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On grieving and being a lout.
I was wondering what to say about my mother on her upcoming birthday. But then, grief is not something that I share with others. No one really knows whether I grieve or not, nor really cares for that matter. And honestly, they shouldn’t. Grief is an intensely personal thing and should be respected as such. I personally loath the public displays of some traditions that wail, throw themselves on the ground, and inflict their grief on everyone else.
Yeah. I know. I am an insensitive lout. So, sue me.
I do accept some traditions that wear black arm bands or cover themselves in black veils. You do have to go out amongst them. Life is that way. Stand on any street corner and watch the people pass. I don’t know what the statistics are, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one out of every ten that passed you would be carrying that awful burden of loss with them. Who likes thoughtlessly telling someone who lost a close family or friend to have a great day?
I am ever at a loss to respond to the loss of others. Grief sucks. Really sucks. There is no consolation. If you know I am grieving, kindly say you are saddened too, and leave it there. Politeness and kindness is OK. But keep it brief.
And yeah. I miss my mom and regret that I sucked as a son. And I did.
Demetia and other horrors
Dawn came in at a chilly 74°F this morning and is expected to climb to 9
5° by late afternoon. But a warm cup of coffee and a couple large M&M cookies wards off the chill as I compose this morning’s missive.
Snooks gave me a scare yesterday when she stuck her head in the door and how I stored the sausage I received from the store. I always buy five pounds in one-pound tubes, and she puts three in the freezer and two in the fridge.
I told her that she always does that, but she looked at me a little weird, and said “I don’t know about that …”. But she went back to putting the groceries away.
I began to worry … I am not ready for dementia in either one of us. It probably is my biggest fear as an aging human. A bit later at brunch, she mentioned that as she was putting things away, she realized that I wasn’t talking about the prepared frozen sausage links I buy for a quick breakfast, but the freshly ground turkey sausage that comes in tubes. So she broke up the frozen ones and dutifully put some in the fridge and some in the freezer. I was so relieved that is was a failure in communications and not the first signs of dementia. Aging brings to mind the realization that it all ends someday, and maybe sooner than we are prepared for.
Dropping the morbid thoughts this morning it is on to the social feeds. Not much there today … a bad pun from my brother, and a comment from me. Updates from many friends, and I like those even though they are fashionably passé to some elitist out there who pan the medium. I like hearing of one friend and her walk out to the nursing home fountain each morning, and another friend and her morning walks with her dogs, updates on bad news/good news from family near and far. I live my life by facebook one liners, and I am just fine with it.
News? It seems that the “journalists” as the partisan hacks like to refer themselves, are reduced to inane speculations on Trumps electability … like they would actually know. So this day the feeds are mercifully thin and I can safely avoid commenting on them.
And so the day unfolds here in retirement utopia, with dogs roughhousing in the living room, Snook gathering up shed clothing for the laundry, cats, her birds and dogs all fed … later it is probably a trip to town for groceries for her. Life has its rhythms that mark the passage of time.
Good morning!
Click shopping and dry weather
Sunday
Waffle Morning
Day seven 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.”
Morning forecast. 94°, partly cloudy and NO chance of rain.
Grocery clicking day, otherwise known as Sunday. I sure do like ordering groceries online. What a development! No shrieking children, no bitter gummers on mobility scooters, no millennial meditating in the aisle on which brand of tomato paste to buy. No circling the lot for a good parking place.
A brisket of corned beef. They make great cookies in their bakery, so enough of them to fill the cookie jar. Hot turkey sausage. A tomato. An orange. Some chocolates for Snook. Clickity click click and the nice lady will deliver the groceries to my front stoop right after brunch … decadent!
Mercifully, no big new Trump ‘revealations’ on the newfeeds, nor page six retractions the day afterwards. Some people mysteriously die in Pittsburg wearing orange paper wristbands. That should keep the speculators busy today.
Dogs happily roughhousing in the living room … Snook must be putting on shoes and socks in preparation for the morning ball throwing.
It’s waffle brunch day today. And maybe I’ll make my Mexican green chili cheeseburger pie for dinner at the same time. Still have some frozen french-fries to go with it.
And so it goes! Good morning!
~r
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.
Rusty's Armory 