out here now, as proud as we are of what our children and foster children have achieved and accomplished, as happy as we are that we are still able to help and teach children what's important and good and satisfying,  that little cloud always hovers over us - there's always one whom you cannot save, cannot talk to, cannot convince, cannot teach. No play, no threats, here or ever, anywhere; just pure responsibility. And so this Fourth of July, we are proud to live in a land that is free, where individual rights to choose are still wide open - but that goes hand in hand with taking responsibility for those choices, something the 'blue state' people will never get - and, don't want to.

Been Busy

Wow.

Lotta things going on. Used the incubator in the basement to warm up some of our chicken's eggs; half of them hatched and we now have some almost-ready-to-go-outside chicks. Would have put them out last week, but the severe June storms dropped the temps at night down into the 40's.

A cute little neighbor girl wants to show one of our calves for 4H. She has been coming over every day since he was born. Little LTF Ashley Wilkes has already been banded and his little nuts have atrophied and are about to fall off. He is an adorable little steer - black with auburn coloring, and so stocky! His Mama is Billie Jean, the "boss cow" tough and temperamental. Every day Margaret separates the calf from his family, and is trying to teach Ashley to walk with a halter and lead. They are funny.

Gracie the horse didn't come in to supper with everyone a few days ago. The calf was in the corral with Margaret, and Freckles the cattle dog had herded all of the other cows over the hill away from the corral. I walked up the hill to see if I could see Gracie. There she was, way, way down at the bottom of the third hill, at the tub salt lick. I whistled and clapped my hands. She looked up and started trotting toward me. Suppertime!

Unfortunately the cows heard me too. Here came Billie Jean, mad as - well, a mama cow, straight for me. Freckles was gone, nowhere in sight. Gracie was still a hill away, coming fast, but she wouldn't get to me in time. So, I did what my instincts told me to do. I dropped straight down in a squatting position, and made myself as small as possible. Billie Jean, her big eyes rolling, stopped. She didn't know what to make of me. Had she charged, my legs were gathered under me to roll out of that straight line charge. Even though she is dehorned, being slammed and then trompled by 950 pounds of 'mad cow' was not appealing.

Billie Jean is usually a tractable cow; she will stand for an hour and let me punch and massage her udders and milk her, loves to have her back and neck scratched, loves to take alfalfa cubes from my hand. But a mama cow seperated from her baby is nothing to fool with. Wile Billie Jean was deciding whether it was still worth it to charge me, Gracie came trotting up and put herself between me and Billie. She didn't move until Billie walked off, still bawling for her calf. Then Gracie and I walked down the hill together.

Just another day in the life. I stay busy; now that my job is over for the summer, I am working with the plants, the animals; the town dumped abt 10 cords of wood in the yard from their tree trimming in the park this year and I am working to get that all put away and neatly arranged. It's mostly 'green' wood so it is going on the bottom of the pile, while the wood we got from last year's harvest will be split and stacked on top. Tammy and her fiancee are coming the last week in July and we are looking forward to that. The weather has been weird - very wet and rainy, and colder than normal (today it will get UP to 75 degrees). Egg sales have dropped off like they always do in the summer; folks are more able to go to town and shop, and many locals leave for the summer and go elsewhere; to families, on trips, etc. It is normally very quiet in the summer here... which gives me time to do things I need to do. And then of course there are the forums I write for, as well as my FB friends to keep updated. There are two quilts and a pair of curtains in the sewing room I'm working on; I just finished a 'way kewl apron last week. I also did the final firing on a really nice ceramic pitcher and bowl I've been working on.

I have a lot more energy now; I started using Melaleuka products (made in Idaho) - vitamins that REALLY work, and natural products that don't impact the environment, that are even cheaper than store-bought because they are concentrated. We've cut out most of the artificial food now; grass fed beef and corn-fed pigs come from local ranchers and farmers, my neighbors and I swap and share canned and fresh vegies, and even our grain is grown in South Dakota, a stone's throw away. We are stocked up and content. This fall our first home-grown steer will be ready for butchering; he is strong and muscular and should make good eating.

Life goes on.

Move Along - Nothing to See in the Middle East

The London Telegraph printed a 'secret' (is anything secret anymore?) document, showing that the US had brought an Egyptian dissident to America, and trained him in how to organize an overthrow of the Egyptian government. Read it here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289698/Egypt-protests-secret-US-document-discloses-support-for-protesters.html

You'd think America would stay out of these endless uprisings, be upfront and deal fairly with whomever is in power - fair trade and no trade deficits. But there is money to be made, oil and minerals abound, and Egypt is at the Suez Canal - they can stop oil shipments any time they want. Never mind that there are not only vast resources under our own country - which, by the way, BP is assiduously extracting in the Northwest - or that the main reason fuel prices are so high is because, in the 70's, Congress with her lobbyists restricted the number of fuel refineries in the US. If you can't refine it locally, the price for shipping and refining goes up. Never mind that much of our Alaskan oil resources are being sold to China and the Far East. No, we must deal with OPEC - whomever might be in charge this week.

This stinks - as it always has - of profiteering. Recently, Newsweek printed an article that said that NATO is requesting that Russia return to Afghanistan, to train troops and assist the Americans. The vast amounts of cash that Russia dumped into Afghanistan while they were there contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union - and the US was there, in opposition to Russia, training those mountain people to fight against the Communist regime that Russia backed and espoused. So naturally, Russia is demanding concessions from NATO. And so the game continues...

It was we who put Saddam Hussein into power, gave him the funding and weapons to form his own little dictatorship, and then were forced to go back and take him out again when he got out of line and dared to try to bite the hands that fed him. And apparently, our wonderful government is doing it again - training fundamental Muslims on how to overthrow their current dictatorial government to replace it with one of their own. Keeping the Middle East in an uproar, funding first this and then that future dictator, is what our own government is doing - for our own good. It's all about democracy and freedom, though, isn't it - replacing one regime for another and using American dollars and American blood to grease the wheels of 'progress'. That makes it all ok.

People will tell you that you just don't understand, that no one can understand the intricate ins and outs of dealing with other countries, other governments, especially those led by religious fanatics, unless they are involved in it daily. Besides, it's boring. Who cares about the Ayatollah any more? Wasn't he Iranian, anyway? What's the big deal? It has nothing to do with us, in our little lives, our little communities, trying to get that dog park built or that ruling overturned. We have to help first this poor afflicted soul, then that one, with money, and armaments, and training, so that they can fight the previous poor afflicted soul who took those same monies and armaments and training and used them to become the current dictator. Isn't it fun?

It's like a game of chess where you are always the white, and your opponent in black keeps changing. Of course, when you have an endless supply of American blood and American money, you actually own the chessboard and can dictate who the players are. Never mind that your poor little pawns keep getting blown up, lives and bodies shattered, and that the cost of living for the common man keeps climbing with no end in sight. Who cares? They're just pawns in an end game of money, drugs, and resources, the benefits of which the pawns will never see. Tell them it's for freedom, it's for God and country and the American way of life, it's to spread democracy across the world! They'll buy it. Teach them that the oppression in the world is all their fault, from Africa to America to the Middle East, and that they have to do something about it. They'll buy it. We've dumbed down the education in this country so far that no one even questions their inherited guilt any more. Send 'em to Wal-Mart, and tell them to fahgeddaboudit. It has nothing to do with them. Nothing to see here. Let's go save Egypt!!

Why Liberals are Blaming Palin and Beck For Giffords' Shooting

Because they have to.
You see, liberals believe that we are all intrinsically evil. They believe that no one (aside from them) has the ability to make a choice. We are all too stupid, too uneducated, too emotional to decide to either pick up a gun and enforce our demands and desires - or choose to not pick up a gun, not harm others, not force our will through violence or violent suasion. While they may not believe in a god, they DO believe that Man qua Man is a goofball, an idiot, an irresponsible doofus who has to be protected from himself, or he will invariably do something stupid.

Liberals also believe that it is they who are given the gift of sight; that they can see exactly how everyone should behave, and that they are amazingly suited to direct that behavior. It is this extreme arrogance that causes them to enforce laws that restrict all of those "other people" - the lesser beings who are mere crawling, gibbering masses of fundage for their cartoonesque plans to "rule the world!" We can't be allowed to have guns because we'll probably kill someone. We can't be allowed to state our opinions, because someone might be influenced by them. We can't be allowed to live our lives the way we choose, because they didn't choose that lifestyle for us.

It is for these reasons that they have assiduously worked to lower the educational processes in this country to emotional feel-goodism, the removal of intellectual competition and free thought, and an 'everyone gets a prize' mentality. It is for these reasons that they have reduced the intellectual debate of issues to name-calling. It is for these reasons that they insist on excusing everyone who commits a criminal act by giving them excuses like, "It wasn't his fault, it was society's/his mother's/his race's/ his economic status's fault". Today, of course, it is "Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, and the Tea Party's fault". What they do not tell you - what they cannot explain, even amongst themselves - is that, when it is "someone else's fault" then it is EVERYone's fault, and we are all guilty and all shameful, horrible people. No one can be - or should be - held responsible for his or her own actions any more.

Bluntly, this attitude will destroy this country more surely than illegals swarming over the borders, nuclear explosions, or mass insurrectionism. Because it takes away the very foundation of this country; the foundation espoused and enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And that foundation is the basic individual freedom and the concordant (but often ignored) personal responsibility required of every individual to keep and enhance that freedom. When you are a nation of slaves to mutual and mass guilt, you are no longer a free people.

Now the liberals are screaming, "Off with their heads! Take away their guns, take away their freedom of speech, they aren't smart enough, good enough, to handle it!!!" Well, if you are stupid enough to take Palin's or Beck's or Limbaugh's quotes and posts and exhortations literally, then you are exactly, made to order, what the liberals say that you are. If you are stupid enough to read Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto (as the shooter's own Youtube videos attest) and take them to heart, you are exactly what the liberals say that you are. However, if you are smart enough to think and reason for yourself, and weigh truths against lies, facts against falsehoods, and opinions against dissenting opinions, you will realize that they are all trying to manipulate you - and you will not participate in that manipulation. You will not allow mass guilt to take the place of personal responsibility. You will not allow the concept of blame to take the place of responsibility. You will not permit the fanatics of any stripe to use you as a ping-pong ball on their slate of conquest.

It's the New Year! It's Gotta be Better, Right?

Um, yeah, sure.
Sitting here on December 31, 2010, with a 60-mph-whiteout blizzard raging outside, I am cozy and secure. The woodstove is cranking out the heat, and needs to be fed every two hours or so; the clever animals are snuggled down in the hay beds I made for them in the pole barns. We had homemade waffles and homegrown eggs for breakfast. The freezers are full of produce, not to mention 1/4 of a cow and almost a whole butchered hog, still. Mike is baking bread in the kitchen, hoping that the flickering power stays on long enough for the oven to bake it. Jars of produce, of apples and apple butter and even apple jelly sit on the shelves downstairs, next to 60-lb, 5 gallon buckets of rice, wheat, oats, sugar, and honey, snuggled in with # 10-sized, freeze-dried cans of fruit and vegies, dried spices and flavorings.

And yet, here I sit, going over seed catalogs, drawing out the garden - the garden that right now is frozen, six inches down, under its blanket of snow, that looks like a barren wasteland instead of the virulently productive summertime landscape it becomes. Why on earth when I have so much already, would I want more, more, more? What sort of paranoid fantasy is churning my guts and driving me to choose another spring of hard labor, another summer of endless harvesting and canning and dehydrating and preserving? What sort of maniac would wear themselves out, every year like this?

I bought a lot of seeds already, this past summer, when the stores put them on sale, clearance racks full of unwanted, discarded, picked over seeds. Then they were 97 cents a pack (few people realize that seeds will germinate 2-3 years after the year for which they are produced and packaged). I bought fall trees and grapevines on sale, that sit in my greenhouse right now, barely warmed to above freezing, going thru their cold-hardening without exposing them to the 30-below temps and pounding wind that they will have to be strong enough to endure next year. What do I need an orchard or a vineyard for?

The seed catalogs sent to me this week are giving the lie to the "YAY! No more recession!" pathetic fantasies that are gripping the media and every talking head with a passionate frenzy. The seed prices haven't doubled - they've tripled, some even quadrupled, just since last spring. Of course, seed companies had to pay more this year; for fuel, for water, for shipping, for fertilizer in the fields to produce these tiny seeds, as well as for printing and packaging and producing their glossy colorful catalogs.

If seed is higher this year, produce costs will be higher this summer. If it takes more to produce it, then the end costs will be higher. This is just simple math, anyone can do it. If weather plays a factor, prices will leap upward. Look at Florida, just this week, where fresh vegetable prices at the farmers' markets doubled in one week. Literally doubled. They said it was because of the two previous frosts, and that was a part of it, of course. But when a farmer has to pay double for his fuel, his production, and his own expenses, the buyer of his produce will pay for it.

It has been a long time since we have seen food shortages; few alive now remember (or, they choose not to remember) the sanded sugar, the green meat, the wilted vegetables that stores were passing off at high prices in the late 70's and early 80's. Back then, folks grumbled and whimpered and whined, and ate soy burger instead of beefburger, ate whatever they could afford, cut out sweets and coffee. This year, I have a feeling things will be different... and not just because the prices will be so high, or the stores will be so empty.

Things will be different because the mouth-breathers, the gullibles, the same ones who fell for the "Everyone deserves a home!" political, media-driven housing bubbles and dot-com bubbles, are falling for the media and governmental lies that "Everything is looking up! I'm fine, you're fine, we're all gonna be just FINE!" self-congratulatory wolf cookies they have desperately, frenetically, believed in, over and over again. When, once again, it turns out to not be true - this time not just resulting in bankruptcies, housing repos, and moving in with Mom and Dad, but real base desperation and hunger for basic necessities - things will be very bad. Those who still believe that the world owes them a living will be shocked to their core when they realize they have become grasshoppers, out in the cold with no food, no where to go, and no one to care for them. They will be angry. They will be resentful. And they will take it out on those who 'have' - have a little more, have a little security, have a little job or a little income or enough foresight to pre-plan.

Me, I'm not too worried about divulging what I have on here. Those who read this, who have failed to plan will not be able to make it this far; they will run out of not only fuel and food, but the incentive to go to the back of beyond, when there is so much to take all around them - and so many unarmed, undefended, unprotected sheeple around them to take from. The folks around me have the same attitude as I - we have what we have, we are armed and won't allow not only ourselves, but each other to have it removed from us easily. We work hard, we stock up, we grow what we can and share what we have, we keep our guns loaded and our powder dry - and wait.

Yes, Happy New Year - here's hoping that all the signs that I see, all of the plans that I've made, all of the work that I'm doing and have done are totally unecessary; that they are merely the paranoid fantasies of someone who thinks that most folks are self-righteous, self-promulgating assholes who firmly believe that their survival is paramount, when they have never lifted a finger to ensure it, other than to sign their EBT application or Welfare deposit slip, or to beat an old lady to death for her Social Security check.

But - what if they aren't? What if I'm right? What are YOU doing to ensure your own survival?

No Catharsis for Most

Not too many folks believe it, but I am actually a kind person. For example, a woman owned a 26 year old horse and had no where to keep it. I told her she could leave it on our property, for free - as long as she paid for its feed and hay. Well, finances being what they were, she didn't feed it. I won't let any animal starve if I can help it, so we paid for feed and bought it hay. Finally the horse - old and crippled and arthritic - had to go. I told the woman that she would have to put it down. She finally got a relative to come and get it and have it shot and buried on their property.

A year passed, and we had written off the expenditures of the horse as a bad debt. Suddenly, this past weekend, a Christmas card arrived from this woman - with a $500 check inside. We were stunned, pleasantly so - and I told her. It had taken her 3 years to crawl out from her bad debt and miserable divorce, yet she paid it off at last. She said it was a catharsis for her - to pay off every debt she owed.

And I look around me at all of the miserable people, whining that they can't get ahead, that no one will help them, that no one will succor them, that no one cares. Most of them have been cared for all of their lives; expect someone, anyone, the government, their neighbors, their families, their friends, to pay for what they want and need. They take and take and take, with no thought of what they owe. They walk away from debts they incurred as if those debts had nothing to do with them. They insist that because they can do what any rabbit does - screw and breed - that the world OWES them and their ever-so-precious (usually spoiled, rude, obnoxious, demanding) brats. They vote for people who promise them more and more, never caring who is paying the penalty or the bills for those politicians who promise them freedom from want. Some of these greedy, grasping morons actually believe that President Obama is using his own money to pay their bills, while others believe that the Federal Government has lots of free money, and when they run out, they print more. There is no economic education any more; no responsibility, and no need for them. People are stupid and believe what they are told - that they DESERVE the sweat off of other peoples' brows.

These people in their whining self-pitying misery will never know the freedom of paying off one's debts, the satisfaction that comes from accomplishing financial success, of raising children who strike out on their own and succeed. They will never know the extreme pleasure of getting a call from their daughter, as I did last month; that this tall, willowy, wonderful child, who worked three jobs to put herself thru college (even with scholarships and grants) got a job that pays $75,000 a year with benefits. They will never know the joy of success, of overcoming failure, of becoming adults who take responsibility and life into their own hands and wrest all that they can from it.

I heard a great quote yesterday, and it rings true - "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death". The sad part is that they are too stupid to even know that they are starving.

Can't Dance, Too Cold to Hunt Crickets

It's early morning, and it's cold - 9 degrees. The kiln I fired off yesterday heated the whole house from it's little cavity in the basement; it is now cooling. I can't wait to open it to see my newest creations - gifts for family and friends and co-workers.

There's a pork roast thawing since last night too; from the pig we bought butchered from a local rancher. Grass-fed and luscious, about $.50 a pound, that pig will last s a long, LONG time; bacon, hams, roasts, ribs. They even saved the fat for me, which I rendered into lard.

We might get a snow day tomorrow; it is supposed to start snowing tonight again. It's not so much the snow that is bad - it is the ice underneath, that makes the paved roads treacherous enough, but also makes the gravel paths to the local ranches impassable. Since we have next Friday off too (a failed experimental push to put our school calendar at 4-day weeks), that would mean a possible 3-day work week. Not good for the January paycheck, but WTH - I can get more stuff done.

One of my friends asked if any of our family was coming for Christmas; I told her , no. Half are in Vegas, half around Savannah. She suggested we all meet half-way. I laughed, I said, "I AM half-way!" but everyone is working, busy with their own lives - exactly how I raised them to be.

I took Mike to see the cardiologist this past Friday. He had an 'incident' the previous Friday, where his ankles suddenly became swollen, almost as big as his thighs (thighs once described as 'braugh!' by an Irish nurse). Tests all week, then the visiting cardiologist saw the results Thursday and insisted we see him this past Friday. The cardiologist said Mike needed a heart cath. It has to be done in Lincoln, 5 and a half hours away. It only takes 3 hours - but if they put a stint in, they'll keep him overnight.

I'm not too worried - shit happens, one deals, and that's the end of it. So rather than making that almost-6-hour trip, waiting, then either scrabbling for a motel room at the last minute or driving back ANOTHER 6 hours, (and who knows what the weather will be - snow or ice or bright and clear) I made motel reservations for both the night before and the night after. We'll leave the day before, drive slowly, take our time, get a good rest, then go to the appointment. Then - no matter what happens - we'll have the motel room for that night, too. Sleep well, then back home again.

But not just ANY motel. Since my current job includes making reservations for over 30 people, all over the state at different times for different events, I 'know' most of the motels in the big cities and tiny hamlets. I know what Mike requires - a comfy room that includes, not just a bed for me, but a recliner for him, because he cannot sleep in a normal, 'flat' bed. Peace and quiet. Safety and accessibility. Short access to food. Maybe a pool; definitely a whirlpool, to take away and stretch out the tightened muscles from the long drive. We are going to make a little 'holiday trip' out of it; since we are expecting no one, and I'll have two and a half weeks off work for Christmas vacation, we are going to make the most of it. So - why not the Embassy Suites? It is what the local folks call "spendy" - not your $39 a night place. But - nice. And close to the hospital.

Also importantly, if I have to spend that night overnight while he is in the hospital, I don't want to have to go out and about looking for food or maybe a bar in which to have a (single, calming) drink. If I want to explore, there are amenities snuggled right up to the motel in the next block - antique shops, and something called "The Haymarket" which I assume (from the descriptions and satellite pictures) is a lot like City Market in Savannah. Maybe I can find something cute and fun to take away his fear and trepidation about still another potential surgery.

This is what I do, this is what my life is like now. While my friends are all agonizing over what to buy everyone for Christmas, who's coming to the feast, who's cooking, which family members are going to be a pain or get drunk or whose kids will tumble into the tree, I am busy struggling for calm, for normalcy, for an even and steady flow to my life. Grasping at small joys, creating small pleasures, turning fear and pain into comfort and stability. WTH - I can't dance, and it's too cold to hunt crickets. "It is what it is" - another pretty common local idiom.