Bigger pain in the butt

It has been approximately 97 days since I last opened up my desktop. today I decided I wanted to write but I had to jump trough hoops to open the machine. It resents me being away so long.

Had to find passwords Had to sign in four times after waiting two hours. then has to get a message or Email on my phone, back up the stairs. then my fingernail was too long.  cut it and somehow screwed up the clippers. That can wait.

What I weanted to say was that I have a story to tell.

It has been 20 years since my first book was published. I have written maybe five more, but didn't try to get them published. I was working with other writers, editing their stuff for money and frankly, I did not feel like going through all that mess to try to get into print.

Then I got really tired. And sick. Couldn't see well.

And unhappy. And no longer felt like writing. I have a great story in the computer that should have been published years ago but for one chapter that doesn't work.

But last week I got a story idea. Part of one. But a great title. Sometimes a good title prompts a good tale. I am sorta working on it.

Do not hold your collective breaths! 

 

Bread

Working for crumbs 

Billy Joel sings in Uptown Girl about "living in her white bread world".

Which got me thinking about bread.

Back in the very olden days, a person's stature was symbolized by the kind of bread they ate. Bread was there for every meal in some form. The ale that was the sustaining drink back in the days of prehistory was made from fermented grain...the same grain that was pounded into powder to make rudimentary bread. Of course, this bread was more cracker like and rough and had little real taste. Sometimes this hard bread was used as a plate or trencher so that the cooked meat and juices drained into the bread which was sometimes eaten at table or given to the servants or animals as food.

This was back in prehistory and later into the times when there were the rich and the poor...several centuries to be sure.

And, funny thing, the coarsely ground wheat or barley or rye grain made crude, rough bread. If the grain was ground for long times and gradually got lighter in texture and color, the bread made from this lighter flour was given to the rich or upper classes. The peasants who didn't have lots of time to grind grain or even purchase it, made their bread of the darker, less refined flour.

Time passes. Grinding grain became less arduous. The oxen probably appreciated this. Machines found their way into mills, the flour produced became less pricey and the more common people could occasionally afford lighter bread. It took a long time before Wonder Bread or Silvercup reached the typical home. 

Foreigners liked the dark grainy bread of their homelands. They enjoyed rye and barley bread, or baguettes and stuck with bakers from their homelands. They did NOT favor white bread because it represented those who could and/or did oppress them. 

So, when Billy Joel sings about his love for the uptown girl, he considers himself a poor working guy in love with a rich bitch.

She lives in her White Bread world, one that he himself, as a modern day peasant, doesn't have.

Once, I was given the opportunity to speak to a lawyer in a divorce case. One of my friends was getting rid of her husband and I told the lawyer that the only reason the guy married her was because she was white bread and he was the son of immigrants.

The lawyer claimed not to know what I meant by white bread. So I had to explain to him the social difference and how having a wife who was upper class could help the husband attract better clients to his profession.

The lawyer was bullshitting when he said he needed me to explain, but I did. He ran right back to his client and told him what I had said.

Ran into the divorced husband months later and he brought up my observation...he still didn't get the meaning, but it was there.  Sometimes nonwhitebread folks don't like the distinction.

Despite my last name, I grew up not very white bread at all, except for the fact that Wonder Bread helped build strong bodies Twelve Ways and my mother wanted us to have the best bread.

The best bread money could buy.

So we did.

Fed Up

Thinking of grievances

I'm tired of being taken advantage of. 

Turns out somebody stole the pump from our pool. It was there, then it was gone. It's not a little piece of machinery, it is pretty heavy and we need it for our swimming pool...the only thing we have to relieve us in summer. Well, I don't use it, but everybody else does.

Then I got to thinking of the things that have been taken from our family. Karyn had an entire stack of Scholastic books stolen from her desk in third grade. Nobody did anything about it.

In the Army, I had a rain head-covering stolen from me. Called a havelock, I think. I don't remember much because I had it and then I didn't. I got shit for not having it, but somebody else enjoyed it.

So many things have been taken from us.

My good platter that had brownies for the singers. Gone.

And then, there is the "you can donate this, Mrs. Peterson, because you don't work." I was a working writer and editor and my time didn't matter to anyone. I was a Girl Scout leader and home room mother and still got asked to make stuff and be in the classroom and library AND work in the house and work on my stories that did get published.

No, I had to make sandwiches for the First Communion group while the other mothers got to bring in a bottle of soda.

Well, this is the ONE TIME I actually did something about my valuable time: I made finger sandwiches, all right. Sardine, cream cheese and a dash of hot sauce. They were pretty. Quite lovely. Inedible, to be sure, but I made them.

I'm angry today. I dislike being taken advantage of. I dislike people stealing from me. I forgot about the back up device from our first van...taken from our driveway. Yeah, that was costly!

My grandmother used to curse people who took from her. She once wished the woman who stole a ring from her...that her finger would get cancer and fall off. Yeah, it runs in the family. My mother was prone to denouncing folks who wronged her, too.

I don't wish things like that. Curses have a nasty habit of coming back on you. 

While I was out

 It's almost the end of the year.

So far, it's been a shitty year.

I'm trying really hard to come up with something good that happened in this whole 363 days and I CAN'T.

We are all still alive...some in better shape than others. We have medical problems. Our hearts are still beating but walking is getting harder.

Big changes ahead. God, please make the world safer! See those who need help and love and shower them with those things. It's asking for a great deal, I know, but still, I'm praying.

Oh, yeah. I thought of a good thing.

I finally got to see the second half of  Shin Godzilla....

Every day

 I must think f stuff to write every other minute of every day. My mind drifts in and out, over, under around and through so many different things.

I am not, what is that new buzz word.. neurodiverse...new new buzzword to explain people who have ADHD or are Autistic or have several other things about them that make them different, or diverse, from regular, just plain simple folks who putter around in their daily lives thinking not too much and not too little about everything.

No biggie. But there are times, especially when I need to go to sleep, that my brain does not stop or shut down and I lie in bed thinking thousands of strange things. Songs. Jingles. Different endings to movies or books. Old boyfriends. Old friends who have either gone away or died. Yes, died.

The other day I finally found my old kindergarten class photo that J had put away to be safe. Took me several weeks to find it. I could name every single person in it except for two girls I don't recall ever seeing in my life. Or maybe I just didn't care who they were.

There are plenty of people like that. They are discarded because I just don't care. Or want to. Or need to. Or they were just so immemorable that they fell to the wayside.

I will say this much--I hope they are alive and well and happy, wherever they are or whoever they are.

I just don't remember them.

But I refuse to stare up at my bedroom ceiling and wonder who the heck they were and why I didn't know them in Kindergarten.

AAARGH

 This computer thing is annoying the heck out of me.

Turn it on...it wants to start all over again. Sign in. Do this. Update that. I had everything going quite nicely and once again, it gives me grief.

I used to have a thing to press that would automatically send me to my blog so I could write what I had censored on my mind. Now, I gotta fish around for it.

Listen, computer gods.

I am losing my interest in my desktop. Yes, I do not write books of fiction any more. I use my phone to check FB. I use the tablet to see what my doctor writes back to me. I watch too much television because I no longer read books.

Something has snapped in my brain, just like what has happened to my desktop computer.

Not agasin

 Well, my computer is giving me heartache again.

I can't remember when I last turned it on, but now it wants to update my chrome stuff, whatever that is, and I have no idea what I need to do, even with the eversohelpful directions.

I may never be able to use my desktop again.

Missed opportunity

 Some guy tried and failed to kill 45.

He failed but killed someone else in the crowd and seriously wounded three others. He, in turn, was killed by the Secret Service.

We will never know what exactly prompted this person to attempt assassination.

Too bad. I'd have liked to hear his reasoning.

Regardless, two people are dead because of an automatic rifle that is legal to carry open in Pennsylvania.

Let's hear the reasoning for open carry!

iN A BAD WAY

 FACING THE WORLD WITH LITTLE SLEEP

i CAN'T EVEN GET THE MACHINE TO GET THE LETTERS RIGHT. i NEED SLEEP. 

woke UP AROUND 2, ENDED UP TAKING A BENEDRYL SO i MIGHT GET SOME SLEEP. WOKE UP AT 9 FEELING AS IF SOMEONE SAT ON MY HEAD.

GOT DOWNSTAIRS, TRYING TO EAT GRAHAM CRACKERS FOR BREAKFAST WHEN hERB STARTS CLEARING STUFF OFF THE TABLE AND IS ABOUT TO TOSS OUT SOME PAPERS WHEN OUT OF THE STACK FALLS A GREEN POSTCARD ADDRESSED TO ME REQUIRING ME TO FILL OUT A FORM FOR JURY DUTY.

aFTER DRIVING TO THE AIRPORT TO PICK UP THE KIDS, i GOT HOME, ATE LUNCH AND CAME UP HERE TO FILL OUT THE DON'T PICK ME FOR JURY DUTY FORM ONLINE. i MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE DONE IT RIGHT.

i AM OVER 75. i AM DISABLED. i CAN BARELY WALK OR STAND WITHOUT HELP. i WISH i COULD HAVE FILLED SOMETHING OUT STATING MY VOTING PREFERENCES BUT THERE WASN'T A SPOT ON THE FORM FOR THAT.

cURRENTLY, i AM IN A VERY BAD MOOD.

i AM A GOOD AMERICAN PERSON.  FIFTEEN YEARS A GIRL SCOUT. TEACHING FROM 1971 UNTIL 1996. mOTHER OF TWO. wIFE OF A vIETNAM VETERAN. TOOK CARE OF MY MOTHER SINCE 1985 UNTIL HER DEATH IN 20016.

yES, i AM A GOOD PERSON. i HAVE CERTAIN FOIBLES, BUT THEY ARE CONSISTENT WITH BEING A PUBLISHED WRITER OF FICTION.

i WILLNOT WAVE FLAGS. i WILL NOT PUT ANTI-SO AND SO SIGNS ON MY FRONT LAWN. i WILL NOT DESTROY SIGNS OF ASSHOLES WHO DO PUT ANTI-SO AND SO SIGNS ON THEIR LAWNS. 

i VOTE, NEVER MISSING A VOTE SINCE i TURNED 21.

nO, i CAN'T SEE THE SCREEN FROM WHERE i AM AND i NEED TO TAKE MY SHOWER RIGHT NOW.

Saltpeter

 Woke up this morning with a strange word in my mind: Saltpeter.

It is a chemical once obtained from the bottom of empty wine barrels, used by alchemists and those who fiddled around with any natural chemical they could find in their medieval world mindset.

Popular thinking at the time, and evidently still is thought, that the men in the military were given the potassium nitrate in their scrambled eggs to keep their minds on the job, not on  women because it was thought that the use of saltpeter, a chemical used in fertilizer and gunpowder, would subdue the male libido.

In other words, it was anti-Cialis or Viagra. While those drugs make the erectile function, saltpeter supposedly did away with sexual desire.

Yeah, right. 

It was used to preserve meat here in the US previous to 1980, it has been removed from such use. Back in the days of the "how can we keep meat from spoiling", or how can we get the biggest bang for our military buck, it was used. There are also suggestions that certain navies used it to keep their sailors ready to fight, not to ----. To keep their minds on the job of firing cannons, not using their own guns. 

Perhaps it had the desired effect back in the day and it was not talked about, much like UFOs still are, because of what it might do to the fighting forces. It has no effect on females, by the way.

So, in my brilliance first thing this morning, I considered a national Give "Em Saltpeter every morning as women are now forced to take birth control meds in order to get around the unwanted pregnancy thing.

Here I thought I had managed to solve the destruction of Roe v. Wade problem perfectly.

Not again!!!!!

 Yes, again. My computer with the funny little icons to  get me here to my website is effed up.

I am angry enough to spit.

Well, it is Good Friday and I always try to behave on Good Friday, but I really am tiked off.

Somehow, since I never made those icons myself, the lords of computerdom have decided to change shit around. Why can't they leave me alone?

I'm actually working on an editing job. The story is great and I hacve this awful feeling if I don't finish toeday, all my remarks and edits may disappear before I can remember how to send the work back to my friend. (It's a cozy mystery that has me tangled up better than Stephanie Plum.)

Let's see if this goes through and even onto FB.

'Tis the season

Well, here it is, Christmas. 

Ten days away. I have done nothing but order some candy from Vermont Country Store and watch Monarch on tv. Putting Doctor Who off for later. Can only take so much excitement.

Monday I go for mammogram and bone density tests. Fun fun fun. Then next day Karyn has some stuff  at yet another doctor. Nothing for me until after January when I see the oncologist then primary. Of course I will worry.

I do that so well, I ought to be in the Olympics.

Baking to do, decorating to do...I thought the house would be Hallmark style. Might get there.

The outside of the house is bedecked with penguins. Herb has had his way with the front. Last year he even put lights up in the back.

The little fake tree is up from the cellar, but without decorations. Got to have stuff on it...after all, it is Christmas! 

Wait. I sent out all the Christmas cards. That ought to count

for something accomplished!

Merry Christmas, everyone! 

Sweets for the skinny

 Admit it.

You've seen her...the slim, tall model, upswept hair, nondescript bland outfit...enjoying her family Christmas gathering.

As she sits there, she picks up a ball of candy and after unwrapping the shiny foil, slowly nibbles at a luscious chocolate ball of candy. Nibbles. She carefully doesn't bite it. A smile spreads over her lips and she almost inhales delight.

Right.

You've seen her. I've seen her...she's modeling and nibbling all over the Hallmark Channel.

You sorta dislike her.

Well, you may do more than sorta dislike her, if you are someone like me.

Bite the damn truffle, bitch! Eat it as if it won't put ten pounds on your thighs! Maybe you won't fit into that pencil skirt if you actually swallow the sweet confection! 

Be human!

You see, magnificent model person, there are women watching you nibble, women who like chocolate. Who look forward to actually tasting that deliciousness. Women who hesitate because they worry about those ten pounds added to their thighs or butts or ankles or chin. 

Maybe more women than you even know because they aren't models for anything but diabetes drugs.

We, the pudgy! We the women who do not  nibble! We the women who like chocolate and potatoes and spaghetti and cake!

Sorry. You and I cannot be friends.

Ever.

Nibble away, bitch! 

AAARGH!

The Purple Cape

 I've written about the fabulous purple cape previously. In case you don't remember, let me refresh your memories.

The purple cape came to our family in the mid-1950s. Beloved Uncle Gene gave it to us after his stint in a circus. I know nothing more about this but he came away with four silly costumes and the desire to build a Ferris wheel in a vacant lot in Middlesex, NJ. There were lots of empty spaces back then, not so  now.

Anyway, the costumes were pure circus. Some kind of flapper dress with black tassels, a green two flapped piece of material that I imagine was part of a harem girl's costume and something else I can't remember, but along with these gaudy bits, was the Purple Cape.

Let me describe it to you. It was deep purple, royal purple, about four feet in length, made of flannel. I only now realize it was flannel and not satin because I was just a kid and it was absolutely gorgeous to me.

Around the neckline was the only decoration. A band of pure gold, emerald and ruby lay around the neck. Absolutely gem quality. Beautiful. Magnificent.

Everybody wanted to wear the purple cape, even if we were just playing cowboys. Every kid on our street wanted that honor. After all, it was deep purple and encrusted with precious gems around the neck.

But at Halloween, it was most in demand. Cowboys, bums, girly girls, you name it, that purple cape went with every costume.

Chilly Halloween nights, it served as warmth and status.

Years went by. The cape was always there. Then, it disappeared. I don't know whether my younger brother every enjoyed wearing it, but by the time I was taking him out trick or treating, it was no longer used.

Oh, the delights of that regal bit of material!

I think I'm a princess just remembering it.

Many years later, as an adult, I was in our old garage, looking for fishing rods or something when I spied a crumpled bit of purple stashed in a corner. No! It couldn't be!

Alas, I recognized the bejeweled collar. Gold, emerald and ruby, still shining, while the cape had faded a dull grey.

The purple cape. 

I pulled it out of the corner, passed my hand lovingly against the stiff flannel and sighed.

Gone was the glory.

I should have cut the jewels away and kept them, but I didn't. I buried it in the garbage can and cried.

However, I do hold the glory of the Purple Cape in my heart and every year about this time, I remember it fondly, lovingly, and long for the days when it was magnificent to come back, if just for a second, to cheer my heart.

Something is wrong

 I don't feel good. I can't seem to wake up enough. There is no energy. 

I'm rather worried.

Spider in the can

 Beside the throne on the wainscoting is a little bitty spider. Tiny, about maybe 2 centimeters, maybe eighth of an inch. Little black body with red legs. So thin, they can barely be seen,

I did not freak.

I remained calm and said directly to it, "You'd better leave here. I'll let you off this time, but if you are still there when I get back, you're dead."

Nothing against spiders, not really, but they are rather disconcerting about 7 inches away from one's face in this very private moment.

Hours later, upon returning to the powder room, the bloody spider did not listen to me, did not take my warning threat. It is still there, some 7 inches from my face.

I had warned it. I had done my best, in my calmest quiet tone, to let it know its future if it remained where it was. Wiggling it's little red arms at me...sneering...batting its little multiple eyes at me as I heaved a heavy sigh, grabbed a couple sheets of TP and swiftly eradicated the disgusting spider from the wall.

The TP wad got tossed into the bowl. I didn't look down, somewhat ashamed of myself for  killing nature. Flushed away. Threat carried out: I am a woman of my word.

A bit later, I returned to the scene and needed to do what I had to do.

It hit me then that I had not truly seen the itty bitty spider's demise. What if it hadn't died? What if it had survived and somehow with its spidery red legs, it had crawled out of the bowl and was right now about to leap onto my humanity?

Oh, Lord, I can't go potty in there!!!

Short names

 Why aren't people named Dusty any more?

Or Rusty or Gabby or Fitz or Snuffy or Biff or Lolly or Needlenose or Gizmo or Stinky?

You get my point.

Full names, sometimes including middle names, anything to draw out the amount of breath one needs to call someone. You know, not like Spanky or Johnny or Paulie or Joe. Good Ole Joe.  No, the names have to sound like they're going to grow up to be college presidents. Charles Everett Gladstone. Livingston Merritt Longford.

I thought it would be refreshing to write a short story where my characters had somewhat silly, unpopular, regular old nicknames. A name is a name, right? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Maybe it would work. Maybe it would sound like I was writing an Our Gang Comedy. Now, those were nicknames! Stymie and Alfalfa. Butch.  Froggy. Yeah.

I don't know what I'd call any female characters. Females don't have nicknames. Hell, even Joan of Arc was just Joan. Darla was just Darla. Helen Keller was...Helen.

I have to think about this more.

If anyone has any suggestions, please reply. This will be on FB.

Magic Camera

 While trying remember a name last night, my brain went back to something that happened a long time ago.

Took me till this morning to remember the last name of the people who lived in a house down the street, but out of the blue, early this morning, it just popped into my head. I won't write it here as some of these folks might be alive and it is rude to mention full names without permission. But...

The older daughter who lived there was a few years older than I was. Somehow, I got invited to her birthday party. I think all the girls who lived on the street did. It was a party dress and patent leather shoes party. Cool. I had a party dress!

Anyway, the party was forgettable except for one thing. The girl's father joined us with something special...so special, I can never forget it.

He took the object out of the leather case, I think it was...hey, I was about 5 and this makes it nearly 70 years ago. It was brown. He unfolded the object and proceeded to take our pictures with it. Now, this happened frequently at birthday parties, so it wasn't so special, but this time...oh, this time!

Papers spewed out of the camera. After a few minutes, we could actually see the photos!

Mr. G had the very first Polaroid Land Camera I'd ever seen!!!!

So very, very cool. 

We saw ourselves in black and white minutes after we'd posed for the photos! 

Ahh, science. When I think of the first time I saw something...like the first time I saw a small microwave oven in 1969...it was history! I lived through history just as I did seeing Alan Shepard go into space and John Glenn circle the Earth three times!

My grandmother went from living in a mud covered house in Ukraine to having an automobile to a color television to using a microwave to heat her coffee. 

You might not appreciate these achievements, but, stop and think about what you have witnessed in your lifetime.  Cool, huh?

The Value of Cake

 A long time ago, in a galaxy far away (Georgia)  a weird wonderful thing happened. Hang in there, this is a strange story.

While doing my time with the WACS, all 150 of us were sent on TDY to Fort Benning, GA, for some military reason. I had been there once before to see my brother Jack when he was in OCS. (That's Temporary Duty, TDY and OCS, Officer Candidate School.)

No matter. We females were more or less mid-summer entertainment for the male officers to be. Which was okay...I had no intention of joining up at that time.

We toured a helicopter. We saw a loud fake raid on a Vietcong held village, all bullets and smoke and screaming. Very realistic and scary. I thought of my brother being in the middle of that and cringed.

Anyway, they (the military) threw a dance for us, so we could mingle with these guys who faced officership and eventual shipping off to Vietnam. Which, as most of us felt at the time (1970) was a death warrant. Yes. Everybody was afraid to get drafted and sent to where so many people were being killed. It was "don't flunk out of college and get sent to Nam to die". Really. The attitude was funereal.

So, here I am in the middle of nowhere Georgia on an army base, trying to enjoy being with so many young good-looking single guys who might die in six months.

I danced. I really danced with anybody who asked me.

So, while dancing, I think I laughed at something my partner said, and replied, "Oh, that's cake."

A common response in my neck of the woods, meaning--that's cool or good or easy. Yeah, that's cake. Like, a piece of cake, which as we all agree, is quite good.

This other guy follows me from the dance floor and politely asks me where I'm from. I tell him New Jersey. He laughs.

"I'm from Jersey, too."

"Where did you go to school?"

"Rutgers."

"Hey, my brother graduated from there three years ago. He was here in Benning couple of years ago."

Guy shakes his head. "Small world."

I ask him where he lived. He says "Manasquan."

Startled, I say that Odette, my big sister in the sorority was from there and name her. He doesn't know her, but he's smiling. Kept saying "Jersey girl."

I then remember my little sister in the sorority, Jenny, is also from Manasquan.

The guy lets out a whoop! "She lives next door to me!"

Wow. We spent the next few hours together, just enjoying one another's company. He was a sweet guy. I knew so much about him by the end of the dance. Sigh. But the dance was over and we females had to beat it to the bus or get in major bullshit trouble.

I don't remember his name. I think at the time I just wanted to be his friend and fellow Jerseyan and had that link to Rutgers and my brother. I didn't want to know his name, I guess, because I didn't want to know he never made it back to Jersey.

But...it was a good thing. It was a sweet, innocent, happy acquaintance because of one simple word. I cannot ever forget the way I felt, the understanding, the instant connection, even if I cannot remember his name. I do hope, however, that he remembers that evening fondly.

All for the value of cake.

Ay, carumba!

 Jackie Kennedy's stepfather told her when things were not going according to her plan, to stick out her chest and yell ay carumba to get it off her mind.

I am not sure if that should be Hay or Ay, because I never actually read it but I know how to say it. Three years of Spanish didn't exactly cover that. It could be a curse, or simply something like OH SHIT. Dunno. But I've had this feeling regarding my blog.

The desktop quit cooperating for me. I dug through all sorts of notes to find how to get back into Wordpress, finally found it so I could blog all of the things I wanted to blog about over the holiday. I did indeed find the password and username, but when after two weeks, I finally turned the desktop back on, I got in here perfectly.

I was afraid I had not paid for something and lost my good name.

Evidently, that was okay, because here I am. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything I was intending to blog about. The topics were pure genius gems, I can remember that. But, alas, they are gone with the brainfarts.

This has been quite a year. Not too good of one, either. My beloved got and was treated for cancer. We don't really know if it is cured because it isn't found out except for blood tests, and that only says if his body is juicing properly so the white cells or something are working.

We had a shit vacation again this year. I will not go into that. We did have fun taking the girls to various sales, one in DC and one in Baltimore. So, we got around by ourselves while the girls sold Karyn's artwork. Unfortunately, K didn't have too many sales to go to because of the plague and other things.

Elyse and Mike did rather well, though they had car trouble which cost too much. They can't seem to save money without having to spend it on other things...like food and transportation.

Karyn is looking forward to having her student loan paid in full. I cannot divulge details, but thanks to the generosity of family, she's doing better in that regard. She also got the gumption to clean out her room so she can work better with more space. All in all, her down days are fewer and that's great.

Me? I am living in isolation, dependent on learning about my friends through texts and FB. I do not get around much at all, but that way, I am safe from germs and other bad things.

Elyse and Mike did get Covid.

On the brightest note,  the little grand nieces are thriving and one got a baby brother and the other one has a baby sister on the way. They are cute little buggers, to be sure. I wish them all the best the world has to offer. They do make me smile, just thinking about them.

Now that I can get back into my blog, I will probably remember some of the things I thought of writing about.

Let's hope the world heals and all our sicknesses disappear and those I love continue to thrive. God bless us, every one!