I Am

As usual, the picture has nothing to do with the post

The bridge spans a koi pond built by my brother-in-law after his retirement. The little boy is the youngest son of a nephew's girlfriend. As we tend to do, we have absorbed them into our family with no questions asked and plenty of love. That is our way.

No prejudice. Well, I try anyway. I have fallen victim to laughing at a politically incorrect joke from time to time. Mostly in my younger years when I wasn't strong enough to stand up to other people. Then I went through a phase where I challenged those that told the jokes. Now I am at the stage where I don't laugh, I ignore them - they get no reaction from me and I don't waste my time with them.

I watched "Invictus". Before posting about the movie, I wanted to research it. To get my facts straight. Okay, that was three hours ago. Yes, folks. I have been reading about Nelson Mandela, Winnie, apartheid, South Africa and the poet William Ernest Henley for the past three hours. C'mon! You should know me by now. I'll do anything to get out of housework and yard work.

Poet Henley brings me to the title of my post. "I Am". This can get complicated. I started with Nelson. I continued with apartheid, read a little on Winnie (she just scares me) and South Africa. Then I started on the poem by Henley. During the movie when the poem was read in the back ground I wondered to myself, "Hmmm. I wonder what the name of that poem is?" Silly me.

I googled almost every line of the poem. Come to find out that none other than the coward T McVeigh used the poem to express himself. Forget him. Well, don't forget him and what he did but forget the fact that he thought himself a hero.

The religious undertones of the poem were an interesting read. Many folks deciphered the poem that Henley was an atheist or at least in my opinion an agnostic. Some folks say that he had to know that "I Am" is Hebrew for "God". Interesting.

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Well, I wonder if Neil Diamond knew that when he wrote his song? The article does mention this reference when speaking of Jan Rot's version.

Regardless, the poem is powerful and inspiring in my book.

During my research, I came to remember other African movies full of strife that I have watched over the past couple of years. Three came to mind, "The Country of My Skull (In My Country)", "Blood Diamond" and "The Last King of Scotland". In My Country is set during the apartheid, the other two are different countries altogether.

Sigh. It is time. Time to clean. My daughter is bringing a new boyfriend to the house today. Gee, I hope he likes dogs.

Oops. Almost forgot. Had a wonderful reunion with sister 1954 last evening. My daughter, myself, sister and my nephew sat and talked for two hours after dinner (much to the dismay of the waitress and waiter-in-training). Everything was perfect except for my daughter's undercooked salmon. Twice! We sent the first one back and when the second one came, she was satisfied with just eating the edges which were done to a perfect flakiness and just left the thick soupy middle.

We did a lot of catching up, and took some "horrible" pictures which are not worth posting - the restaurant was very dark (probably so people wouldn't notice the undercooked food). I am now facing another very, very rainy day in the Ohio wetlands. My grass is definitely going to need a brush hog before I can get to it. Hey, wait! The daughter's new beau works in landscaping - you think? Nah! Do not go there! LOL!

I may as well throw this in, too. Since I am stalling. The electricity was off in my neighborhood for 7 hours yesterday. From 5:30 to 12:30. As the day wore on (with the monsoon making the day as dark as late evening) I noticed a stupid headache developing and not responding to my migraine medication. I was getting upset because I was really looking forward to this dinner we had planned. I even drank an alka-seltzer. At about 3:00 it dawned on me. Coffee! Caffeine withdraw. Idiot! After three cups of java and a nice hot shower I was back in form and ready to meet.

A dirty picture

My nephew gave me some canned air and monitor wipes for Christmas. I put them to good use over the long week-end. I did some cleaning. My computer really needed it. Cripes!

My Honda dealership took care of my low tire pressure indicator today and put my new plates on the car. They were out of keys, so they ordered some and I'll have to go back. They didn't charge me a dime for the other stuff. Very nice.

I have a lot less anxiety to come home to now that the pups are caged while I am gone. Or, crated. Whatever. However, they did manage to get my glasses one more time and I paid a visit to my eye doctor again today to get new tips put on again. They laughed.

I had a migraine all day Sunday. I slept most of the day away. Didn't get much done other than taking the dogs out to do their business every 3 or 4 hours. Then, I slept all night. Wow. Today all I needed was the usual generic acetaminophen. I have not switched back to Advil (or ibuprofin) since my surgery, I'll stick with acetaminophen for a while. Until it doesn't work anymore.

I read an article today about puppy mills and it just made me sick to my stomach. Please spread the word around to all your friends and families.

Stop puppymills.

Stop puppyfarms.

Do not buy from pet shops.

Do not buy from the Amish.

So many people (tourists) believe the Amish to be a fine, peaceful and admirable group of people. That may be so in most cases, but they do not believe in kindness to animals. They are a stern and simple people. They do not have room for anything they (or their beliefs) consider excessive. Animals are put on the earth to serve mankind (they say this comes from the Bible, I don't know) and that if the animal is no longer useful, it can be discarded or destroyed.

I am not knocking their way of living. To each their own. I just want to help spread the word so that many people do not mistakenly purchase a puppy from an Amish puppy mill thinking that this critter was well taken care of by these peaceful and loving people.

Sigh. NOW I need the acetaminophen.

A long August

My niece in San Diego last month

I had the family reunion on the 2nd of this month. Since then this month has not been much fun for me. I have had five doctor appointments, with two more to go this month. I have had two car appointments (my car and my daughter's car), I have had jury duty twice, two college scheduling sessions, and have one dentist appointment and one veterinarian appointment yet this month.

In July, I had four doctor appointments, and two veterinarian appointments.

In September (so far) I am looking at five doctor appointments (one a mammogram, yay!) and a dentist appointment for my daughter.

But, today was the worst. I had a cystoscopy. If you ever had one of these, you would remember it. It is much more painful for men, I suppose. Still, it hurt like the dickens. I am still having pity pains.

I am not seriously ill. Not in any way. One is a procedure I am finally dealing with, the other is my foot and the others are routine. Everything is just falling in this 60 day time span.

Sprinkle in a migraine about once a month and I am very chummy with pain these days. My foot is currently soaking in Epsom salts. The water has long gone cold. Chong tried to drink out of it, I stopped him. Silly pup.

And, they threw in a tetanus shot for good measure! It is swelled up and as sore as a bad bruise. Scientology and their belief of keeping doctors and medicines out of their life might be looking pretty good to me right now. (Just kidding!)

Street at dusk

The curved building was our hotel

I loved the blue dusky sky as we walked back to our motel one evening in Cincinnati. It was unusually warm weather and there were a lot of people out and about. We needed no jackets.

One of my co-workers has a cousin who is a minister. She talked with my co-worker for three hours last evening about how wrong the gay lifestyle was. How they are confused people and their lifestyle is the reason for all of their strife in life. She also rebuked another bible verse that we spoke of. The one that states "women cannot speak in church." She said if we had read the entire chapter we would see that this was an isolated incident where the women sat on one side and the men sat on another side during the service. They tired of women calling out to their husbands and disrupting the service (you know how women can't shut up, right?) and this was the incident spoken of in the verse. We took it out of context.

Maybe so, maybe not. She went on to explain that women were men's equal according to the bible. I guess it depends on which book you are reading. Maybe I only hear what I want to hear. I didn't approach the first book of Ezekiel to my co-worker. I really don't think she can wrap her mind around that one.

I am sure her cousin has her convinced that I have been sent by Lucifer himself. I hope they prayed for me. I probably have an evil spirit inside of me, thus causing my migraines.

Planted lips

Potted plant - Cincinnati

More like weeds growing. I wanted to paint the lips on the pots around the square. Add some color. I wonder what they look like with flowers (or at least something colorful and pretty) growing in them. Has it really been two weeks already?

In lieu of a vacation over the summer months I plan to take time off and re-do my bathroom. My bedroom had to be repainted before I moved in. The 70's green and blue was a bit nauseating for me. The bathroom is pink roses on pink wall paper with pink fixtures. Too much pink for me. I could live with it, though. This summer I am going to change that.

My daughter said that suits her just fine. She said she doesn't like to travel. What? How can this be? I love to travel. I used to love to drive until I started working for the schools and ended up driving, driving, driving for most of my work day. Okay, I admit. I do tire of staying in motels. After four days I begin to get really sick from a change in sleep patterns, scenery and foods. Vacations will be limited to a week or less unless it is a really big one.

The two co-workers who debate religion were at it pretty heavy this morning. I usually tune them out, but when their voices were raised I listened. They are three feet away from me. The one was speaking of her pastor saying in his sermon yesterday that ALL gays are sinning. That it is their choice they are gay and that they are disobeying God. I told her I disagreed. I believe that it is not a "choice" and I believe them to be born gay. We didn't argue but it wasn't long before the topic turned to bible scriptures. For all their talk, they sure didn't know much about certain bible scriptures. I quoted a couple for them and they said "No way!" I looked the verses up on the Internet and showed them. They were floored. They changed their tune. They said "Well, you have to study The New Testament and forget about the Old one." Oh. Okay. Let's translate the Bible to say what we want it to say.

It is okay with them. We laugh and carry on. We do not get mad at one another. We let each other say what we want and go on with our lives.

I know some folks who cannot have a thought process for themselves so they cling to someone who can persuade them to believe what they say is true. Sheep.

Big beautiful mess

A mess of purple

I have so many things I want to write about today. Part of me wants to continue with the comment that Tabor made after my post yesterday, and I became philosophical about my flashy silver foil representing the flashy young life I used to have. When you are young and vibrant, things seem much shinier and flashier, like the foil I had on the outside wall of the patio porch attached to my garage. Then with one big wind storm - POOF! It's gone. Like our youth.

The wind did leave somebody's green and crumbled up grill cover in my back alley. Like aging, we are more down to earth and a little less flashy. Sometimes we feel tired and weary, represented here by the crumpled up grill cover lying on the edge of the alley. Forgotten, people look the other way when they see it, or trying not to see it. Nobody goes over to pick it up, they just let it be. Kind of like neglected older folks in a nursing home.

Another part of my day consisted of two co-workers arguing about their religion Catholicism. Oh. my. God! You know the old adage. Never discuss politics, sex or religion. An hour. By the time their faces were turning red and they were nearly screaming, I wanted to quit the Catholic religion and I'm not Catholic! For the most part, I listened - bemused. Neither one would give in and though they were not angry at each other, it was interesting to hear how they justified what they thought was wrong with the religion or right with it. One co-worker stated that all religion stems from the Catholic religion. Huh?