JUST SAD

I am so safe in writing this blog entry.  That's because nobody reads it.  So I can write this and I won't get reported as to being an almost senior citizen in need of monitoring or psychiatric help or just fucking nuts.

I'm just tired and sad.  I get approximately 100 emails per day, mostly people who need something from me.  I get unanswered phone calls from every charity that found out that I gave to another charity and I don't have the money to give to them.

I work so many hours at my job that I can't even spend any time at my heart's desire which is music and art.

Even my dogs suffer because I can't walk them every day. Sometimes my hips just hurt too much.

I have never gone on a vacation. Seriously, and I'll explain all that in a minute.  As to the present, even if I got the opportunity for a "vacation", I would first have to consider where the Hell we'd get the thousand plus dollars to do it...then I'd have to wonder if Ron could get the time off...then I have no idea if I could even manage to enjoy it at this point.  I'd probably worry about whether or not my babies were being cared for and if I would come home to (as I have before) all my plants dead and a yard that looked like it had been nuked.

I've had to take care of everything and everyone for so long, I don't know how to not do it.  I twisted my ankle tonight bringing Carson home from the vet because he bolted out of the car and I didn't want him to run in the street.  I took a bad step onto a stone and, thankfully recovered myself before I fell. That would be way beyond what I can handle. So now I have a swollen ankle, just in time for my trip to see Dad and Mom.

I'm tired.  I'm just tired of being the go-to person for everything.  I can't imagine what it's like for my friends who go on cruises and trips and don't think of anything else but having a nice time.  I've never done that in all of my life.  Thank God nobody reads this.  I don't want sympathy and so this way I get to feel tired and burned out and sad and wiped and nobody has to tell me that a lot of people all over the world have it a lot worse than I do.  I'm well aware. I'm just really, really tired and really really sad.  It will be nice to see my family, at least for a few days.  I wish, at the age of almost 59, I had a few more options.  Guess I'd better think about trying to move to Canada. Or something.

WHY WE ARE HERE

I have a friend who I consider to be my brother.  We grew up together, riding bikes in Darboy, Wisconsin when there were open streets and roads bordered by cornfields.  We laughed and talked and sometimes competed and completely loved one another.  He is more my brother than two of my siblings who are blood related.  We never lost touch with one another over the course of 42 years.  We have seen one another through every incarnation of our friendship and our love for one another.  It's a testimony to the resilience and eternal nature of friendship.  The lines blur until this wonderful person is so much a part of your life, your heart and your soul that, near or far, they are a constant...with you always.

My brother has prostate cancer.  He is younger than I and he is scared and in the first stage which is grieving.  I have been on the phone encouraging him in the very reason he didn't want to tell me. He cries.

Please, all my male friends, quit the shit.  If you would cry when things hurt and talk about the things that make you nuts and actually share your feelings, I believe that the cancer rate would go down.  In the meantime, I am dealing with my brother.

I would never betray him by sharing his identity so let's just call him "Johnny."  Any wanderer in the world of cyberspace who may happen upon this blog, speak his name and send it on high.  Just speaking the name of someone afflicted with an illness, accompanied with the faith that says someone hears it, impacts the universe.

Johnny has so  much left to give to this world. I know in my heart it is not his time.  I hate what he is facing as far as pain and exhaustion because Johnny, like me, can't stand a day that didn't produce something that makes the world better.  Even if it's just grading a road before the snows come.  Even if it's just learning a new skill that would make me a better employee.

We are partners on a soul level.  I'm not ready to lose him.  He's not ready to go.  So, any and everyone, just say his name..."Johnny"...God will sort him out from the other "Johnny's" because God already knows.

I guess that's all.  I want to ride in with the cavalry and make everything right and there is no cavalry and I have no control.  Except to love him, support him and be there any and every time he asks me to be there.

Pray for my brother.  My prayer is that, somehow, just once, this blog gets some attention.  Regardless, I have just asked the universe to take care of Johnny.  The rest is up to God...and me, since I will be there for him, regardless the day, time or expense. He ain't heavy.  He's my brother.

BASEBALL AND SEX

I'm up late nursing a loss to the Padres. This time of year is baseball at its best and the best team in baseball in my estimation is the Colorado Rockies.  So after the loss, I have to do something to settle my crazy brain and I'm watching an episode of "Parenthood" where the kid is doing the "where do babies come from routine."

What is wrong with us as homo sapiens. We are the only part of nature that is frightened, ashamed and unable to communicate to our young how life begins.  I can't conceive (no pun intended) of a dog saying to his mate ("Oh, don't tell him, he's too young to know.")

Idiot people of America...it is nature.  It is our responsibility to fully educate our children as to how they came to be.  And for you Evangelicals, you should be the first to educate your children because as far as your teachings go, God created this methodology.

Good Lord, when my poor Catholic mother was forced to "educate" my sister Jane and myself, she gave us a book from the Catholic church that we were supposed to read before Mother was then to talk to us.  We read this nutsy thing about God and Fathers and Seeds and it made absolutely no sense.  Mother left us alone for a while and then asked if we had any questions.  We both said "no" and Mother, quite relieved, left the room.  I then asked Jane "Do you have any idea what that was all about?"  She said "no".

Oh, by the way, Mom lucked out because that was also the "period" talk that they addressed in a different, riveting episode.  It gave advice that a cold water bath would check the flow.  Of what we weren't sure.  I remember my first cold water bath to try to check my period. God knows why you would even need or want to do that.  The cramps convinced me that I wouldn't do that again.

My point is that I told my son about sex while we watched the sun rise over Virginia Beach overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.  He asked and I told.  I was scolded a few months later when his stepmother called and said "I just want you to know that Jimmy just told Felicia that she has a vagina."  My response was: "Well, she has one, doesn't she."

I'm not certain why America is so screwed up about sex.  All of our advertising, our media, our booming businesses, our popular singers and entertainers are objectified and work day by day to be perfect examples of sexual delight.  Yet, we don't want anyone to tell us about where babies come from.  What is freaking up with that?

Back to Baseball.  How does this tie in?  Honesty.  If a guy needs to be pulled out of the game, hurt feelings be damned.  Pull him out.  It's about the season.

If a kid asks you about sex for Christ's sake, tell that child the truth.  It's about the rest of their life.  An error in baseball could mean a game loser.  An error in your child's knowledge and preparedness regarding sex could mean a pregnancy.

I love Baseball.  I love our kids more.  This odd convergence of the two subjects was a complete accident but I welcome it.  I hope someday I reach some people.  I have so much to say and I care beyond measure.

The Rockies aren't out of it yet.  Take care of your kids.

9 YEARS AGO

Nine years ago, I watched Denver Bronco Ed McCaffrey break his leg on Monday night football.

The following morning, I was awakened by a phone call at about 6:30 by my best Pal, Thom, asking me "Do you know what's going on?"  I had gone to sleep listening to Sports radio, so I said "Eddie's out for the season, his leg is really badly broken."  Thom responded that I had to get up and turn on the TV...that a plane had just flown through the first tower of the World Trade Center.

I'm not going to recount all the pain and horror of that day. We lost countless wonderful, bright and hopeful people of every faith, ethnicity, size, shape, color and ideology.  We lost every contribution these lost souls could have made to their families, their neighborhoods, their city, their country and their world. We lost our neighbors and our friends.  It was a horrific attack. However, one of the reasons that this attack remains so vividly raw, painful, abominable and unbelieveable is because we, as a nation, are so very fortunate.

We are not Europe...Spain, Ireland, London -  We are not Palestine,  Israel, Afghanistan or Iraq...We are not Africa...Darfur, Somalia...We are not Eastern Europe... I guess what I'm saying is that nine years later, we are the United States of America, still painfully grieving a single incident. Please don't misconstrue this statement as a minimization of what happened on September 11th, 2001.

However, as a mighty and powerful nation we have observed while other nations have endured daily attacks, multiple bombings, torture and other horrific wounds.   While our neighbors on this planet live with these painful and sometimes daily realities, we in America  look to this one terrible incident...the first such attack on our soil since Timothy McVeigh...a domestic terrorist who wanted to "water the tree of freedom."  This USA born and bred Iraq veteran slaughtered hundreds of innocent victims, including tiny children in a day care center, when he successfully detonated a fatal and deadly car bomb at the the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Timothy McVeigh was proudly white. In an interview before his execution, he maintained pride in what he had accomplished.  The victims were, in his own words, "collateral damage" and a means to the end of his statement against the intervention of the United States government upon our freedoms. Waco Texas was his inspiration.  The fact that David Koresh held his alleged followers captive and had sex with the children of the "flock" didn't seem to bother McVeigh.  Only the government intervention pissed him off.  At the time I was a youth minister and we worked on a project as to how things like this happen and how to deal with life in the aftermath.  We did this without blame or hatred.  We did this to try to understand what had just taken place in the middle of America.  I remember everything as if it was yesterday.

Funny...there's one thing I don't remember. I don't remember a backlash against young, male, white people after that horrific attack occurred in our homeland. I remember that upon each anniversary of this horrific attack upon our homeland, people rang bells and held memorials.  Honorable and meaningful gatherings of people who joined together to comfort and help one another through...even today these people band together in community and love.

The 9/11attack was exacerbated by the fact that only a few months earlier, the serving  president ignored a daily briefing that pretty much laid out the details of the very act that came to fruition on that day. This president scoffed and ignored it.  He couldn't be bothered.  He went on vacation.  He continued to bask in the longest and highest number of vacations that any president has ever enjoyed in the history of this country.  While a nation wept, purchased duct tape and gas masks (where available...another panic driven market that ripped off the frightened public thanks to Tom Ridge) and lived in shocked and dazed fear, the president played golf.  If you doubt me, here's the direct quote from the former president:

" I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now, watch this drive." 

We stand this day at such an important crossroad.  We can continue down the path that is being perpetuated by the Palins and the Becks and the Gingriches and the Limbaughs and the Hannitys.  We can continue to target and blame a particular group of people who share a faith that predates Christianity.  Since life is so often reduced to the path of least resistance, guided by the hate-mongers the country follows and funnels all of its hate and anger upon the Muslims. Unlike Timothy McVeigh, they are kinda tan and have an accent and dress differently so we have an easier target.

There is another road.  We can, first, remember the lost. We can remember and thank the heroes who ran into those buildings and lost their lives on that fateful day.  Even more, we can join the effort to provide medical and mental health care for the heroes who survived the onslaught and are now dealing with every illness, pain, and disorder as a result of what they experienced.  We can also get off our asses and try to build bridges in our country and in our world, utilizing the virtues of discourse, kindness and understanding as opposed to hatred, bigotry and blame.

We are so very lucky.  This big, bad-ass country is still standing.  And I'm flying my flag high as I have for years.  Yeah, all that crap you hear about us liberals hating America is a bunch of hooey.  I would just like to see us, as a country, deploying all that big, bad-ass strength to build a better, safer, and more generous world.

You can start with the burka-clad Muslim woman in the grocery store looking furtively without a friendly face and ask her if she might need some help.  You might smile and tell her that the canned vegetables are on aisle six. It begins there.  It's really as simple as that.

My life is no peaches and cream but it is Heaven compared to most of the rest of the world. Tomorrow I will get up in my safe house with my three dogs and two cats, my gardens, my canning jars awaiting another day of putting up my fall preserves and a weekend to care for my home.  So many of our brothers and sisters around the world are, tonight, sleeping on the ground.  They attempt to rest, fitfully, finally awakening and wondering if they will find a drink of water this morning. Perhaps a bite of rice for my failing child.  I, in turn, will probably have an invitation from one of my friends to go out to breakfast.

I struggle with the disparity and have many times turned down the invitation and then donated what I would have spent to a worthy charity.  But this isn't about me.  If I sold everything I owned to give to them I would become a burden upon my own community and that is not what I'm saying.  We need to enjoy our life and our friends and our families.  I only want us to realize how very fortunate we are and act upon that fortune rather than accepting it as a way of life.  It is not a way of life for so much of the world.

I also believe that we should forever commemorate this day. We should always bless and remember those we lost.

However, I believe that those angels, now watching over us, would want more out of us than countless recitations of names, throwing of roses in a pond and re-viewings of the planes flying through the twin towers.  I believe that they would tell us to count our immense blessings and get off our behinds to make this a better world.  How about it?  Are you in?

Will you still be writhing in the pain of this attack year after year or will you choose another course. The latter choice will mean turning off Fox News and turning on your inner moral compass.  The one that tells you to love one another.  You know...the thing that Jesus would have done.  He loved everyone.  How about you?

To view comments or to comment on this or any other postings, click on the blog posting title to the right. It will then give you a comments area where you can post your thoughts. Have fun. Don't be dicks or I will annihilate you.

PERHAPS IT'S WHAT THEY WANT

The silence of the right after General Patraeus warned about the dangers of an ignorant, southern, white church holding a Koran Burning assembly on September 11th makes me wonder if they might just want the resulting anger and retribution from the Muslims of the world.  Those who have read 1984 know the campaign of eternal war is one of the ways of keeping a society in line.  Plus, America is really good at trading out hate groups.  Oh, we can handle several at a time but they are on a tiered basis.  Right now, I'd say the top three in order are Muslims, Brown people and Gays.

I'm so sick of hate. I'm so sick of hate-mongers hiding behind freedom of speech with no impediments as they spew their venom and propagate unfounded fear to low information or uneducated members of our society.  They know it works. Put a lie out there and that's the first piece of information people hear.  All the arguments to the contrary, including a confession from the liar that he/she "misspoke" does no good.  The lie is out there and has already been accepted by those thirsting for a reason to justify their prejudice and hatred have taken it to heart and are off to the races.

We need a movement.  We need to get off our asses like we did when I was a kid in the 60's.  Sing, yell, protest, march...not this Glen Beck bastardization of a rally but real discourse and instead of "Hell no, we won't go" (as was the chant during the Viet Nam war) we need to stand against the party of "NO" and shout "HELL YES...WE VOTE YES!"

Obama is not perfect and the great communicator is too often a professor.  That's because he's really, really intelligent and makes the mistake of thinking that the the American public is also intelligent.  When he says that I cringe because I know it to be nonsense.  However, the man has worked virtual miracles with an economy and two wars and more disaster than faced any president since the 1930's.  So will I stand with him and will I vote?  HELL YES!  Enthusiasm be damned.

They say we lack enthusiasm as Democrats.  Well, I have lots of enthusiasm for my Congressman, Ed Perlmutter and will work my butt off to get our house district Candidate, Rhonda Fields elected and I will vote for Michael Bennett. My enthusiasm for him is not what I'd call over the top but, by God, he is Jesus walking on water compared to "Conservative Ken Buck" for God's sake. I'm also sending money to individual candidates across the country. I know $5 isn't much but if everybody sent $5 just think of the grassroots campaign these people would have.

Don't count us out in the election.  As to the book burners...this idiot pastor actually used the non-word "tragical" to describe the idea of a soldier dying because of their church's actions.  I think we ought to raise billboards in this country saying "America loves ALL PEOPLE OF ALL BELIEFS."

We need to shout about how many of us are just fine among our Baptist, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Mennonite, Jehovah Witness, Buddhist, Methodist, Wickin, Presbyterian, Hindu, Church of God, Unitarian, Baha'i, Quaker, Mormon, Agnostic, Amish, and Atheist neighbors.  I'm sorry, I know I skipped a bunch but in the interest of making the point, I hope you'll forgive me, I didn't intend to slight anyone.  Not that an Amish person would even be reading this, but you know what I mean.

And if we're not just fine among all of these, then we'd better get fine.  It was why the Pilgrims came here.  Freedom of religion.  Contrary to all the voices who say this is a "Christian" nation, this is a nation that was founded upon the freedom to practice every faith without persecution.

And, yes, it's in the Constitution.

To view comments or to comment on this or any other postings, click on the blog posting title to the right. It will then give you a comments area where you can post your thoughts. Have fun. Don't be dicks or I will annihilate you.

BASEBALL AND HOME

When I was a little kid, the baseball games were always on.  Back then, there was only one game on the TV... the game of choice for one of the three networks. We got to hear Dizzy Dean's wonderful bending of the English language with such verbal jewels as "he just slud into third!"  Interviews with Casey Stengel.  Gems that fell from Yogi Berra's mouth like chipped diamonds.

As I write this, the Rockies just beat the Padres 4-3 and I'm completely distracted by the commentary by our Manager, Jim Tracy, who freaking rocks by the way. To my point.

Parents give you unintentional gifts.  From the time I was an infant, it was obvious that I was a musician. But the inundation of athletics and, particularly, baseball in our home, the fact that Dad taught his daughters to throw and catch and to stand at the plate with a chance to hit the ball just like the boys - then to top it all, taking us from an early age to see the Milwaukee Braves play at County Stadium in Milwaukee gave me something that is as much a part of my heart as is music.  I am exhausted after I watch a game because I stand at the pitcher's mound and I stand in the Batter's Box...my body feels the swings, and every muscle in my body feels the pitch when it flies across the plate.

I am looking into ideas for getting me out of the house and involved in life since the accident pretty much screwed my opportunity to return to the Improv community. So, now that I'm becoming a bit more mobile and am dealing with the residual pain issues, I'm ready to get out and do something and it has to be in performance.  I wish I'd been chosen for the job I applied for so long ago.

When the Rockies were becoming a reality in the early 90's they ran an ad for the team organist.  I wrote the coolest letter and included a resume of everything I'd done, my knowledge of baseball and ability to know when and where to play, and how it would be so cool if the daughter of a coach became a part of a major league ball club as a MUSICIAN.  I didn't get the job.  I was really sad. That would still be my happiest job of my life. Revving up a crowd with my ridiculously creative brain. (They don't know what they're missing.)  Ah well...

Again, I took a trip down the tangential river.  I have always been a fan of boat rides so I hope you enjoyed it along with me.

I'm mostly thinking about how when you're a teenager you have, by necessity, an adversary relationship with your parents. You are establishing your personality, your ideas and your independence.  The time to worry is when a child just complies with everything its parents say throughout its growing years and never even attempts to develop its own identity.  While annoying, disturbing and difficult because parenting is such a long time investment, letting go and allowing them to grow up is such a challenge. The word "NO" from your child is actually the first sign of success.

So, in the "no" time there were a lot of disconnects.  A good parent keeps presenting the connects and I got those.  Countless baseball games:  High school, Legion and Major League.  I guess that's why my list of favorite movies contains Broadway musicals (including Damned Yankees) but also "Field of Dreams," "Eight Men Out," "Bull Durham," "Major League," (filmed in County Stadium, the stadium of my youth and my son's youth to boot) "The Natural," and perhaps the baseball movie I have yet to write with the brilliant aid of my son.  I supply the plot and pithy dialog and he supplies the "inside baseball" knowledge.

You know what's awesome about writing a blog that pretty much nobody reads?  No fear. I'm often told that I hold back and don't tell people who I am. So here I am, sending it out to the universe and nobody knows.  I guess the universe and I are even.  Here I am.  Tonight, I'm home and the Rockies won.  All is well with the world.

To view comments or to comment on this or any other postings, click on the blog posting title to the right. It will then give you a comments area where you can post your thoughts. Have fun. Don't be dicks or I will annihilate you.

CATS AND FLAME THROWERS

Okay, if you wonder why I love Craig Ferguson, here you go

He just said this country was founded on the premise of entertainment that was best expressed by a cat with a flamethrower in its ass.

The "What Did We Learn on the Show Tonight Craig" had the usual kitten who, in this incarnation, tried to kill a Zombie with a gun and when that didn't succeed, shot a flamethrower out of its ass.

A Kitten. With a flamethrower. In its ass.

How could I not love this man?

To view comments or to comment on this or any other postings, click on the blog posting title to the right. It will then give you a comments area where you can post your thoughts. Have fun. Don't be dicks or I will annihilate you.

I'm going to sleep now.  I hope.

WELL PLAYED OLD BROAD

I'm sitting here with a bit of insomnia.  Worked late and it's difficult to get spreadsheets out of a compulsive brain. So, I'm watching "Pal Joey" starring (of course) Frank Sinatra and remembering pure joy.

I just put an old pal on the plane today.  Kimmy was my drummer back in the early 80's when I was playing out east.  We had a blast.  She hasn't changed a bit - she's still the same kid she was when I met her - back then she was turning 20 and I was turning 30.  Now she's close to 50 and I'm pushing 60.

She said how she often wishes she'd realized that those were the best days of her life.  I knew it when it was happening, just like I knew it every single day I could make a living as an entertainer.  She remembers every single detail because it was her only real Nightclub/Cabaret experience.  I was so lucky to have so many.

It's funny...she brought up people and events that had faded into black.  But the people we really loved in common were as vivid today as they were almost thirty years ago.  We brought them back to life together, and I got way too little sleep but we laughed and talked and it was simply wonderful.

I also pulled off a great gotcha on my son.  Mind you, this kind of crap was my specialty when I was on the boats.  I was, however, among experts who gave as good as they got. But I digress...to my recent gotcha.

Jimmy found an ad for "Midget Wrestling" and knew immediately that he could push every button in the world with it.  So he cut it out and put it on my refrigerator with one of my magnets.  So I decided to show him the brilliance of "Mother."

Last night a bunch of us were going to meet for dinner, so I arranged that we'd meet at Jimmy's apartment.  I, in the meantime, took that advertisement and cut it to fit the width of a toilet paper roll.  I then took a roll and unwound it several feet and taped the "Midget Wrestling" ad into the roll and rolled it back up.  I then traded my purse for one that was big enough to hide a roll of toilet paper.

When I got to his place I did the usual thing.  "I have to use the bathroom" before we left for dinner.  I replaced his roll with the sabotaged roll.

This morning I got an email with the subject "The Bathroom."  His only comment was "Well played Old Broad...well played."

It gave me immense joy.

One point for the old broad.  Good night...I have a date with Frank Sinatra for about 40 more minutes and I don't want to be late.

To view comments or to comment on this or any other postings, click on the blog posting title to the right. It will then give you a comments area where you can post your thoughts. Have fun. Don't be dicks or I will annihilate you.