Pain and death at Christmas

My lesbian friends are visiting parents this year - together. And, the pain is often great. One family insists that they sleep in separate rooms, another has twin beds for them, and one family says they aren't comfortable with their staying in the home. Most can't afford lodging elsewhere; so they sleep apart (and what are you going to do in your parents home except sleep, especially when you know the disapproving parents are next door or just down the hallway, or worse in the room underneath you?). Some don't go at all even though their parents are aging; some try to find room with accepting cousins or aunts. Some try to make the journey in one day. Those with children have it hardest. What do you say to a young child who wants to visit Grandma and Grandpa?

On Tuesday, a friend is burying her brother who died of colon cancer. She will be holding tight to her mother who says, "This isn't how it's supposed to be." He leaves two young children.

A memorial service will be held for one who took his own life - a choice he made because the pain of living became too great. We can speculate about causes: Vietnam, lack of family support, alcoholism, drug use, purposelessness.

So, as we prepare for the ritual birth of the Christ child, the baby who was God and human, life goes on with all of the pain, the deaths, the natural disasters as usual...except with a little more of all of it - the joy as well as the sad.

God came to earth to be with us - Immanuel - God with us - God did not come to take away the pain or the death or the joy or the desire. God came to teach us how to choose life. For life is breath and God's first act was to breathe upon the emptiness and chaos. Ruah in Hebrew.

I quote from a poem I learned long ago about friendship: "take what is worth keeping and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away." May God with you be the breath of life that helps you sift the pain and the joy, keep what is worth keeping and with steadfast love and compassion blow the rest away.

Getting Rid of Junk

(photo borrowed from USPS-my preferred method of shipping using Click n Ship)

In cleaning out my boxes of junk from the garage, I seem to have made many people happy. My cousin called with questions about some of the items - like "What's this black and white fuzzy long thing?" Answer: A scarf I knit for your wife. "Who's in this framed picture?" What picture, describe it to me. A man in a white shirt and a woman. Answer: That's you're grandmother and grandfather when they were younger 1944. "There's a coin purse here with stuff in it?" Coin purse was grandmother's. Necklace inside was great grandmother's. Piece of paper is grandfather's driver's license when they first began issuing them in Mississippi.

A friend: "What's this long black thing with a star shape on the bottom?" Answer: a handy-dandy meat masher to use in non-stick skillets from Pampered Chef. "You sent soap; do you think I'm dirty?" No, it made the box smell good.

Another friend: "Um, why are you sending me bottles?" Answer: so you can smash them up and use them in your glassworks. Where did you get these glass door knobs? Answer: From my great grandparents house in Mississippi before it was torn down.

And, the universal question "Why aren't you keeping all of this stuff?" Answer: I have way too much stuff and no children or grandchildren who might appreciate it.

So look out, buddies. You may be next on the list for a mystery box.

Long time, no write

My friend Lindy, who up and moved all the way from Texas to Wuxi, China, and surprised us all, has pointed out that I haven't blogged in a while. No matter what I write, it would be boring in comparison to her wonderful pictures and commentary about life there. She played with a band one day - a group of women who were wonderfully dressed and wore dashing red hats. They let her play the drums and then the cymbals and put one of the hats on her and took her picture. Well, +Clumber photoshopped the red hat onto several profile pictures on FaceBook. Two of us got different colored hats, though. One was black, and mine is blue.as you can see from the picture. I'm delighted to have the blue hat and have decided that I will be the flag waver since I don't "do" music well.

Speaking of that, I missed Lessons and Carols at church last week because I was getting ready for our annual Tree Trimming Party - our 10th. But, my first tree trimming party was in 1988. This year we had short pork ribs cooked in the oven slowly with Memphis dry rub (my version, very sweet), then slathered lightly with a more tart wet sauce and baked a bit more. Only four were left; so I guess everyone liked them. We also had some almost tasteless shrimp (a round frozen tray that I bought - won't do that again), my own spinach dip, Lisa's Tex-Mex 5 or 7 layer sort of dip, black bean hummus (again my creation with baked onion in it), sugared pecans, cupcakes from Miss Kitty's bakery, and all sorts of non-alcoholic drinks. That non-alcoholic is because some of us are allergic to alcohol. When we drink, we break out in handcuffs.

I've taken leave from my wonderful job at the yarn shop. No, I'm not sure how long, but not permanently. My mornings are not so good lately. I won't go into detail but simply say that fibromyalgia is worse some days than others, or some weeks. I've been reading about XMRV, a retro virus that is thought to "cause" chronic fatigue syndrome. Most of the symptoms fit me, although my partner disagrees slightly. I've thought of getting tested for the virus, which shows up in white blood cells, but no cure or real treatment is available. Giving a name to my pain and problems might help. And, XMRV might be more believable than fibromyalgia.

Here's my recipe for spinach dip:
1 or 2 boxes of frozen chopped spinach (I used 2 Green Giant - all I could find and they are small)
1 package Knorr's vegetable soup mix
1 16 oz carton of reduced fat sour cream
1 package 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1 cup of pecans
1/2 package of dry Ranch Dressing mix
Garlic Salt (about 1 teaspoon for me)
Cayenne Pepper (1/4 teaspoon for me)

Thaw and squeeze the water out of the spinach.
In food processor (mine is more than 20 years old) chop cream cheese into pieces, add pecans and sour cream. Blitz for a bit. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Blitz some more until the texture is grainy but not chunky. Place in refrigerator for some time to let the tastes mix well. Use finger to clean the food processor bowl, place finger in mouth and close lips around finger. Remove clean finger and savor the great taste. Don't chew the finger; that hurts.

A Sorting Hat was needed

Not for me but for all the papers I found in the tub labeled "family stuff" in the garage. I filled it full of things I didn't want to see after Mom died. Her scrapbook from high school filled with valentines, gift cards, notes, graduation invitations. Letters from my brother (died in 1961) who was apparently dating three girls - one in Mississippi, one in San Diego, and one somewhere North of San Diego - while he was stationed there with the Navy...and letters asking Mom for money. Three marriage licenses for Mom and two divorce proceedings. Marriage licenses for others in the family, birth notices - birth certificates, baby books for me and my brother, records from the farm. Mom's graduation certificate from junior high school - bound in the softest purple suede.

Letters from my brother's father to Mom, her parents, my Dad, and also letters this guy's parents to Mom. From the tone of the letters, I suspect that Mom met David's father when he was buying whiskey from her Dad, Mike, my grandfather.

WW2 documents and letters and Dad's big book of the 24th Construction Battalion. Rationing stuff.

Lots of receipts, letters from grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, former landlady,

The trash bag got fuller and fuller. My brother is dead and so are his son and wife. I have no children. My nearest relative is a cousin in Mississippi, and I'm sending him some of the WW2 stuff - especially a mushy letter from Dad to Mom when she was in high school and another after they were married. I think he'll get a kick of that - Mom was kind of neutered by Dad's alcoholism. But, I'm keeping the letter from Mabel to my Dad where she refused to marry him because he'd never loved anybody but Lucy (my Mom). And, I kept one page of a letter where my brother wrote about how much he loved me.

I save birth announcements to send to those who were born - perhaps they don't have them. I'll send the graduation announcements to some museum in Mississippi. A few photographs without identification went into the trash.

But, I stuffed all the letters that I'd written to Mom over the years back into the box. I'm not sure I want to know that I begged for money just like my brother or what stunts I was up to when. If I were famous, these letters would bring lots of money because I was always deviously honest with Mom. She could read between the lines and so could anyone else.

My Dad helped build the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and one letter dealt with the men refusing to work. There's a picture of him drinking his better with his arm around a cute Cuban woman. So much for the letters he wrote begging Mom to come back to him and promising faithfulness. Even a letter from a woman he met in the South Pacific who invited him to come back there.

I got cold as darkness suddenly came; so I threw the rest of the stuff back in the tub for another day. More later.

Geometrically increasing pace

The pace of life and of new things increases geometrically. One new piece of technological hardware begats hundreds of new software applications - not only for that piece but for other pieces. And, the competitor has to keep up or lose business; so two or three or five new similar hardware items pop up - and each one has a different operating system with different programs to do the same thing. After a few years some of the competitors have dropped out of business and their products become obsolete. This is a minor glitch in the geometrically increasing idea.

When I finally finished college at age 35, Cobol II could be used as your language requirement. You seldom hear about computer languages any longer - programs in some of these languages translate ordinary words and numbers and boxes and pictures into the ideas you don't write on paper with pencils. And, we called them lead pencils - they are carbon and you don't need a sharpener.

Inventions and discoveries are abounding. Take Windows 7 for instance. Some technology just doesn't excite me. I don't play X-Box games (and is Nintendo surging ahead?), but I do have a Wii - a gaming device that I use primarily for exercise. And, now Windows 7 has arrived after extensive testing. I spent two minutes with it in Staples last week - now I crave a new computer with Windows 7 so that I can figure out how it does the things I like to do - better - worse - quicker (quicker is always better, huh?) - easier?

My Prius Hybrid can now be adapted to run on electricity alone. A gasoline engine combined with an electric system that has evolved into a different kind of car - one that has been available for some time. However, the Prius has made the idea more popular. It was state of the art. Now, almost every manufacturer is copying its system, adapting it, making it better, going one more step.

International relations seem to work the same way - a new election or coup and we're friends with a country that was our enemy. And, other countries fall into line with that thinking - so for a while, peace is more likely in that part of the world. Hillary Clinton must be exhausted - trying to form coalitions that cause a domino effect for peace and prosperity for all. One domino falls to the side, and the set-up has to be redone.

In my life, this increasing pace is new combinations of fibers for yarns, new operating systems for computers, new exercises on the Wii, new formats for banking (what happened to cash and checks?), new cleaning products (when all I wanted was something for these wood floors), and what happened to that product that I used to help remove or cover up scratches on wooden tables (does the Vermont Country Store carry it now?)?

I don't envy the young people of today. They have to know so much more than I did - along with most everything I knew then, too. Pregnancy was the direst consequence of sex with your boyfriend - now it's a fatal disease. I'm not saying that the world is moving too fast; what I'm saying is that I don't keep up. I have chosen my areas of increasing knowledge, and they are few. I look interested when others talk about things outside those areas. My friend, David Keill regularly writes on Facebook in a lingo that is outside my knowledge. So, I admit my ignorance and go on reading it anyway - maybe someday it will all make sense.

Keep on truckin', kids. The pace is getting faster and the race is getting bigger.

Sunday Cat and Dog Blogging

We are visiting friends in Denver, CO, and here are pictures of some animal friends:

the forms of space

This slightly altered photo of an early morning boater on our creek reminds me of the swirls around Saturn and of some other galaxies. How closely akin is the geometry of life to the wonder of God!

Chronological age and diplomacy

Diplomacy is about relationships. A few young people are true diplomats. Condoleeza Rice was one of those. Although I disagreed with many of her pronouncements and decisions, she knew how to navigate around people who were different from her. Hillary Clinton is another. Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Janet Reno. They each had much to dislike, but they made friends among the leaders of the world.

Age can be a great assist in that process of making friends. Think about Hillary Clinton for a moment. She went to law school at Yale during a time when that must have been difficult. She learned about underhanded dealings (common in the South at the time it happened) and how that could affect one's life. But, she negotiated her way out of that for herself and Bill. Having known one of the people involved, I have no doubt that Hillary knew the Whitewater escapade was edgy at best and borderline illegal.

Then, she survived the eight years as First Lady, failing in her attempt to promote and pass a health care reform bill. Was she disillusioned? At first she retreated into silence and good works - forging more and more powerful and not-so-powerful relationships throughout the country.

She was probably a leader is saving Bill's job during the intern affair. Again, not much doubt about Bill's involvement, but I believe she was the negotiator who maneuvered them out of that entanglement.

She ran for Senator from New York and won. Spotlight knowledge of the campaign trail and all the potholes one encounters along the way. She moved into the Senate with aplomb and worked her relationships with other senators and congressional leaders to help pass some good legislation.

Then the bid for President. She ran a good race. She might have won if she'd been prettier or could have smiled more. Barak Obama was younger, good looking, pushy, smiled a lot, seemed to have the ideal family. I believe she lost primarily because of those factors. (Don't get me wrong here; I support Obama and his goals and his energy. I don't think Hillary could have done what he has done so far.) She learned the limits of what a woman can do in the public light.

Now, as Secretary of State, Hillary is moving around the world, making contact with leaders in countries where we need support. She doesn't make the news as often as some of her predecessors, but I believe that she is building strong relationships in places where we need them. She certainly has the skills for saying the right things at the right times to keep processes open and working. She could talk her way out of a garbage dumpster with it on the way up to the dump truck. The nation needs someone with fluent language talents right now. Hillary is quietly making the contacts and gaining the tacit agreement of strong allies. Barak Obama will need those contacts and her abilities soon.

And, she is keeping very silent on the subject of health care. She is not reminding the public that she was involved in that same process some seven or eight years ago. Of course, the conservatives are scared to death of anything that bespeaks more government. I grant you that the US government doesn't have the greatest track record of handling money or entitlement programs - too many steps along the way. Hillary is continuing to show her knowledge about how politics work by staying out the way on topics that might produce adverse reactions.

She has learned a lot along the way. And, so have most of us who have reached that 60 plus age. Young teachers barge into classrooms full of energy and knowledge and encounter discipline and inner-school political problems. They balk at submitting to a negotiating style. They just want to teach, but relationships are throughout the world. I'm unsure what teachers do when they get disgusted or exhausted and leave the classroom, but I am sure they meet similar political challenges in whatever they do.

Young clergy are the same way. They throw themselves into their first church and are frequently reined in by older pastors who know that you can't make too many waves too quickly or you'll swamp the boat. Learning patience and tact is hard; learning assertiveness is also difficult. But, by the time pastors reach their mid-sixties, they choose their soapboxes carefully. One can hope they are less concerned with the trappings of church (though those decisions must be made) than they are with the care of the souls in their congregations. Developing relationships with God are as difficult as developing relationships with countries that have reason to hate us.

Age helps. Experience helps.

Seven different words for "cookie"

I was reading about diversity among Latin American immigrants in the US, and one article said there were seven different words for "cookie": bizcochito, bollito, craque, galletita, galleta dulce, cuqui, cuque. While recognizing that all those words are generic, I recognize that I have lots of different words for "cookie" but my favorite is "Chips Ahoy". Others include Moravian sugar, Oreos, and tea cakes. European languages have different names for different types of cookies, i.e. biscotti. Some places call them wafers; and in other places wafers are non-sweet crackers.

Life can be confusing in its diversity, but brand names give clarity to our passions. They are specific and not stereotypes.

Guess what we need to do with people is avoid the generalities and stick with the brand names: Miriam H, James S, Mary P. Even with people confusion abounds: here I am sharecropper; on Yahoo groups I am a different name; friends who have known me a long time call me by a nickname; more recent friends call me by my given name; a few still know me by my maiden name; and many who don't know me at all call me "sweetie" (I do live in the South, y'all). Each one of those names has a slightly different perspective of the real person behind the name, behind the writing, behind the crafts, behind the theology and the bs.

Diversity within, diversity without. And, when we've finished writing the nine million names for God, the lights will go out.

Maiden Voyage

Headed out the creek















Margaret Drives


















Lisa Drives
















Home after maiden voyage

Still not named. Red Rocket? Arabesque? Peppermint?

Mimetic Theory - part 2

Shallotpeel asked if advertising, commercialism and capitalism were all part of following the American dream of keeping up with the Joneses.

Of course, they are. The basic question, put in Biblical terms, is why did Eve eat the forbidden fruit? In modern theology, what is the source of evil? Mimetic theory is basically trying to say that evil is the result of envy.

The implementation of it in our lives is much more pervasive. This is imitation in its subtlest form. Spouse abusers are frequently children of spouse abusers. Democrats begat Democrats. Hard working families begat hard working children (sometimes anyway - the author may be excepted). We wouldn't want a flat screen television if we had not seen a flat screen television possessed by someone or advertised by an appealing person.

I wouldn't continue to collect miniature Hallmark Christmas ornaments if it did not bring me compliments or comments - which I translate into love, which is a desirable thing because my Momma told me so. It means that I have something that few other of my acquaintances do - something for which they might envy me. Mimetic theory says that this will make them jealous and so they might either try to steal my ornaments or degrade me in some other way. One way to keep up with the Joneses is to run them off (so goes the theory) - that way, I consider myself to be superior to them.

Seems like a big ego trip to me, but we do undoubtedly desire things because someone else has them. I don't believe all our desires are generated by others' possessions. But, Rene Girard contended that this is the basis of all cultures, and I suspect that he says it is the basis of civilization itself.

Seems to me the painful elaboration of the obvious. Remember, Shallotpeel, when we advertised Arthur Ashe glasses frames? The idea was that, if someone saw the name, they would want to be like Ashe and would buy the frames to make them as good as he was. Logical? Why would someone pay $$$$ for shoes that were named for Michael Jordan? Mimetic theory - imitation of Jordan.

Why do I like the color red? Long ago, did I see someone that I admired wearing red? I know that my desire for independence and being different were generated not only because my home situation made me that way, but this desire also came from seeing the wealthiest woman in town come into the Ben Franklin store in blue jeans, t-top, high heels and a full length fur coat - breezing along, uncaring about what others thought. I admired her a great deal, and so I try to be different and uncaring of what others think about me. So, where does mimetic theory fit in my life? Lots of places, but not so well in others and not at all in some places.

The uniqueness of every human is that which cannot be explained by mimetic theory or by the various combinations of mimetic traits. The theory fails in full explanation for me. But, that's how I've learned to manipulate people - leading them to places they want to be by showing them how they can be like those they admire.

Mimetic Theory

One set of You Tube videos on Mimetic Theory proposes that 1. We want things because others have them and we want to be like them. 2. Such desires create tension which can escalate into violence. 3. The theory is explained in the Bible and 4. The Bible tells us how to avoid this.

Rene Girard proposed at least part of this theory many years ago. We are mimicking or aping others. While this is acceptably true in childhood, some social scientists contend that it continues to occur throughout adulthood as well. "Keeping up with the Joneses"

Pretty things. Useful things, expensive toys for children and adults. We desire these things because others that we consider "successful" have them. Did we buy our new boat because someone else we thought was successful had a new boat. Well, I don't know anyone with a new boat. Our boat is in the shop; we love being on the water; our boat is no longer serviceable for what we want; so we bought a new boat. Sounds reasonable.

However, we bought a boat that is large enough to take friends out boating with us. Many of our friends do not have boats. We like to say that we have a boat so that we can enjoy boating with our friends. And, we do. But, sometimes I wonder about that. Are we being mimetic in our desires?

Take my yarn collection or my bead collection - why do I keep adding to this when I have more yarn and more beads than I can ever use. Why do things seem to mean so much when they really don't? I have visions of beautiful things made with these beads and this yarn. However, I either don't do it or can't do it. So these "things" go unused. But, that doesn't stop me from wanting more.

Some people say I am trying to fill an empty space in my life - an empty space that only God can fill. Don't think so. God and I get along just fine. Maybe I'm trying to make up for all the "stuff" that I didn't have when I was growing up and as a young adult - poverty can be a great motivator to hoarding.

But, desiring this stuff because others have it - nah, I don't think so. Desiring this stuff because I think it's pretty and it exists - maybe.

As for parts 3 and 4 of mimetic theory according to these You Tube videos - The Bible certainly does give a truthful picture of humanity and offers a pretty good model of what paradise could be. And, perhaps we could trace violence back to wanting what someone else has...but I'm not sure. We didn't fight the Crusades in order to have what someone else had - yet, we perpetrated violence.

I wonder how difference fits in with mimetic theory. Discomfort with strangeness. Yep, all in the Bible. But, also in other traditional stories from thousands of years before the Biblical writing. I wonder.

Gifts and the Gifted

Most of you know that I work in a yarn store. Many of our patrons and students are involved in charitable works, and I support them as best I can. One such is the Shoe Box Project - decorate a shoe box and fill it with things that someone in need can use - school supplies, toiletries, other goodies. So, I gave them a little donation the other day to help with back-to-school stuff. And, today, Tye came to the shop with a Thank You present for me - a shoe box for me to give to someone.

It's beautiful with a little stuffed animal tied on top. I almost cried.

I who have so much - gifted with something for giving.

Love is that way. The gift that multiplies as we give it away.

PS- I called my godson today. He's been clean and sober now for five months. Thanks be to God.

Communication - the long and short of it

The other day I wrote about my new phone, but what I really wanted to talk about was how communication has changed. I continue to be amazed at the new developments in technology and how we use them.

I'm thinking about where I began with learning to write in fine script and moving forward slowly then quickly to Twitter. No, I don't tweet, but I followed someone who was during the Episcopal General Convention this summer. Fascinating to know what was happening moment by moment in a meeting across the country.

I found old letters from partner's great grandmother to a friend - hmm, late 1800s - very formal notes with no personality at all. Short.

Then longer letters, still handwritten, from my Dad during WW2.

Typewritten letters from my brother in the late 1950s.

Received a telegram from my boyfriend in 1964...delivered to my office via a machine that transcribed them...a teletype of sorts.

My first email in the early 1980s...in DOS.

IMing with Donna in 2000 or so.

The blog started in 2005 or 2006.

Skype - I can see and talk just like Dick Tracy.

Facebook - short messages, quotes, film at 11, comments, finding friends

Twitter - back to very short messages, cryptic, and some without personality.

The books I read seem to get longer and longer with more description and characterization. Or else they are only a few pages with lots of blank area.

Television commercials once meant holding an image for at least 3 seconds, 90 words in 30 seconds. Now, I can hardly follow the images at all - and I'm sure some of them are there for miliseconds - subliminally creating an attitude inside me.

My mind was trained before television, and I find it difficult to deal with short sound bytes - I want the whole story including context. But the context is global, and difficult to comprehend the cultural, economic, social, political effects that are the whole story.

Still, I am interested in what comes next. Artificial intelligence is amazing. I look forward to it.

I read the whole book

If you read one of my previous posts, you know that I started "The Help", a novel from the perspective of maids in the 1960s in Mississippi. I was pained by the story and had a very difficult time getting through the beginning of it.

The Help is one of the best books I had read - particularly since I lived in Mississippi during that era.

The pain and fear continued throughout the book. I don't think maids in our little town ever wore uniforms, but they certainly were subjected to segregation. I went to an all-white school - Marks High School. The black school was called Marks Attendance Center. The King Store was a grocery on the other side of the tracks. Blacks did not shop at Piggly Wiggly, but a few ventured into the Kroger store. The only pharmacies were on the white side, but I never remember seeing a black person there.

I remember wondering why I couldn't play with "Ole Joe's" kids when they lived just down the road from us, but none of the segregation fight meant much to me.

Although I spent many early mornings in one of our clinics, I don't remember who was there. Mom could not take off from work to sit with me at the doctor's office; so she would drop me off as she went to work. When I was finished, I would walk the block to the Ben Franklin store where she worked. Sometimes she had to take off an hour to take me home - we lived 4.5 miles out of town - and would be docked for that time. Sometimes I simply slept in the back seat of the car until she got off work.

I was very familiar with the black side of town because my Dad was an alcoholic, the town drunk. He loved to sit in a garage over there and drink. None of us ever worried about my walking through that black-owned garage to the back to get Daddy. They sat on upturned Coca-Cola cases, smoked cigarettes and drank. Sometimes I was with him when he went to the bootlegger to buy more whiskey - that was in the black section of town. Sometimes the black women would give him vegetables from their gardens. He would stop to chat with them. I knew most of their names then.

The book was interesting and sad - so much fear, so much violence that is still present in Mississippi. In 2001 I went shopping for my sister-in-law at the cheap grocery store in town. My new car and my clothing were not the only things that set me apart from most of the people - I was white. They stared at me. A few of them spoke to me. I was uncomfortable wondering what they thought about me.

I was in the rioting crowds at Ole Miss when James Meredith entered there. The following summer, I actually had a class with him; we both struggled with World History, but I never spoke to him. I was too interested in drinking and having a good time.

I worked in Memphis when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed about 10 blocks away. Only then did I really become aware of what was happening...and took an integrationist point of view - one that my kin in Mississippi oppose today.

Back to the book: The Junior League was and still is out of my realm of being, but I've heard stories. I suspect this book is accurate in detail and in pain and fear but also in the loyal and loving relationships. I rejoiced in the freedom of people in the 1960s and in the book. It is well written, and the diaglogue is consistent with what I heard and some of what I still speak when I'm tired. Read it!

My new phone

My new telephone (not in iPhone) will do everything except talk the officer out of a speeding ticket (no, I really haven't tried that yet) or bleep at me when I turn into the Dairy Queen parking lot. Costly little red critter - even more costly for all the do-dads that can be added. Not only do you buy a program for each application (do-dad) but you also pay a monthly fee and with some of them you use your precious minutes.

However, I now have learned to use the QWERTY keyboard with my thumbs as long as I'm sitting still. I have trouble answering my cell phone when I'm driving and, even with good suspension, I don't do well texting as a passenger, unlike my friend who was involved in a major car accident as a passenger. She and I were texting at the time. She texted, "Wreck, wreck, bad wreck" and then nothing for a long 20 or 30 minutes. Rear ended by a large truck, their little Hundai was totaled. The driver has a vertebrae injury and bruises and scratches for my texting friend and their pup.

Back to the phone. The outside has a picture of my beautiful snowball viburnum as a background, and the inside is the creek behind our home. Many people have their pictures appear when they call, and some even have special ringtones. Not that I recognize them yet - hmm, wonder whose ringtone that is?

I can store music, pictures, documents in the phone memory or insert a memory card to carry all my information. I can sync the phone and its memory with my computer. I can download songs, podcasts and even videos from the internet as well as receive my email if I wish - and I don't wish. Can you imagine trying to watch kd lang with all her expressions as she sings "Hallelujah" on a 2 inch screen.

The camera has a flash and a zoom with 3 megapixels. I can send the pictures to my computer via text messaging. And, I understand that I should be able to send text messages to my phone from my computer. Of course, that seems needless. Costs less just to say it to me...and I don't like talking to myself when I can't answer instantly.

For a small fee, I can read my voice mail messages. Of course, I'm curious about how voice recognition programs can translate sounds into words accurately - could be some interesting voice mails. LOL

Mostly, I just want the blasted thing to send and receive phone calls well. Now that Alltel has merged with Verizon, calls aren't going through as quickly - you hear that blip, blip, blip.....all too often. Other than that, it works pretty well. A new toy!

The Help

You can't look inside the book from here because the image came from Amazon.com where you can not only look inside but also buy the book.

I was born and grew up in northern Mississippi, about a hundred miles from Jackson where this novel is set. We did not have a maid, but we did have a black woman who came in to help Mom with the laundry occasionally - and I think to do my diapers because Mom was not well when I was a baby in the mid to late 1940s. She was much loved by our family. As we went past her house on the way into town, I would often ask if we could stop and visit her. We only stopped once.

No one that I knew had a regular maid though they did exist in my little town. I don't remember that they wore uniforms, but by the 1960s I don't believe anyone except the wealthiest people had maids in our part of the country. Mom's boss had a maid until she died in the late 1990s - a wonderful woman who cooked and served a brunch before my wedding (the boss' gift to me).

I was blessed with Caroline, a black woman whose husband farmed a small acreage down the turn row from us. I visited her often in the summer. She cooked turtle soup and the best biscuits in the world. She never let me eat at the table with her and her husband. I had to eat on a white cloth over the sewing machine in the living room. I always begged to be at her table because I loved her dearly. Perhaps it was Caroline who taught me how to make tiny stitches for mending or how to season food by smelling what was needed or how to get that foot motion just right on the treadle sewing machine.

I am a white woman now in my mid 60s. I was a white child in a poor family. I cannot imagine the conversations of the white women in this book. They are painful to me. Although I've read only the first 100 pages and the last few pages, I can see the plot developing. The same hoity-toity talk continues throughout even if some honesty and devotion does develop.

I'm not sure I can handle the pain of those conversations and the duplicity of both white and black women. Race, money and position were powerful then and now. Empowerment is situational. Mae Mo, the child in the book, may be told over and over that she is good and kind and such, but she will discover that power can make you feel hated and worthless at times - no matter how much you tell yourself differently. Race, money and position still rule the world.

As my previous post mentions: sometimes I'd rather live in blissful ignorance and forgetfulness.

Politics, Church Politics, and Blissful Ignorance

The Dems and the BlueDog Dems are feuding. The Reps have gone bonkers. One of my high school friends is pegging Sarah Palin for something - maybe she needs the "Balls of the Month" award or something.

Churches are pulling together and pulling apart. Rectors are trying to keep everyone happy while they convince people that LGBT people are really human and not perverts or worse sinners than anyone else. Activists are angry that the President and the rector have not taken a firmer stand on rights for LGBT people.

I see the pain, I hear the cries, I read the literature, I Facebook about my latest knitting project.

Some days, you just have to keep on truckin' and forget about the rest of the world.

Sad commentary on welcoming the stranger

I wanted to make a point that humanitarianism is not a crime, and water’s not littering.

- Walt Staton, of “No More Death,” convicted in Tucson, Arizona, for littering after leaving water bottles for immigrants along trails in the desert. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

My brother's 70th birthday

Top - David at Mangrove Bay in Bermuda in 1959
Middle - David at 15 or 16 with Uncle Ralph's red/white Olds 88.
Bottom - David at 21 with his wife, Sue.
Today is the 70th anniversary of my brother David's birth. Of course, he's not around to celebrate - at least not in the body. His spirit may be here somewhere, and I can almost hear him, "What are you doing up? Go back to bed." He said that many times when we were growing up. He would awaken and find me crouched with my face to the window where the cool air came in, my back against the side rail of his bed.

After more than 40 years, I still miss him. He's never aged in my heart or mind. I cannot imagine what he would be like. To me, he's still the wannabe "tough". He was learning a profession - welding - but I absolutely cannot imagine that. He had long slender fingers that were made for music, which he never mastered. I think of him as delicate even though he had good shoulders and body strength.

I cannot imagine him as a father or coming home as a husband after work to his wife, Sue. He has never grown up - Peter Pan.

Belief - like with Puff the Magic Dragon - my belief in him is strong. He was my advocate, my idol, my teacher, my friend. He loved me without reservation, and he put up with me even on dates when I was in 5th and 6th grade. He took me to school with him before I was old enough for first grade. He and his friends played with me and taught me the rules of "brotherhood". You take your licks, you don't rat on your friends, you share what you have, you play close to the edge but safe, you call for help, you give help when needed, you respect your elders and mentors, you have time alone, you have time with others, you dress the part, you play your cards close to your chest.

You clean your gun when you come in from the woods; you hone your knife and oil it; your take care of your tools and your toys. You don't point a gun unless you intend to shoot it. You don't pull a knife unless you know you can keep it. Desperate situations call for desperate measures. Running is better than dying or being hurt. You laugh about the close calls. Quiet means safety.

I don't know if he taught me about winning but possibly - you figure out who has the power and what you can do to use their power for what you believe. You pay back or pay forward for favors received. You are thankful for what you have. You know that God is with you whether or not God is on your side because God may not choose sides. Praying is what you do in conversation.

I never went to kindergarten; so I never learned the rules of life that you're supposed to learn there. But, my brother who died when he was 22 had already learned those rules and thought his little sister ought to know them, too. Thanks, buddy.

Happy Birthday, David.