I've always loved those kinds of houses. I don't see the tattered curtains, or web covered corners. I feel the energy left behind by the families that once lived there. I can't resist climbing the stairs; imagining the girls who descended in party dresses, the boys who descended three treads at a time with reckless abandon.
So maybe I'll drop by from time to time and leave something here that I don't want cluttering up my real blog. The kinds of stories nobody really cares to read about.
While minding my own business, this judgemental creature popped by to criticize my raggedy yard. While it may be true that house of perpetual remodeling is a neighborhood disgrace at the moment, its nearly Halloween, and all that garden clutter is ambiance. Jeesh, some gnomes are so superior. 
Grandgirls with their witch dummy from this past weekend. This was the first time they'd ever made a halloween dummy. Let it never be said that I don't pass on some quite valuable life skills to future generations.
I have a Murphy's Law kind of life. If the lid is going to fall off the salt shaker, it will be when I'm using it. If a tire is going to blow on my car, it will be during an ice storm when I don't have my cell phone. I've lived long enough that this is now acceptable, and I don't sweat it.
I spent yesterday running around doing a laundry list of annoying errands accompanied by Pap who is still crippled from his surgery so it took twice as long to do everything. No big deal, one of the errands was to the doctor to get his helpless bandage off and a walking cast on. Yay! Things were going smoothly, aside from the pounding headache that also kept me company all day. Just as we were wrapping things up by dropping his car at the shop to have the gas tank replaced it started to sprinkle. Still not a big deal, I had plenty of time to race home and put the cover on my leaky roofed car.
I'd piddled around doing house chores, checking mail... all that stuff you have to do because you're a grown up, while it started raining buckets outside. I took a bath and settled into the library with a book I'm editing and then realized I had one cigarette.
There are addictions, and then there is my addiction. Before I smoked I chewed my nails, before that I sucked my thumb. I'm a perfectly rational human being until I run out of cigarettes. I was wearing this very tacky t-shirt I've been sleeping in since I got it 10 years ago, it has one of those torsos in a bikini painted on the front, and the sweat pants I've also had for 10 years that are paint splattered, bleach spotted and overall raggedy. These are my comfort clothes, big, baggy, stretched out, non-fashionable - but comfortable. I wasn't thinking about what I was wearing while I contemplated my options. Mistake number one.
With Pap's car in the shop and mine under cover because of the rain, I had to wait for Princess to get home so I could use her car. She of course picked this night to stop on the way home for a capachino with friends, so by the time she did stroll in, even the cats were in hiding. I snatched her keys out of her hand, threw on some shoes (mistake number two) that were laying by the door and raced down the post midnight, dark, abandoned streets to our convenience store. When I arrived the store was empty, the clerk fetched my sanity sticks, I went to pay her and realized that I had no cash in my wallet and the checkbook was laying on the desk at home. Knowing that the bottom of my purse is always littered with misc. receipts, random earrings and change, I decided to dig around in there to get the necessary amount instead of going home for the checkbook. Mistake number three.
While I shuffled and dug and piled change on the counter people were wandering in, half way to reaching my goal a line had formed behind me, cranky people tapping their foot and sighing loudly. Eighty cents from completing my transaction I realized I'd emptied the well. I was frantically searching pockets of the purse, between the folds of my wallet, and under the flaps of my day planner, when a neatly manicured, male hand dropped a dollar on the counter. "That ought to cover it." The masculine voice said from beside me. This was when I knew that Murphy's Law was written just for me.
I never leave the house without my hair done and make up on. I'm goofy, but I love clothes and I'm normally very organized. I hold an elected position in town (the day job), so EVERYONE knows me, which is why I generally make a point to appear put together. I've been attempting to get a small business loan for my publishing company from our one and only bank. Most of the paperwork is done, it wasn't a cut and dried thing because it is a privately owned bank, the board can take any risk they want, turn down any project they want. The board was already a little nervous about my loan because publishing is a tough business, and we're so new. But, most recently they'd been leaning in my direction by virtue of my reputation as a professional.
The good samaritan was the president of that board. When I looked up to thank him, he was looking at me the same way you'd regard a roach in your tuna sandwich. He did the scan and scowl from my head to my feet... upon which were Princesses monkey slippers - the ones with the cute monkey faces slightly covered by their cute monkey middle fingers. That's when I remembered I also wasn't wearing a bra, and I was buying cigarettes. Oh well, our little company doesn't really need the debt.
NOTICE:
The football team will be entertaining before and after tonights performance by the cheerleaders.
I live in a football town. On Friday nights every household empties out and heads to the football field. It would be a good time to rob the place, because all the cops are there too. Despite a diminutive population of under 3,000, they won the state championship in 1977. They didn't see another winning season until 2003, the year my son was a senior. We start 'em young around here, the picture is of my oldest grandgirl, Jazzmin, who's in third grade. The boys her age are already playing biddy league football. All the hitting, spiking and running of the real game, with miniature players, and miniature cheerleaders.
I don't have a problem with school spirit. I don't really have a problem with football. What I do dislike about our football program is the town's tendency to make them little demi-gods. There are men off that 1977 team who are still living in 1977. That was the pinaccle of their life. I find that so sad. To have your best day ever before you're even old enough to vote. It's not quite that bad anymore.
The 13 boys that played football with my son started together in biddy league. They were undefeated all the way to High School. High hopes don't 'cha know, the pressure on these fella's was unbelievable. Their freshman and sophomore years they won more than they lost, but you must be undefeated to go to state. Junior year they lost one game. The summer before their senior year you could cut the tension in town with a knife.
They started two a days in August. I'd watch them running past the house before daylight. No talking, just the rolling thunder of sixty pairs of feet, the column led by the senior thirteen, pounding the streets to get in shape. They did everything together, my son and his twelve best friends. Dating, studying, getting into trouble, there were always 13 boys. They play 10 games a season, more if they win the district, then sectionals and then state.
They took the field that first game of the season to record attendance. They were the team to beat. Alumni flew in for the game from everywhere. All the local papers were represented, the radio stations and even the TV. It didn't get any better, they won, and won, and won. Two games from taking the district, the quarterback hurt his wrist goofing around at practice and they lost their next two games. Still a good season, but the men around this town were devastated, and didn't hesitate to let those boys know it.
My son had never made football his life, he's interested in lots of things, so this was just a ripple on the pond of life. Most of his teammates felt the same. What was important to them was their friendship, the brotherhood they formed over their years together. At the banquet that year, the tables were set up to seat four at each. As the boys wandered in they started pushing them together, until all 13 were sitting at one big table.
Four of those boys went into the military, eight went to college and will graduate this summer, one is being bailed out of jail as I write this, drunk and disorderly. The quarterback.
My friend Waldo sent me these. I don't know who said them, but I wish it had been me.
Our new baby up to a whopping 6 pounds.
I stumbled upon author David Southwell's blog awhile ago, and I'm glad I did. While the subject of conspiracy theories and government lies may not seem to mix appropriately with precious, innocent babies, it does. I think about the state our country will be in when she and her sisters are my age. I worry about what kind of legacy we're leaving behind. I'm going to be watching those of my peers that I've entrusted with making the decisions for my country much more closely.
While I'm basically a happy, goofy person, blessed (or cursed) with the need to find the humour in everything... there are limits. There is nothing funny about a pedophile, a serial killer or the KKK. There's nothing funny about tracking every detail of a private citizen's life from their shopping preferences to their stock portfolios to the e-mail and phone calls they make to a friend. The lure of easier, faster, better when it comes to technology is a siren call that's hard to resist. But people have been twisting good into evil since time began.
It's been easy for me to lose track of just how fast the world is changing. I live in a small town that still announces it's lunch time with hymns from the bell tower of the Church of Christ. We have one grocery store and a pharmacist that will open the store at 3 a.m. on Saturday morning if you've hurt yourself and need your pain pills. Most of the shops on Main Street don't even take credit cards. There are no metal detectors at my high school. I wasn't paying attention to much of anything but my happy life until I heard about grocery stores issuing "shopping cards" entitling the holders to discounts. A voluntary program, the store uses the records provided by the cards to track everything from restocking to determing the brands their public prefers. "Track" is the operative word.
I was trying to imagine what I could do if I knew absolutely everything about a person. From their favorite color to their choices in breakfast cereal, and the websites they visit in secret. Blackmail comes first to mind, but that's because I'm a simple person, I like things stripped right down the bare, unfrilled bones. Manipulation is the likely action. Someone smarter than me, armed with the knowledge of everything about a group of people, is a dangerous entity. The technology to do this already exists, we need to be watching.
Here's the front and back view of Jazz and Bri's Halloween Spooktacular party... all pasted, glittered and now waiting for the little demons to write their guests names on the bottoms. 
The irony of life... I had no sooner hit "publish" for that last entry then the bell started ringing. I live across the street from a catholic church, between masses a little guy runs out and rings the call to worship with reckless abandon. It has a very nice tone, that bell, and reminded me that two wrongs don't make a right. Life is too short to waste time on the negative.
This morning the three year old had a time out for biting. When her mother said "You don't bite!", the toddler replied "Yes, I do, I bite pancakes!" Hard to argue with that kind of logic.
A random pretty picture that came on my new computer... and made me homesick. As much as I love Ohio, I started lifed in California, Richmond, right across this bridge from San Francisco. It's been a very long time, and many states, in between that childhood of beaches, swimming pools, water ski's and sunshine...
If I learned only one thing (and I actually learned many) by moving many, many times when I was growing up, it is that people are the same everywhere. They just put emphasis on different things. Even in the 60's when I was growing up, California emphasis was on appearance. Kids were still hassled about grades, sunday school and the condition of their room, but foremost was instruction in grooming, fashion and fitness. Our first move was to Maryland, culture shock, their emphasis was on education and work, then all the other things. Pennsylvania - the state of your spirit, Indiana - how athletic are you?, North Carolina - manners, manners, manners. In every state, we adapted, changed our family dynamic and blended in. It was especially easy for me, I believe I'm one part magpie (my love of shiny things), one part chameleon.
I wonder, though, if someone trained in psychiatry would look differently at this lack of seperation anxiety? It would have been excellent early training for a con man.
I walked to the day job today. Unusual for me, but my reason was compelling. 
My goodness, what's up with blogger today? Slow.... This pretty picture from my friend Waldo, could be last year, could be the year before.
Dr. John posted today on the value of laughter. Since he's a wise man, and I agree totally, I found some funny stuff to share today. This joke was sent to me by my friend Waldo Schmidlapt, and then again by Library Lo, so it's GOT to be funny.
Every publisher's dream is to stumble upon a book with bestselling potential. To pick a manuscript from the submissions list, start reading and see a Stephen King, J.K. Rowling or Ian Rankin like story unfolding. 
Isn't that just a stunning sky? A picture from my niece in Texas. Wow, looks like a sky painted by a kid, beautiful.
Poor Jazzmin, if it isn't her little sisters bugging her when she's trying to draw a masterpiece, it's Ophelia the Dowager Cat. 
It was a girl after all, Brendolyn Jessica Jolene... great big name for a very tiny little lady, just 4 lbs. 12 ozs. But she is lovely, and not even as big as a football! Bren and her Mom are doing fine, despite her diminutive size she has quite lusty lungs and is eating like a mad woman. Off to write my article so I don't get fired from the paper...
Library Lo sent me this picture, it was on one of those funny things people forward to all their friends with cool pictures captioned with something motivational. This one is called, of course, Believe in Yourself.
Ever since we had our first chilly morning, I've been obsessed with the phases of a life and just where I am in that grand plan. When I was growing up and women were gossiping about the older man up the street with the young chippy - they'd call it "that May/December romance". 
Spooky moon still in the sky this morning. I like these crisp fall mornings that warm back up to summer by midafternoon. Pap has my car today since his is in the shop and Princess had to be at work early, so I walked to work (which is what I should be doing every day).
Last night was the speech for the artists. Lots of fun, there are so many of them! I think it went okay, they laughed several times, applauded something I said once and several stayed after to ask questions about either the newspaper or to tell me they were also writers. Zanesville is a funny old city. I've moved around a lot and know that most cities have a personality of some sort. When we moved to Southeastern Ohio fifteen years ago, Zanesville was full of moldering old businesses, derelicts roaming the streets and empty buildings. I worked in a business on Main Street for about a year, so I saw it up close and personal. Then the artists started organizing, Alan Cottrill, the sculpture, moved back and placed a bronze Indian on the roof of his studio, rapidly followed by a parade of bronze characters on the sidewalk. The antique stores started spiffing up, and new businesses moved in. ZAAP and the Artists Colony was formed, followed by several of them taking up residence in the old Armory. The transformation is amazing, and the artists deserve all the credit for both giving the city back a personality and reminding everyone of their proud old heritage as an Art Pottery town.
Among my volumous list of personal beliefs, there are two that routinely march to the top of the list: 1) everyone - regardless of economic or social standing, creed, religion or gender- has the right to own something beautiful that moves them emotionally, and 2) just like dedicated policemen, doctors or bankers, dedicated artists deserve the right to make a living as artists. Getting those two beliefs to meld into a reality requires a dedicated marketing person, and compromise on the part of the artist and the consumer. Why it's worth the effort to work at making these beliefs a reality is best illustrated through evidence of the power art has to make change in the life and heart of a person : (slightly fictionalized to protect the privacy of the couple involved)
In the 1980's Pap and I were Art Consultants for a company in Indiana that also believed everyone deserved to own a piece of beautiful art. They developed a program based on volume that kept the cost of art down while still providing a good income for a motivated and prolific artist. We sold oil paintings, some prints and water colors through home shows called private gallery showings. All very dignified, part show, part art education, part pseudo auction. Pap and I lived near an Air Force base, so we frequently had young GI's at our shows who came for the food, I'm sure, but left with a painting or two ordered.
There was a young man who worked in the motor pool named Buster Yardley who was married to a tiny little girl named Becky who had been hideously disfigured in a fire just a few months after their wedding. Buster had quite a knack for canabilizing one set of cars in order to fix other sets of vehicles making the road leading to their shack on the outskirts of town looking like a graveyard for Fords and Chryslers. GI's being what they are, Buster and his wife were usually referred to as Junkyard and Dog. I'm not sure how Buster got invited to one of our shows, I knew of him, and it was common knowledge that everyone used Buster, but the Yardley's didn't have any friends.
It was a full house that first night I actually met the Yardley's. They sat in the back corner of a room, alone and aparently uninterested until I came to a selection of sea scapes. The first one was just stunning, crashing waves with nearly transparent crests, sunlight dancing off the water across the canvas. When I illuminated it with an art light, Buster came off his chair and moved to the front of the room. He had a million questions, who painted it, where was this beach, how did he do that? They left with a painting ordered for them. Several months passed, I'd see their names on packages being picked up by other consultants, or on sales slips at the gallery. Just before Christmas Buster called and invited Pap and I out to see their "gallery wall".
It was cold that night, with wind whistling across Indiana's flat landscape. Creepy driving through the car carcasses up to the Yardley's little house with the tin roof. Buster opened the door at our knock and led us down the short bare hall to the living room, empty except for two lawn chairs and a TV tray. Once we'd cleared the wall blocking our view of the end of the room, Pap and I were both struck speechless. The Yardleys had collected a group of seascapes and rustics that when assembled together told the story of a life yet to come. Illuminated by up lights arranged on the floor, the viewer was literally swept out of Indiana. A portrait of a mermaid posed on rocks, long red hair flowing over her shoulder and floating on the water, her tail a nicked and scarred series of scales, was prominently placed in the center of the grouping. "Isn't my Becky beautiful, that's just how she looks to me." Buster said pointing to the portrait.
Buster advanced through the ranks like all GI's do, upgrading his housing as he went. When he retired we got a letter from him, postmarked from New Hampshire. It was a short note thanking us for introducing him to oil paintings and explaining that back when he and Becky had nothing, and were struggling to rebuild their life together after the fire, it was the one thing that opened up dialogue between them, and helped him to show her just exactly how he felt and what he dreamed about.
