I tell you this
with great hope
and trepidation.
we are not meant
to withstand such
excesses in love.
so indulge me in
a more meaningful
conversation.
and we’ll explore
the boundaries set;
enough is enough.
i am unsure if my
heart is capable
of this affection,
and even were it so
surely yours would
crumble with strain.
simple love is best,
you see, with fewer
forms of dereliction,
best to love with one’s
heart only, and neglect
the deeper kind of pain.
go with the masses
everyone’s doing it, right?
conscience doesn’t count.
pardon our ignorance
our lockstep adherence, too;
fear breeds yet more fear.
thank you NRA
for skyrocketing gun sales
and paranoia.
Does the NRA Really Have 4 Million Members? | Mother Jones Mother Jones › nra-membership-numbers
Occasionally I have delusions of grandeur, but I’m never fooled into believing they’re anything other than delusions. I’m not a brave woman. Tonight was proof of that.
I returned home to a dark, empty house after an afternoon at the movies and some heavy-duty window shopping. Studly Doright wasn’t yet home, and I didn’t expect him to return for several more hours. As usual I parked my car in the garage and walked around the car to the door.
Before opening the door I heard a beep-beep-beeping sound. Carefully I turned the knob and edged the door open. The entry alarm was going off. We’ve lived at Doright Manor for a year and a half and the alarm has never even peeped. Slowly I backed away, shut the door, and retreated to my car.
I’m not going to lie, my hands were shaking as I dialed 911 while simultaneously backing the car out of the garage. The operator was professional, and thorough, and didn’t sound like she thought I was being a paranoid idiot.
Then I had to wait. Outside. In the dark. Okay, I had my lights on high beam, but the dark outside of that bright halo seemed particularly threatening. I called Studly and told him all that had transpired. As we talked I noticed my phone battery was on the verge of going dead and hoped that wasn’t a bad omen. Signing off, I felt utterly alone.
By the time the officer arrived, a seemingly endless twelve minutes after I initially called 911, I was convinced that I should sleep in my car until Studly got home. Hey, it’s a small SUV, I could get comfy in there. As long as I didn’t have to use the restroom I’d be ok, right?
The second Deputy Perkins appeared I felt immense relief. He and I approached the back door and could hear the incessant beeping. My heart was thumpety-thumping, providing a nice rhythm section for the alarm.
I turned on the light just inside the back door and with trepidation walked to the flashing alarm, expecting it to read something along the lines of “Danger, Danger, Run for Your Life!” Instead, the words Power Outage were displayed in large LED letters.
Sheepishly I grinned at Deputy Perkins, “Honestly, sir, we’ve had disruptions in power before and they’ve never set off the alarms.”
To his credit, and the credit of his entire department, he was so understanding, and if he thought me crazy he had the decency not to say so out loud.
He also insisted on going through Doright Manor room by room to make sure no one was hiding there. Thankfully all he found were the two cats who were both fairly frazzled from having listened to the annoying alarm for heaven knows how long. One had expressed her displeasure by puking on a bathroom rug.
Now I’m sitting here sipping wine and contemplating the excitement of my evening. I’m still fairly filled with adrenaline from the fright. I know I’ll crash soon, but until then I’ll be doing something constructive. Like having more wine.
Peace, people!
fear is a disease
best cured by decisive acts;
worry loves waiting.
breathe deeply, exhale
then launch a frontal attack;
kick fear in the nuts.
Dogs are among my favorite people, but a couple of evenings ago as I was taking my evening walk an unknown dog made a charge at me.
Doright Manor sits at the bottom of a loop and many evenings when Studly and I have been out and about in the car I’ll have him drop me off at the top of our loop so I can get a walk in before darkness sets in. On the occasion of the charging dog, the weather was so nice that I decided to walk the entire loop, bypassing the manor and trekking up the backside.
It’s a nice walk and great exercise as the loop has a long steady change in elevation. About halfway up the back side of the loop I caught a flash of brown out of the corner of my eye. I knew there was a dog waiting to ambush me, if not to attack, just to assert its authority over its territory.
I continued walking, grateful that I’d seen the dog and wouldn’t be taken by surprise. Then he rushed me, a large apparently angry dog barking a deep growly baritone that caused me to stop dead in my tracks. I commanded him to stop, and he did, while continuing to bark.
The driveway he came running out of belongs to a home that’s set way back on its property and there is no house directly across from it. I raised my voice in a “hello!” hoping the dog’s owner would come and corral him.
No response. I had my phone and dialed Studly. No response. I tried again. Nothing, and I figured he was in the shower. All this time the dog continued to bark. I took a tentative step forward and he came closer and growled more loudly. I knew better than to turn my back, so I began walking slowly backwards. He took another step towards me. Again I sternly commanded him to stop and he did. Finally I heard a female voice as his owner came out to the road. The dog was still barking furiously.
“He won’t hurt you,” she said, sounding miffed.
“I don’t care!” I responded. “I don’t know your dog, and he scares me.”
It took her several minutes to get the dog back up to the house. He kept turning back to bark at me and I’m sure my fear was encouraging that behavior.
She never apologized, just herded the dog back to her home. I continued my walk and at the top of the loop Studly returned my call. He offered to come get me, but the crisis was over by then.
Now I’m reluctant to walk my loop. I have a walking stick that would provide some defense, (I didn’t have it that evening) but I’m really nervous. Not long ago a Texas friend was attacked by two large dogs while on a walk, and is still dealing with a nasty bite from that incident.
No punch line in this post. I hate being afraid.
Peace, people.
Hovering
somewhere
between up
and down,
uneven ground
upsetting my
equilibrium.
One moment
I’m giddy,
filled with
exuberance,
capable of
great feats;
significant.
The next turn,
my anxiety takes
over, holding
me back, bringing
me down, struggling
to stay relevant
on life’s stage.
Peace is found
where I hover
one foot in
ecstacy the other
in agony, teetering
on the brink and
trying to stay me.
Peace, people.
Got this in the mail from the NRA today. Obviously they haven’t read my Facebook timeline.
See the badge in the upper left hand corner? They’ve asked me to place that on my truck, car, boat, or God forbid, on my window at home so that,
“When your local lawmakers see this shield on NRA vehicles, they see crystal-clear proof that if they push gun regulation, licensing, and prohibition, they risk DEFEAT on Election Day. It’s that promise, backed by NRA membership muscle, that stops gun banners in their tracks.”
Apparently, this shield has…
“…stopped hundreds of schemes to ban your guns and close down gun shows, gun shops, ranges, and hunting lands.”
I own a gun. One of these days I’ll learn to use the darned thing, but I refuse to become part of an organization that plays on our fears in order to pump up their membership.
I refuse to belong to a group that fought against common sense gun regulations following the shooting of innocent schoolchildren in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, a group that instead said the answer to such tragedies was to arm more people.
The NRA was founded with good intentions, but radical organization leadership and a focus on political and societal manipulation has twisted that goodness into something profane.
I’ll take that sticker. There’s a great stinky place just inside my trashcan in need of an NRA endorsement.
Peace, people!
Finally she knew
no one could ever save her
neither knight nor prince.
Armed with this knowledge
she sallied forth, unafraid,
searching for dragons.
Empowered woman
whole and unafraid of strength
could not be distressed.
For lo and behold
no dragon needed slaying;
fear had been man made.
When Studly is out of town I spend my time going to movies. So far I’ve seen “The Imitation Game” and “Chappie.” Tomorrow I plan to see “Cinderella.”
I couldn’t be a movie critic. For me movies are either great or awful, and often I can’t explain why I view them either way. Both “The Imitation Game” and “Chappie” fall into the great category. I’d see them again.
Benedict Cumberbatch is amazing as Alan Turing. If the film doesn’t make you angry at man’s injustices to man then there is something seriously wrong with you. Oddly enough, “Chappie” had the same message–that people can be incredibly cruel. That humans fear what they do not understand, and what they fear, they seek to destroy.
But both films had an uplifting feel, that if we can possibly learn from our mistakes, if we can learn the hard lessons, that humanity is worth saving.
Now who knows what I’ll take away from Cinderella, but if it’s anything like the book, it should be a winner.
Peace, People!
Several nights ago before I went to bed I tied a rope around the knob of my closet door and attached the other end of the rope to the linen closet door. It actually wasn’t a rope so much as a cat toy that had a stick with a mouse dangling from it. Then, I placed a metal belt with a tinkly bell on it to the cat toy.
In front of the closet door I placed a piano bench, a laundry hamper, and a large box of cat litter. Then I went to bed, but not to sleep.
That night was the longest of my entire life. Studly was out of town, so I enjoyed the luxury of staying up a little later than his normally prescribed bedtime of 8:45. I realize that’s the bedtime of a ten-year-old, but I’ve learned to live with it.
I watched my accumulated recordings of Criminal Minds until eleven, then began making preparations for bed. The cats needed bedtime treats and water. There were a few dishes I loaded into the dishwasher, then I made the rounds switching off lights and checking door locks.
When I came to the front door I found it unlocked, and my heart stopped beating for the briefest of moments. No one goes in or out of that door. The only time it’s opened is when a package is left on the front porch. As far as I could remember, we’d received no deliveries in awhile.
After locking the door, I went into full ninja mode. Studly and I have several beautiful walking sticks that his brother made. I grabbed the nearest one and began methodically searching room to room, under beds, behind furniture, every nook and cranny.
We have a large, open floor plan, so there aren’t a great many hiding places. Even so, it took me a half hour or so to make a complete search.
At this point I think it’s important that my readers know I take a prescribed anti-depressant–Effexor, and that for two consecutive nights I had forgotten to take my prescribed dosage. Forgotten isn’t exactly the correct word, you see I’d taken so much cold medicine last week that I’d get into bed and couldn’t remember if I’d taken the Effexor or not, so rather than take an extra dose, I’d erred on the side of caution and not taken what might be a second dose.
There are several awful consequences of Effexor withdrawal. One is extreme paranoia. Even after making a thorough search of the house I was certain someone was in there with me. But where? Finally I decided there was no place anyone could be hiding, so I closed my bedroom door and began my nightly ablutions.
We have a large walk-in closet adjacent to our bathroom with a pull down door to access the attic. As I washed my face, my eyes were drawn to the rope attached to that attic door. I walk underneath that door every day without noticing it, but in my Effexor withdrawal paranoia I instantly knew that someone lurked above me, just waiting for the lights to go out and for me to fall asleep.
And that’s why I had tied a cat toy to the door knob of my closet door. Now, my readers are not stupid people and have probably foreseen a problem related to hanging a cat toy on a door knob in a household of cats. Yes, the cats wanted to play with it, and did so throughout the night.
Just as I’d doze off, a ding-a-ling would sound. I’d jump up, heart racing, walking stick in one hand, a can of hairspray in the other, looking to ambush whoever had dared hide in my attic.
I watched every hour click into existence on Studly’s digital clock. As my Effexor kicked in my paranoia slowly faded, but I still had some residual withdrawal effects, the worst one being brain shivers, so any time I turned my head I thought I caught a movement in my peripheral vision.
That’s why I put the piano bench, the clothes hamper, and the large box of cat litter in front of the closet door. If my early warning system didn’t work, then maybe they’d buy me some time.
Everything made sense in the middle of a long sleepless night.
Now some would say, “Girl, get yourself a gun.” To which I’d reply, “Did you actually READ this post?” Who in their right mind would put a gun in the hands of a crazy woman?
Peace, People.
Praying for Eyebrowz 