Shakesthegrounds Rumblings

[Shakesthecoffecan]

It is the time of year that Jeb and Dash erupted in my life and became an obsession, in 2003. Seems like the planets are aligning again as I discovered another researcher over the weekend. I always wonder what, if anything, it means.

Over the weekend I also got to see Prairie Home Companion, which I highly recommend, but those not familar with the radio show on NPR will probably be scratching their heads. I think Garrison Keillor should be the patron saint of nerdy people everywhere, he' one of my heros. (And Woody Harrelson, they gave him the right name!)

[Wayne]

What amazes me is that only 57% of the voters voted in favor of the amendment. 43% voted against it.

Exactly!! I mean, 43% of Virginia voters DON'T want to ban gay marriage?!?!   

WOW!!!!!!!!!   Now that's a REAL cause for celebration.       

[Andrew]

It is the time of year that Jeb and Dash erupted in my life and became an obsession, in 2003. Seems like the planets are aligning again as I discovered another researcher over the weekend. I always wonder what, if anything, it means.

You mean, someone else researching Jeb and Dash?  If so, did you hear from Jeb's niece?

[Shakesthecoffecan]

He has been in contact with her in the past, and I did get an email from her today, about an obituary I had forwarded her. It is like some one somewhere has a synchronicity, or maybe a seredipity hammer, and is banging it on the xylophone of my life, or certain notes there of.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I'll tell you what, the end of the year holiday season is upon us and already I am exhausted.

I saw something on the TV news the other night about Walmart breing in a price war with it conpetitors and saw all that red and white and green stuff and I groaned. The sheer consumption aspect of it all disgusts me. "The Toy", "The Electronic Device" of the year, the tempo of people's stress as the dead line approaches, The food, the SUGAR, everywhere sugar, the music, cookie cuttered from every previous season til now, yes, call the Grinch and book us two tickets to the islands. I am not wanting to do "Xmess" this year.

Last year my sister told me not to get she and her husband anything, as they had everything already. That is no stretch of the imagination I found out. While shopping Good Will for some recycled bargains I happened up a small terra cotta figurine that looked vaguely Mayan. The pedistal it sat on said "Male Figure With Skin Leisons" it was all of a dollar, so I got it. Surely to god they didn't have one of these.

When my sister opened it she turned white and immediatly hid it from her husband. "Where did you get this?" she whispered over to me and I told her at the Good Will. "Ohhhhh my ga...." I heard her mutter as she took off for the basement. ("WTH" I thought). She reurned in a few minutes with a small terra cotta object, covered in dust, a duplicate Male Figure With Skin Leisons. It was part of a set a pharmacutical company gave out to doctors in the early 1970's. My attempt to come up with an original gift had resulted in nothing more than a few minutes of terror for my sister who thought that some of her husbands stuff had been disposed of with out their knowledge. I should have kept the thing.

So this year, I am going to give my two balding nephews du-rags to cover their heads, my grand neice will get a jar full of nickles, and the rest I am working on. I will send out my cards next week, only because I found the most wonderful greeting to print out and inclose:

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for
an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress,
non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday,
practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion
of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the
religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice
not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a
fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated
recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but
not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose
contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that
America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America
in the Western Hemisphere . And without regard to the race, creed, color,
age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.
By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is
subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no
alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to
actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and
is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of
the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual
application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance
of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is
limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole
discretion of the wisher."

Eggnog huh? Wha'cha got t' go init?

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I stood at my kitchen window this morning, it is a window of revelation sort of because many things have come to me while gazing out of it. My revelation this morning is that the one of the birds I have been feeding is extrememly angry with itself. It sits on the drivers side door frams and attacks its reflection in the mirror. In its excitment you know what else it does.

No good deed goes unrewarded.

I also have been watching a small chip munk that comes out to eat the spilled seed on the ground. A couple of years ago when I had cats that would not have been possible. I think I prefer these low maintenance pets, I can leave for a couple of days an not worry so much about their being fed, they know what to do.

[Scott6373]

The bird thing?  All I can say is...have we himan beings psychologically damaged even nature itself?  We've ven given birds complexes.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Well some of them maybe, the bigger birds like to attack their reflection, but the sweet little cute ones don't. 

[Shakesthecoffecan]

He had done mixed up the cake mix from the yellowed, stained index card covered with his recently deceased aents handwriting. His son had done cracked open the coconut with claw end of a hammer on the counter top.

Went I heard the funny noise I got on my cell phone and called them in the basement and told them: "The stove is making a funny noise"

At midnight they decided the breaker in the breakerbox was bad. He left out at first light hunting a new breaker on Thanksgiving day. They were no place to get one open. He called me up and asked could he come get one of mine. My first thoughts were: "Like a kidney transplant?"

He had the old one in his pocket and he said this would work. They looked nothing alike but he knew more about this stuff than I did. My drop in range sits in the kitchen like a lifeless relic and the breaker did not fit his box.

However, when they old one was reinstalled, it worked. Perhaps a bad connection, perhaps a symptom if something worse.

The Coconut cake sits on the green glass cake server, dripping a sugary glaze not seen since way the hell back in the last century. The survivors gather round it in awe, in rememory, in amazement this bit of her has come back.  The Aent had written her name on both sides of the folding table we sit at, so as there is no doubt whose it is. I start to see whats going on.

The written word is sacred, be it in the bound pages of a book, on a computor screen, or a soiled index card. One whose author may have neglected to put down you have to let them ingrediants ferment in the refrigerator overnight to make that cake with cake flour be the thing of beauty it is.

I think of the aent, and hear Michelle Williams' tormented Alma voice in my head: "There wa'nt nothin' wrong with them breakers."

   

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Yesterday I went to the funeral of a 86 year old lady who had been the sister of my aunt and a friend of my mother's. I did not know her very well, had a few conversation with her. Was always amazed by her looks, caked on face and perfectly quaffed hair, she reminded me a bit of Dear Abby.

So I was not particularly emotional at this gathering, until we stood to sing "How Great Thou Art" (words and music by Carl Boberg and R.J. Hughes) and the second verse came out of no where like a dump truck:

"When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze."

It triggered my Brokeback pain, our boys comming down from the mountain, and I cried and cried, and felt bad about who I was crying for at this fine lady's funeral.

It was a good reality check, by the end of the service no one was not crying. I was glad to emerge back into a beautiful warm fall day. I told me cousin who is a wiccan,  if she comes to my funeral, not to hide her pentagram in her dress. We both laughed then, from our own seperate closets.