Deviation

This morning I woke up at 4:00 AM but once I was in the den and settled, I fell back asleep on my chaise.  I had the most wonderful dream. I began to tell my grandchildren about it when I woke up and they both enthusiastically exclaimed,"Blog it , MeeMee. Blog it!" So, here I am with only fragments of the dream remaining. I will attempt to describe the parts that still remain in my fully awake mind.

Apparently, I was still living at home because my parents had moved to a new, unfinished house in a neighborhood which was at once in the country and also in a city. I mean to say that the house was situated in a community that was quite rural with 2 and 3 acres lots but that had an upscale mall in the middle. 



The first thing I picked up was shaped like my cell phone but was actually one of my grandsons' hand-held video games. I discarded that. The next thing I found, also similar to my cell phone proved to be a small computer. I discarded that.  A cousin whom I had met at the reunion came into my room and asked what all the fuss was about.  I related my story and soon she too was searching with me for the cell phone.  As we rushed from room to room searching for it, we began to realize the beauty and size of my parent's new home.  It was, as I said, unfinished in parts of the house but. none-the-less spectacular despite the parts that were not  yet completed.  Large rock fireplaces,a huge open kitchen,bathrooms the size of bedrooms with whirlpool tubs and large glass shower stalls....all the luxury that one might see in magazine articles. It was sensational.

As the cousin and I reached to end of the house, we came to patio beside a pool with a waterfall that appeared as though it come straight out of a mountainside in our native West Virginia. I stood in awe of its beauty  I began to wander the grounds. I came upon large stucco archways and entered them expecting more of the lovely landscape. Instead, a mall sparkled under its artificial light and displays of beautiful clothing, cosmetics, and furniture met my view.  Oh, it was as beautiful as the waterfall had been.  Lovely displays of beautiful decorated rooms were everywhere.   In among the lovely room displays, the wares were arranged for sale.  Cosmetics were displayed in bathrooms built for kings and queens. Linens were available in bedrooms of such beauty, tears of desire filled my eyes.  Appliances of stainless resided in delightful kitchens full of light and begging for a family to gather within.
As if appearing from the very air, a woman appeared to inquire if she could be of assistance to me. She introduced herself as Glenda as she compassionately hugged me and guided me into the atrium of the mall.  I explained that I had been visiting  with my parents who had just purchased a home there and had become lost.  " Ah", she soothed, " Of course. Your first arrival in our community can be quite an experience. I would be happy to show you around and return you safely to your parents house."  She was a beautiful woman. Her  hair appeared to be coiffed by a master hairdresser. Her clothes those of a designers' making.  She had no airs about her but, instead, exuded an accepting and loving nature and a true desire to befriend and help me.  I accepted her offer and relaxed into her capable care.
" First, the grounds. I can tell you have a great love for nature and animals so that is the place to start."  I voiced my concern that she was leaving her work at the mall but she eagerly explained that in this place, a person's work came secondary to interpersonal relations.  Reassured, though somewhat astonished, I again put my concerns away and followed her through the gorgeous grounds.  Waterfalls and lush plants abounded. At every turn, Glenda showed me animals and welcomed me to hold them. None of the creatures had any aggression. They walked up to us expectantly and eagerly accepted the attention we lavished upon each of them;  I found myself communing with every animal from baby giraffes to precious fluffy kittens.  We walked and talked about the vision of the designer of the community.  He wanted to create a place where each resident could enjoy exactly what he or she desired.  Costs were not a factor in his community.  Simply enjoyment and contentment.
I began to question my current living situation and ask her how I, too, could find a place to live in this glorious place.  " There is a plan", Glenda explained.  First you must always begin with a place that needs love and care.  She paused then at a townhouse that had been painted with a thick coat of forest green paint. " Like this one, she said.  The paint was peeling up and she touched it, pulling slightly to remove a piece of it. Beneath the paint was beautiful light colored stucco and it was plain to see that the ugly paint covered a gorgeous house. " All you need do here is remove the layers of misuse and bad taste. Revealed in every home is a picture perfect reflection of your perfect idea of where you want to live.  Just a little effort and desire is needed. No one is burdened with financial cares because everything is already here. One just needs to uncover it"  She smiled  at me. I felt her warm compassionate personality deep in my soul and felt very hopeful for my future.  " Yes, I know," she whispered understandingly.  I knew then, that she DID know the desires so deep in my heart for harmony and acceptance, beauty and understanding. How odd I thought.
Just at that moment of total peace, my guide pointed to a woman dressed comically in silk and chiffon.  '" Just like her," Glenda said kindly.  As I noted the woman's feathered elaborate hat, her fussy silk dress adorned with flouncy chiffon, I searched Glenda's face for any sense of judgment.  None was evident from the classy, subdued angel-woman who was my guide.  " But..." I began hesitantly.  " It is alright my friend", she said calmly hugging my shoulders briefly." It is the perfect her.'  " Wait," she said," let's go in here and see my friend.  She is somewhat secretive but if you wait in the entryway while I announce us, I am sure she will welcome you as I have".  So as I waited in the plushly carpeted entry to a house I can only describe as palatial, I heard Glenda say, " she is alright, she will love it here and I believe her to be discrete" With that announcement, I was welcomed, perhaps even tugged into the living room.

Today I am INVISIBLE

Today, I feel invisible.  I work and the dent I make in the horrid mess is too small to notice. I talk and no one hears me. Sometimes they answer but generally, they don't.  When they do, they have not understood what I said.  Their reply is incongruant. 
My mind is still not right with the new medicine. Tuesday, I went with Charmian to see War Horse.  The movie was good but even before we got there, my mind was rushing, rushing. I ended up pleading sickness and having to come home after the movie.  I had to lay down. My mind was going to fast.   I can't even tell you what my mind is rushing about because it goes so fast that the thoughts are lost even to me. It pains me when it happens.   I realize that I am not making sense and it hurts my sense of who I am.  I pride myself on an orderly intelligence.   Pride is not a good thing. Perhaps I'd be better to say I have a goodly amount of intelligence and that is a piece of myself that I recognize and honor.  But these rushing thoughts and disorerly "fits" are not the person I wish to be.  Yet, even still, my mind rushes.
I keep having to rearrange my room.  I hate my surroundings and  by rearragnging them, I think that they will somehow be more congenial.  Instead, I have piles of almosts. Piles of almosts are not orderly enjoyable places. They are confusion and distracting. 
I go to Mr H's home and in his rooms are no almosts. There is order and calm. Peace and beauty.  Then I come home to almosts.  Only lately, I don't get to come home. I have more work to do to earn more money. I go to Anna Mae's and clean her house, bake her Christmas treats, clean her kitchen. I see all her order and calm.  There are also no almosts there.   They are all here. Here at home.  In my rooms...
I even almost have a husband. He watches television, awaits the arrival of his meals, and sleeps.  He goes to the doctor looking for pills to fix him.  His blood pressure, diabetes, and even his enlarged heart are greatly improved.  His dementia gets worse.  The tests so far have him off the charts depressed.  But he wants a pill and refuses therapy. " Talking won't help and changing is impossible and undesirable", he says. He says at his age, things should just be there for him.  Unfortunately, he has done nothing in earlier years to store up for these years of aging.
Once, I had money stored up, hopes awaiting fruition. Then,I funded an antique shop and contents, auction school, an auction house, real estate school, a real estate office, and a year of fees and licenses so that he could use his expensive new computer I gave him to look at pornography and bemoan his lack of sales.  Even still, he denies any responsibility for the loss of my retirement money and my sister's inheritance.  He says he got into antiques and auctions and realestate at the wrong times.  He says that abouthis dad's money frittered away on shrimping too. The "chinks" took over shrimping, were given government entitlements, and didn't follow the rules... that is his story on why that little enterprise failed. 
Okay, so I am pissed.  But the truth is that I and I alone gave him my money with which to fail. I could have held it and refused to give it.  So the failure is my responsibility. Now it is I who am dead broke, riddled with fibromyalgia pain, rushing with bi-polar thoughts and hurting in every place I have a place.  But invisable as I am, I still get up every day and try again. Maybe God will honor that.

My mind rushes.  I know what I say is true.  I just want my house, my family and enough to keep them both. 

Rejoice!

Rejoice

                By Barb Curtis

Let us rejoice in the present,

Pre-sent from the most holy and just Creator.

Abandon our past as it is gone away,

No effect on today save a lesson once taught – mayhap learned.

Let us rejoice, yes rejoice! Another new day at hand.

 Delight in the ordinary in  which we create the extraordinary for the pleasure of our Lord.

Focus clearly on the joy of a new dawn.

Unencumbered, as it were, by regrets and wanderings of wishes and daydreams.

Rejoice, oh rejoice, you sons of man.

Look forward and look within to life and love and Grace by His hand.

Garden Wreath

Today, I made this wreath for the outside wall of my studio.  My friend, Charm, and I found a similar one in a shop a week or so ago.  We decided that I could and should make one for my studio garden.  We made a trip to Hobby Lobby and bought the largest grape vine wreath we could find. What luck! It was 50% off!  Later in the week, I found the sunflowers at a garage sale for just a buck.  A breeze through my garden shed garnered the old rake head and the trowel.  I have a little bird house that I plan on adding as soon as I find it. You know me, I have misplaced it but is around here somewhere. Hope y'all enjoy the wreath and hope you are inspired as well. Happy spring!

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

I have been thinking about this for some time and now I am looking for input.  Since I have lived in my lovely house here in Texas, the woman who previously owned it and sold it to me has been busy. She does not live in our neighborhood. She lives close enough, though, for her land to attach to the neighborhood. And, if she places herself in just the right spot on her land and peers through the trees; she can see the front of our house. That aside, she prowls the neighborhood in her van looking for anything for which she can sue one of the little neighborhood's families.She takes pictures and gathers "evidence". She terrorizes everyone by coming right on their property to yell at them when they are building a shed or fence or whatever she decides she doesn't like. She cusses, yells, threatens, and executes lawsuits for these things which she determines are infractions.
Personally, I have been the object of her harassment ,threats of lawsuits, and, more recently, the defendant in a lawsuit that she did file against me.
It is weird, I think, because she doesn't even live in the neighborhood - but adjacent to it. She does have undeveloped land in the neighborhood. Although, she uses part of that as a driveway to connect her "not-in-the-neighborhood" current residence to the neighborhood. I am assuming that she is sentimentally attached to the little neighborhood and enjoys driving to her home through it. I find it rather odd.She has another perfectly lovely driveway which directly gives her access from the major road. I wonder why she would go to all that expense  paving over two expensive residential lots; when a driveway that accesses directly seems more economical to pave.  I also wonder, why someone would want to drive such a circuitous route  through a neighborhood when straight forward access is readily available. But only she knows her reasons and, to be honest, it is not my business.
Any way, she has been harassing us for over three years. First, she threatened a lawsuit over a perfectly legal and quite lovely storage building that we bought.  She was so offensive and yelled and cursed so vehemently that I gave in and had it picked up and returned.  That cost me $300.00 for delivery and $300.00 to have it removed.  Then, she decided that to have wanted such a lovely storage building, we must be running a business out of our home.  She searched D.B.A.s and found Dave's auction house D.B.A.. We closed the business years ago and ran it from a location on FM1462.  Again, we were served papers of intent to sue. The police came out and verified that we were not running an antique auction or even selling antiques from our home.  She then dropped the business part and sent a letter of intent to sue over menace dogs.  ( The dobermans. ) When the police came out again, it was determined that the dogs were not the ones barking but it was the neighbor behind us whose dogs were barking. She claimed our dogs were charging the fence which the officer proved false. Finally, she moved on to a neighbor across the street from us who put up a fence she didn't like.  Since she was already suing them, she just added us to that suit this time for running Zannibals, an internet business.
We won the lawsuit but the people with the fence gave in to her bullying in mediation and didn't go to court like we did.
Now, here is my question.  If her main issue is that she is frightened by the dobermans and wants them behind a 6 foot fence. ( She stopped my daughter-in-law at the grocery store to tell her just to keep them behind the small part of yard that has the six foot wooden fence.); then why spend all that money to sue us.  At minimum she paid her attorney $7,000.00 and paid ours over $4000.00. Plus, she is required to pay all our costs should she take us back for appeal or anything like that.  So far, she has spent $11,000.00! Why does she not just do the neighborly thing and, considering our financial situation,  just pay for a 6 foot wooden fence to be installed completely around our property?  She could be known as a charitable and kind person. She could be a heroine instead of a B****. And she would save a whole lot of money. So why doesn't she?!!! .

The Dime

                                                                                       

We were living in the house in Laurel, Maryland.  It was a small townhouse located on the end so that we had windows on three sides. I was 5 years old. My bedroom was the last room at the end of the hall.  One afternoon I was playing quietly by myself.  I am not sure what caused me to decide to do this but, having found a dime, I became curious whether or not it would fit in the electrical wall socket.

I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor facing the wall socket with the dime in my right hand. I leaned in closely in order to see my target clearly.  Then, carefully aiming, my dime slipped easily into the right slot in the socket.

Suddenly, electricity ran up my arm making the tiny hairs rise in protest. By the time it hit my shoulder; I was thrown backward and landed against the opposite wall of my room. Wailing in pain and panic, I was pulled into Daddy’s arms. He appeared as if by magic. I know he had been way down the hall in the living room but in an instant he held me close as he checked to see if I had been hurt and determine the cause of the trouble. Once he knew I was unharmed and saw the dime lying burnt and bent on the floor by the socket, he scolded me severely and spanked me for the deed.  But he still held me in his arms and hugged me while he delivered the two light swats so unlike spankings I was used to for misdeeds. 

I really don’t remember much else about that incident but years later when I was a teenager, I saw that burnt and bent dime in my mother’s jewelry box. I asked her if it was “the” dime. She picked it up and turned it in her hand. “Yes”, she said softly. “I was so scared when that happened and I just put the dime in here.”  I watched her face as she dropped the dime back into the jewelry box.  She was looking at me but I could tell she was seeing the five year old girl from years ago.

After Mom passed away, I was given some of the things out of that jewelry box.  “The” dime was among those things.  It resides now in my jewelry box. It still is burnt and it is still bent. A reminder that curiosity, fear, pain, and love all mixed together can make a bittersweet memory .