Candle Dreams

The scent of freshly dried, soft cotton lazily fills the room.  The squatting dimpled candle sitting by my computer has begun to tell me its secrets.   The flame leans in close to me to whisper its dreams and then pulls back sharply with worry.  It tries again.  Bowing forward to get as close to me as possible, it spins tales of firelight and hotdogs dripping grease.  When I smile and say, “A candle can dream, right” it bounces from side to side in excitement.  With a flicker of anticipation, the flame circles around and around in its glass container; looking, searching, for a way to take one step closer to its dream. 

I started my writing class this week.  Above is the first assignment (besides the introduction) that our instructor had us do.  We had to describe a candle.  What do you think?

More to come. 

Some Thoughts

My thoughts for today are as follows:

I was watching America’s Funniest Home Videos today; something I do on occasion when I am flipping through the channels and nothing else is any good.  As usual, the clips shown were little kids doing silly things, animals acting crazy, and grown-ups being idiots.  Now, seeing little kids doing silly things is funny.  Seeing animals acting crazy, is pretty funny.  Sometimes, an adult acting like an idiot is kind of funny.  What’s not funny is when, during the filming of the “funniest” video, the person being filmed gets injured.  They don’t show the injury, but you can always tell when, after the filming stops, the person is bleeding profusely from their cuts or are nursing their concussion.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not talking about videos of little babies that fall on their well padded behinds.  I’m talking about videos like the one I saw today.  The guy, riding his bicycle full-speed, hit a pothole, flew over his handlebars and landed, sliding on his face down the road.  This is not funny.  This is terrible.  You know that guy was picking gravel out of his face for the next week.  You know that guy was going to the hospital for the possible broken bones he received from his stupidity.  Why do people think things like this are funny? 

I believe that plants feel pain.  Mythbusters (and scientist Cleve Backster) hooked up a polygraph to plant leaves and then proceeded to perform experiments on them – touching them, tearing their leaves, burning them, etc.  Interestingly, the polygraph showed a “reaction” to these experiments.  Do I think plants have a brain???  No.  Do I think they are living things that can feel???  Yes.   Now, this whole dialogue is because a lot of people choose to be vegetarians because they can’t stand the thought that an animal is going to die to feed them.  Okay.  I get that.  Now, as you all know, I love animals.  And, I eat meat.  I like the taste of it.  I like the texture of it in my mouth.  I eat beef and pork and chicken and fish and goose and bison and…meat.  Have I ever visited a slaughterhouse?  No.  Am I going to?  No.  It’s bad enough that Ben and I went to the Bison Trading Company a couple weekends ago and visited with the bison…before we went into the store and bought bison hot dogs and bison burgers.  That was a little hard for me.  I knew that the bison I was visiting with would, one day, end up in the cold cases in the back of the store.  It made me realize that I don’t want to know what happens to my “meat” before it’s my meat.  Perhaps I’m just being ignorant.  I think, if I was to learn more about what happens, I won’t eat meat anymore.  But, I also think plants feel pain.  So, if I am going to stop eating meat because I see what happens to animals, I should also stop eating plants because I know what happens to them too.  I guess I could just stop eating everything then, but I think that would probably kill me. 

And, my final thought for the day…

Why the hell do they call it a funny bone?  I looked it up on the internet and the best I could find is that it is called the funny bone because the pain you feel when you hit it is due to your ulnar nerve hitting your humerus.  Humerus…humorous; a bit of a play on words, it seems.  All I know is that it is not funny and even though the internet says it’s a strange, tingly feeling you get when you hit it, I think it hurts.  I hit mine today and was laid out in pain for five minutes. 

Until next time.

This week in history

I am happy that a chapter of the war that has been raging for 10 years is over.  I'm not happy that someone is dead.  It might be Osama Bin Laden, but he is still a human being.  Yes, I am well aware that thousands of other people have lost their lives due to a war that was started by an idea of Osama Bin Laden.  I’m aware that thousands of people were killed on September 11, 2001 due to the people that Osama Bin Laden sent into action.  I know that.  It doesn’t mean that I support the war that has killed so many of our soldiers and so many of their soldiers.  It doesn’t mean I support the war that has killed innocent people that were in the way when our soldiers went to kill their soldiers.  I do support our soldiers.  My dad was in the Air Force and I grew up supporting and following those in the military and, especially, our Commander in Chief, i.e. the President of the United States.  I hope that the end of this chapter also brings about the end of the war in general, but I don’t believe it will.   

It saddens me that our younger generation posts things like, "Dumb, dumb, Arabs".  Not all Arabs are assholes and they shouldn't all be put in the same category.  It also saddens me when I see people posting on Facebook that Osama’s death is just a ploy from Obama to get re-elected.  Really?  If, and it’s a big if, someone knew where Osama was and could have ended this chapter a long time ago and chose to wait until it was politically convenient for whichever President happened to be in office at that time, then I no longer want to be an American.  Sure, I think Obama’s people, and maybe Obama himself, timed the announcement of Osama’s death…no better way to get back at Donald Trump than to interrupt his show during the crucial boardroom moments.  I don’t think they waited until Obama’s poll numbers were down before they put the plan into action for taking out Bin Laden. 

The other thing that bothers me is that people seem to be pissed off that we aren’t being shown pictures of Osama Bin Laden’s body.  I don’t want to see it.  Why does the US Government have to prove anything to me, to us, by showing us a picture?  The guy is dead.  Isn’t that enough?  Interestingly, I think if they had shown us the picture, the same people that are pissed about them NOT showing the picture, would have been the ones that ranted and raved because the picture was too graphic.  Sometimes people let their political views define and direct who they are.  Grow up already. 

Until next time.

Expired

Ben and I disagree on when food should be tossed.  I realize I am a little strict on my ideas about when food will go "bad".  Milk should be tossed no later than the expiration date.  I may even toss it the day before.  I had a bad experience with milk once.  So sue me.  Meat should never be consumed after the expiration date.  Though, the more I live with Ben, the more lenient I get on this particular subject.  I’ve even bought meat a couple days before the “Sell By” date in the supermarket and put it in the freezer.  I know - it scares me too.  Crackers, when they expired in September of 2009, need to be thrown away.  Ben thinks they are fine.  He can’t understand why I would waste perfectly good, unopened crackers.  He thinks I am stuck on the expiration date thing.  It’s really more that I don’t like stale food.  Chips need to be kept in bags that are tightly sealed and, if not consumed within a week, at most, need to be tossed.  Don’t get me started on bread or cereal or any other grain based product.  I’m a food snob - or an expiration snob, whichever you prefer.  I think I take after my father too much in this regard, but I am so completely okay with that. 

Interesting things

The interesting things I have seen so far this week:

While I was walking the dogs yesterday morning I saw two ducks checking out apartments.  It really looked like they were walking up the sidewalk to look in an apartment window and then they went down the sidewalk to another apartment.  Apparently, the marsh is a little too marshy this year and they wanted an upgrade. 

I went to the library today and on the way there I hit some construction and traffic was being diverted into one lane.  A flagman had us stopped so that the traffic coming from the opposite direction could come up the hill.  As I was sitting there waiting I noticed a little red car in the lane next to me that kept inching forward.  Only, the guy wasn’t inching forward like normal people do when they are moving their car forward while stuck in traffic.  This guy was more like feeting forward.  He was very aggressive in the way that he was going forward; as if the person in front of him was sitting there just to tick him off.  When traffic began moving again, the left lane (the one I was in), was the lane everyone needed to be in so they could continue on their merry way.  Of course, the guy in the red car was in the right lane and, immediately upon seeing the cars moving, tried to get in the left lane.  I refused to let him over.  I mean, come on, asshole.  We are all stuck in this line of traffic.  We all have places to go.  You are not any more important than the rest of us.  The guy behind me refused to let him in too, which I was very happy about.

After I left the library I was walking back to my car and saw a man sitting in front of a church smoking a cigarette.  The interesting thing was that I am pretty sure it was the pastor of the church who was sitting there in the little reflecting garden and trying to think up this Sunday’s sermon.  Okay, I’m surmising the trying to think up Sunday’s sermon, but that’s what it really looked like.  While there is nothing wrong with a pastor smoking, it is a free country, it was definitely interesting to see him sitting there puffing away.

Of course, I had to deal with traffic on the way home from the library.  This time I was the first person in line at a light, but when it changed to green there was a bus sitting right past the light on the other side of the road.  What was I supposed to do?  Cross the street and end up sitting in the middle of traffic?  I think that is what the guy behind me expected me to do.  It was a man on a motorcycle and he kept looking at me and then looking past my car like, “Why aren’t you moving?????”  I was gesturing to the bus and saying, out loud, of course, I can’t go forward, what do you want me to do.  Once the light changed again and I was able to cross the street, I was stopped once again by the bus.  Well, that motorcycle man wasn’t having any of that.  He decided it was much more important to risk his life and the lives of anyone coming the opposite direction than to sit in traffic for 30 more seconds.  He passed me, the three cars in front of me, and the bus, while he was in the opposite lane.  Thank God there wasn’t any oncoming traffic.

Like I said, some interesting things.

Until tomorrow.

A Walk with the Dog

Gracie loves kitties.  No matter what, she always whines and wants to go after them, tail wagging, looking for a little sniff and some affection.  The following poem is what it is like to take a walk with my dog. 

 

“Whine!”

“Graaaacie…”

“Whimper, whimper…”

“Leave IT!”

“But, mama…”

“Gracie, it’s a kitty!”

“it’s so pretty.”

“You have one at home.”

“But, not my own!”

“Gracie, let’s go!”

“Whine”

“Gracie!”

“Whimper, whimper…”

“Leave IT!”

Until tomorrow.

First Time

First of all, I want to apologize for not posting yesterday.  My neck and shoulder were very sore from moving on Wednesday and I couldn't bring myself to try and type.

I just blew up a blue peep in the microwave.  Somehow I think almost everyone reading this has done that at some point in their lives.  This was my first time.  It was awesome.  I tried to record it using Ben's phone, but his microwave has a black door, so you can't really see the peep blowing up.   Still, when Ben and I watched the video afterwards, it was hilarious.  Ben is trying to upload it to FB or YouTube.  It probably won't be nearly as fun to other people as it was to he and I.   If he ever gets it up there, I'll make sure to share it on my page so you all can check it out.

Until tomorrow!