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Dawn, musings and breakfast
Friday
Shabbat Morning
Day five of my commitment to write and post each day.
“Thou shalt write of it each and every day. The profound, the banal, thou shalt write of it.”
Shabbat dawns, and I pull the blankets up over my head just in case a happy dog is 
waiting for my eyelids to flutter. It is Shabbat and I want to sleep in. But once again, I am betrayed by Mr. Bladder and stumble out of bed and hobble to the loo to quiet him down, flipping off the small A/C on the way. I run it at nights to cool the bedroom down to arctic lows without having to cool the entire house. It is also nice to have a warm bathroom and kitchen to walk into if you sleep in an igloo.
Snooks, as usual, is putting the dishes away from the dishwasher, measuring out food bowls for kittens, birds and dogs, and just generally puttering around as I fill my coffee cup and head down to the studio. I have three feral cats peering in the widow this morning, but they have no interest in me unless it would be to remind the breakfast lady that they are on the porch waiting for their food.
Click on the newsfeeds. They are mercifully quiet this morning. A bunch of freedom lovers shut down a speech from a cabinet official … in the name of free speech. A teacher is reminded that cursing a political candidate in the classroom is a no-no. A politician reminds his loyal followers that he is out of cash and will need to give up his ambition to be their leader if they don’t cough up some cash soon.
A friend in Asia posts some photos of religious praise in Singapore. Another in the deep south updates us on her recovery. A poet posts a poem
And so, this Shabbat morning opens. Soon I will post this and go fix breakfast. Think it will be the standby eggs, turkey sausage and hash-browns. Maybe some canned fruit. Then the rest of the day is mine to play, to ponder, to read and to nap.
Good morning!
Life is not all beer and skittles
Friday
Preparation Day
Day four of my commitment to write and post each day.
Woke in a great deal of pain this morning. Evidently, I raised my adjustable bed’s head and knee cranks too high last night and found myself curled up into a ball in the trough between them. It was a painful slumped shuffle to the studio this morning, with my knuckles almost brushing the carpet. I keep a percussion type massager by the computer to “thump” my chest and back to clear the lungs, but this morning it was set high to massage a sore back and neck.
One feral cat was perched on the lintel, looking into the room to see if Snookums was moving about. They usually gather on the deck about an hour before breakfast time. The dogs are getting used to it so other than a growl occasionally, they ignore them. That is a blessing.
My niece wrote a heartbreaking piece this morning about her dad, my brother-in-law. He has Alzheimer’s now, and doesn’t recognize my sister who has been married to him for 56 years. They live in a village in the Colorado Rockies near the Great Divide. She appealed to her community to watch out for him, because while they try to watch him, he needs less sleep than the family does, and will go out into the streets. Sometimes he just collapses because of weakness and won’t ask for help. Aging is not for sissies …
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And today is Friday. Preparation day if you follow a my tradition. The day evolved from the time of Moses and the story of the great exodus from Egypt. Food rained down from heaving during the night, and they gathered the food each day. But it didn’t keep overnight, and so it had to be gathered daily. However, since they were not permitted to gather on Shabbat, they could gather twice as much the day before, and it wouldn’t spoil. The idea is that you work six days, and you rest one day. But these days, every day is a Shabbat for me, and I can only differentiate between the days by the days activities. On this day, Snookums bakes the challah bread. I just observe the day by … well … observing.
The newsfeeds today are mercifully banal. On the political side, one political maven lamented the bullying tactics of the other side kept his candidate from winning. I don’t know why it is so hard for the opposition to just admit they ran a bad candidate and had a bad strategy. It really isn’t more complicated than that. Want to win? Get a good candidate and run a good campaign. It really is that simple.
Sad morning … the cookie jar is empty. The bird is molting. My body is still aching. My coffee cup is empty. Time for a refill …
Good morning!
~r
Dogs, false witnesses, coffee and cookies
Thursday
Day three of the I don’t wanna write exercises.
“Thou shalt write of it each and every day. The profound, the banal, thou shalt write of it.”
OK … I arose exactly one-half hour after sunrise at the urging of Mr. Bladder who ALWAYS wakes one half-hour after sunrise and thinks that I should too. I would really prefer to sleep in.
Pad out to the kitchen, give a quick peek out the window to see how many feral cats the cat lady has waiting for their breakfast, then on into the kitchen for that first cup that Snookums has already brewed. Nothing beats having the coffee waiting for you. It is agony waiting for the wheezing coffee maker to squeeze out twelve cups morning magic, so if I can stall long enough before rising, it magically gets brewed and waits patiently for me.
Filch a couple of sugar cookies out of the jar, and pad on down to the studio, set the coffee down, and spend five minutes irritating the bird, and checking the widow to see what is happening in the yard. Since the cats have arrived, the morning birds have disappeared. Life has its balance, and we must learn to abide by it. Cats or birds … you can’t have both.
Checking the news feeds while sipping coffee and nibbling cookies is the next event. Usually by this time the mutts have smelled cookie if they haven’t already watched me get them out of the jar, and I am surrounded by pleading eyes that tell me that they never get anything good, and I could do them such a kindness by sharing. But I resolutely avoid looking at them and concentrate on the day’s events.
Mercifully there isn’t much new this morning. Bibi Netanyahu is forming a government but can’t form the government he wants. I have never quite understood the Parliamentary system of governance, so I accept that as some exotic maneuver by him as he continues to look out for Israel’s interests, and others try to thwart that in the hopes that Israel’s interests are something else. Yep. Don’t understand it.
And the New York Times reporters say something was edited out of the story of another woman abused by Justice Kavanaugh, that even though she said she didn’t recall the event, she was certainly sexually abused by Kavanaugh. Can’t say I understand that either.
And Trump continues to fret over how to enact gun control without controlling guns. Advisers are telling him that the left will love him if he does. I am reasonably certain they wouldn’t like him even then, and American gun owners would most certainly abandon him. If he is wise, he will just drop it and get on with governing.
A sister receives bad news about her aging dog. Finally, something I do understand this morning. Over a lifetime, I have had many dogs and can’t imagine life without one. But that damned short lifespan of theirs insures that just about the time you are thoroughly in love with them, they leave. It is a sadness.
And so the day awakens. No big things are on the agenda. The job jar overfloweth and vexes me, but not enough to pull out a slip and do something.
Good morning!
~r
Rota’s, Rituals and Meanderings
Wednesday
Day two of my commitment to write a little each morning. I don’t have to like it, I just have to do it.
So, armed with a fresh cup of coffee, two sugar cookies, and followed by four dogs coveting my cookies, I return to the keyboard with freshened resolve to just not let the days slide by unnoticed. I keep treats by the computer because I don’t share cookies. When I am done, they each get on tiny treat, and they accept it reluctantly. They know it isn’t cookie. I am such a bastard at times.
A quick run through the newsfeeds …
Democrats are disappointed. The much-vaunted impeachment inquiry into the possibility of an impeachment was deemed a flop by both Democrats and ahem! unbiased left wing ‘sources’. Jerry Nadler, the chief inquisitor of this trial by fire was left sputtering whether he was going to charge the witness with Contempt of Congress or not. The witness, Corey Lewandowski, apparently will not participate in an auto-de-fe now, and the left is crushed, and they have let the Democrats on the committee know how displeased they are.
And the President is deciding what he wants to do about gun control, and tweeted that Robert “Beto” O’Rourke’s fiery oath to confiscate all AR-15 and look-alikes if he is elected was not helpful to the determination. Tweeted off a request that the President do NOTHING about gun control.
Yeah. Sure. He saw that tweet and took it to heart. Sure.
On a more significant note, I can tell Snooks is putting on her socks and shoes just by hearing the ruckus down the hall. She and the mutts are going outside for a little morning ball throwing. Now that the weather has cooled a little, they don’t mind staying out a bit longer than usual.
Snooks has turned into the cat lady too. We now have three yellow feral cats that sit on the porch in the morning waiting for the breakfast lady to bring out a little cat kibble and water. They peer into my studio through one window, and into the dining room through the other window, trying to see if she is moving their way. They are out there at sunup, but Snookums is a woman of routine, and they will just have to wait until their turn comes up on the rota. She only gives them half rations because we want them to eat mice and rats as well. I think before long I am going to have to trap them, get them neutered and notched, and bring them home again.
And so goes the days …
Good morning!
~r
“Thou shalt write of it each and every day. The profound, the banal, thou shalt write of it.”
It has been awhile since I sat down to write in the morning. I did that religiously for over a year, publishing what I called “coffee posts”. I did notice that my grammar improved, and that began writing clearer sentences, but I sure did get tired of chronicling the banal. You can only write of the morning softness so many times before it becomes overworked.
They usually started out with “The dawn broke softly outside the Armor homestead .. ”, then went on with some musings about religion and news.
I am forever indebted to my online friend Becky Wiegers, who one morning commented “some morning I am going to read ‘All hell broke loose in the Armor household this morning!’”. It caught me up a little short as a writer wannabe. Yeah, there comes a time when you need to mix things up a little. But the problem is these days is that I am indeed blessed with serenity, and only the newsfeeds get me riled up. But liberals are liberals, and you can only huff and puff at their insufferable elitism for so long before you need to move on. I can’t spend my time riled up either.
So writing then became a problem. I spent all my composing capital on making the banal interesting, and didn’t know where to go from there, so I quit writing entirely, and spent most of my time abusing liberal trolls on conservative news sites. I tried using humor, and if I just touched their comments lightly and moved on, I was fine. But ever so often one would try and engage me, and the battle was on. But my heart isn’t in defeating heresy to the Constitution. I love my country, but it can’t last forever, and the people have discovered Thomas Jefferson’s worst fear. They can now write themselves taxes, and call it good. So I opine that it is already too late for us, and we should let the millennial’s have their ‘paradise’. They most certainly will rue it, but who cares? I got mine, and I’ll be gone when the bill arrives.
There … got that out of the way.
So anyway … here I sit in front of the cyclops eye and write. Sometimes I can just put something down, and watch where it goes, and that is what I am doing here. I want to take up the pen again, but I don’t want to write fiction, I don’t want to comment on politics, I don’t want to warn of the end of the world, and I don’t want to write another damned coffee post.
But the coffee is in fact good, and the morning is in fact soft and cottony, and the sugar cookies are safely tuck in my tummy.
And I do need to discipline myself to write again.
“Thou shalt write of it each and every day. The profound, the banal, thou shalt write of it.”
Good morning!
~r
The Evil Inclination ~ Yetzer Hara
Pondering:
The evil inclination of mankind mars all men, even in his finest hour, and when he abides in abject misery and poverty of soul, it still entices him to choose wrongly. Then a generation arises that doesn’t comprehend it is evil. It calls evil good, and good evil, and sets the stage for a people who even stand before God in all his power and magnificence, and they shake their fists and spit out vile curses at him. The remaining faithful, a remnant, gape at this. How can this be? It is one thing to not know any god, and to act foolishly. But it is a marvel when they finally see God, yet continue to behave spitefully.
My new entrepreneurial endeavor
The time has come.
I am thinking of getting into the boxed meal business
Just think
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Coffee, Happy Birds, Sour Grapes and Private Jets
The second round of Democrat debates have come and gone, and gee willikers, Batman! I missed them. Darn, darn, darn.
But not to worry … our ever vigilant and hyperventilating lap dog press is here this morning with more exhaustive insight.
And the glitterats are jetting off to Googles whiz bang 20-million-dollar global warming soiree in Sicily’s Verdura resort, with cheapie rooms going for almost a grand a night, and the pricier ones kept a secret. Not not to worry. Google is picking up the hotel and food bill, and presumably the jet fuel for the 114 or so private jets flying the climate change warriors into the resort. They need the financial help. Really.
Obama is there, DiCaprio, Perry … all A listers … the rest of y’all will have to read about it on the fan sites. But it is for your own good. Go back to your video games now.
And life on a lower level here in the warm pampas of Central Texas, life muddles on, sans jets and celebrity fete’s … other than a few old worn out country singers who manage to straggle in unannounced to the kicker bars that dot the landscape.
The family pages have hints of troubles that go unheralded by the press. My family just isn’t like important. Or anything.
But perhaps that is a blessing. I don’t have to pretend to sound profound while swimming in a sea of banality. Or so I tell myself. Offer me a paid private jet, and I would probably take it. I can be had.
But the coffee is predictably good, the bird is excessively happy this morning, the sun is shining, and I don’t live in poverty or misery. I am blessed.
Good morning!
Habits and Muses
I awoke just as the coffee maker wheezed its last grunt as it topped off the coffee pot with thick, dark coffee. Snook thankfully poured that first cup for me since my eyes were still blurry and sleep swollen, and I staggered on down to the studio and plopped down in my $49 “Executive” chair that I bought in 1982, and since then repaired many times. But I don’t want to replace it … it fits my bottom now.
Answered a couple of emails, checked on the Democrat hate fest as reported by FoxNews online, made a few snarky comments to leftists who hate Fox, but spend a great deal of waking time making comments about how much they hate it.
Then I was out of things to do while waking up.
For the first time in weeks, I put up a blank page in the word processer to see what would happen. Lately, I have been looking at the page and telling myself “I just can’t do this …”
And like magic, there she was, perched on the right corner of the monitor. She was wearing nuns clothing and idly switching a string of rosary beads back and forth in her lap. Unfortunately, that angle on the monitor also revealed puffy shins and hosiery rolled down just below the knees. I averted my eyes. It was a bit more than I was ready for this early in the morning.
“What’s with the nuns get up? I would be careful if I were you. Them things can become habit forming.” I asked, chuckling at my cleverness.
She looked at me levelly for several seconds before shaking her head and replying. “It is the only legitimate occupation for a spurned woman.”
“You weren’t spurned. I was just … ah … busy.” I replied defensively.
“Yes. With that video game.” She said and pointed her nose in the air.
“It’s not a ‘game’. It is a simulation of a real railroad.” I shot back testily.
“Maybe. But it is a waste of time and it is NOT writing nor paying any attention to me.” She replied shrilly. Maybe a bit too shrilly.
“It isn’t a waste of time! It takes a LOT of skill to bring a train down Tehachapi Pass! And you are just a figment.” I tried explaining to her.
“Figment? Are you sure? And real engineers make about $90 grand a year. How much does an aged geezer sitting at the pc in his underwear make? If you sold just one story you would make more than you do playing engineer.”
I carefully picked that dart out and replied. “They are boxer shorts, not underwear. And it isn’t playing. It is simming!”
“OK. A geezer in lime green boxer shorts, idly ‘simming’ at the computer. Better?” She said, smugly.
I fired back again. “Has anyone ever told you that you have one really nasty streak in you?”
“Why thank you, sweetheart! That is the nicest thing you have said to me this year!” She crooned.
I brushed that off and replied, “Seriously, though, I just have not been able to write anything and follow it through. After two or three paragraphs, I have completely lost all interest in it and can’t seem to generate any new thoughts. I used to love writing 500 word shorts with trick endings. But that love has vanished as well.”
Her face brightened and she asked, “What about spiritual pieces? You have always had peculiar slants on great spiritual themes.”
“I dunno. I am surrounded by spiritual prigs, and just don’t have the patience with them that I used to. If I must tell someone that it is merely a funny story and ask them to not take offense, the joy goes right out of it. It is sad that the more I am around believers, the less I want to be around them. But then, I feel the same way about pagans too, so maybe I am just turning into an old crank.”
“Just turning?” She smirked.
“Back off, woman!” I growled.
“Well, I must go back into the cloister. They will miss me soon and start asking embarrassing questions. I don’t know what to tell you. But I sure hope you find what it is that is blocking you soon. Ta ta!” she said, then turned and walked away.
“Me too, sister. Me too.” But I don’t think she heard me.
Take it how you want it … or carping about the dayum
So what does this day mean to me now that one half of our population hates the celebration. The one that entire political party hates the duly elected President so much that it steals their joy and they loudly proclaim their disdain for those that do wish to celebrate it in an effort to share their discontent. Yet they call that democracy … I think I’ll have none of it.
They can yammer and pul all they want. I am inured to their surly mewlings. I’ll set the banner on the porch today and remember a god who generously set me in the midst of such wealth and comfort. The poorest among us live in such comfort in comparison to the truly poverty stricken in the world.
Does God love me more than them? I think not. But I’ll wager any of them would trade places with me in less time than it takes to say “We hates that Trumpses, we does, my precious!” *gollum!*
Carp away, my grumbling compatriots, if I can call them my compatriots. Maybe prisoners of unwarranted wealth would be a better description of this society of pampered malcontents. Fie on them, I say!
Good morning, and Happy 4th, if you are so inclined.
If not, enjoy a perfectly miserable day …
Rusty's Armory 