Wednesday, May 31, 2017

City That Never Sleeps 1953 Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

There's A Girl In Texas

Its the strangest thing: as I'm trying to mentally process what's going on within the Interwebs (and - is there anyone on them that I could discuss this, w/o sounding like Gossiping Gertie?!) - the title of a Trace Adkins song came to my mind -- and, as it's appropriate for a title --

There is an early middle-aged mom on Youtube who makes videos - from Texas, yes.  But lately she hasn't been uploading content.  Considering she has a child who is now home for summer, I figured that was it ... but decided to check it out anyway, as she's had a few health issues now and again ... what I did find (on her Instagram) was a slew of supportive messages from others who watch her avidly for hauls, DIY, like so, to 'not listen to those haters and come back, please!'

What gossip?  What haters?!!  What's going on here???!

Even YouTubers are aware of the websites that exist solely to talk about YouTubers, by watchers - and generally in the content of the worst yellow journalism I've ever come across, more vile than even reality tv can be at times!  ... That said - very occasionally certain places provide information you cannot find anywhere else, like --

What gossip?  What haters?!!  What's going on here???!

Oh sure there was plenty: one I said "well duh ..."; one I said "ok, yeah, I thought so, BUT! .."; but the third disturbed me tremendously and is where I'd want to sit down and have a chinwag with another person who avidly watches YouTube -whether or not they're her fan.  

I figure this may be my better option, so here it goes:

The first thing she was being lambasted for was not using her real name.  Well duh ... an awful lot of people do that online, for privacy reasons, mainly - so, no foul here!  In fact I kind of figured that one out, since the name she has been using, is 99% heard as a middle name.

Next, was the whole thing around her recently moving ...Ok, sure: as someone who has both rented and owned places to live in, I kind of cued in that this house she said she was BUYING, was actually more so of a RENTAL.  I didn't get too fluffed about it, attributing it again to the whole privacy type of issue ... but several of these 'online investigators' did.  What they found was that the house she was living in when she  moved (another "I own it" that was really a rental) she had to move because the landlord sold it ... now, I started to get uneasy.  While I didn't like her veering off subject to go into great talking vlogs about the guy next door who was making her life miserable - and while I thought that she was overblowing it, allowing him to chase her out of such a nice place for stuff that was yes annoying and possibly even a shade criminal, but not even anything that would land you on the show Nightmare Neighbor -- so now you're telling me she completely made that story up?!  THAT WAS ALL A LIE, INCLUDING YOUR SO-CALLED VIDEOTAPE EVIDENCE OF JUST HOW BAD THIS GUY WAS, AS WELL AS THAT YOU HAD TO CALL THE COPS ON HIM?!!  

But then there was the coup de gras -- When people started screaming on and ON about her 'fake giveaways', just the title of such things didn't make the least bit of sense to me:  of course she's had giveaways!  No, I haven't won one - well, I have only gone for the ones I REALLY wanted, so I wasn't very often in the running - but - she's always announced a winner, so - c'mon, how can they be --- People had screen shots, account information, etc, etc, etc, that showed a clear line :  that every person who won a giveaway - people who often times were regular commentators who had decent things to say on her channel, so that if you comment-scroll you'd recognize the name - were FAKE ACCOUNTS SHE HAD SET-UP.  So - in other words - she never actually gave anything anyway, only pretended to do so, in a polluted haze of a fake person ;-

Whether or not I like them, personally subscribe to them, I can understand alot of things that happen online - like people protecting their privacy even as they thrust themselves into the "it lives forever!", very un-private, world of the Internet ..... but what I can't understand, can't condone, in any part of my life, is blatant lying.  And - from what I'm reading - that's what we've got here --

-- Let's see how this plays out.  I'm still subbed to her, because sometimes people do surprise you IN A GOOD WAY and make a video - "Ok, true confessions time!" --

But -- you know what, now?  Two things are occurring to me now as I type this out --

A.  Is this why God has kept placing her and her daughter on my heart to pray for them?!!  I figured God knew what that was all about, but I honestly couldn't imagine why someone upper-middle-class, living a life with no chronic illnesses or anything - but sure God ok sure I'll pray +

B.  Would I be able to believe anything that came out of her mouth, now?!  Hmmm .....

My jury is still out .

Monday, May 29, 2017

A movie that asks some very stark & very real questions - of the world!

'Always look for the helpers!' (Mr Rogers)

I was reading the news story about the debacle on the Portland light rail .... and .... there was even some type of so-called 'expert' who gave an advisory on something to the effect of 'do you know if, when, how, to safely react to a person in danger?!' which is ridiculous! because ---

-- when a situation happens, it has to completely and utterly come out of your heart and soul.  If you're not wired, weren't raised, and///or didn't retrain yourself as an adult, then - it sadly just won't.  AND - when a situation suddenly develops (as it did on that train ride) -- you have NO TIME! to go through even a mental checklist --

-- but, hey, I give the responding guy a break, too, because he was just trying to fill news space to go next to the box asking readers on CNN if they would be the helpers in such a situation .... since CNN has no comment board that I could find, I thought I would answer the question on my own blog :) and there question was specifically around this situation:  seeing someone verbally attacked for there *otherness*  ---

-- and -- because of how I was raised - and - because of my faith and my belief system -- my answer is this --

Yes.  And, I did so, actually.  And to be honest?  Looking back at it now, I realize it could have potentially ended in the same horrific tragedy that happened in Portland - at that time, tho, that wasn't in my thoughts --

I was in Wal-Mart, at the pharmacy counter, where a hijabi-wearing woman is a regular cashier. In my interactions with her - even when I've gotten exasperated because it seems I almost never get the pharmacy to do the right thing the first time! - she has been overwhelmingly professional, soft-voiced, kind, and polite.  

Well, apparently, my prescriptions are not the only ones that Wal-Mart screws up ... and there was a customer - an overfed, wild-haired woman, white - having this problem at the register.  Her cashier was this Islamic woman.  And - as it happens, and I'm even guilty of this myself - she took it out on the person who wasn't responsible, just the bearer of bad news.  That said -- she did so in a way that was hate speech, clearly, AND VERY LOUDLY, stopping absolutely everyone within a mile range at least.

The cashier looked like she wanted to melt into the floor.

And - it just emerged from me.  I screamed back.  A whole lot cleaner than the woman delivered, by the way, and not hate speech, either -- I'm paraphrasing, but essentially what I said was 'if she's wearing a bomb vest, then yes, she is a terrorist - but if she's wearing a Wal-Mart smock and standing behind the register, then she's a working woman trying to figure out your order.'

I honestly don't remember what the hate-speech woman did, but it was nothing else - no screaming, no ranting and raving - and it certainly wasn't violent!  But I suppose, in the light of three hurt on the Portland rail - two fatally, with their throats slashed ----

The aftermath happened, actually, not even that time (I think we were all a bit dazed and shock-y) but the next time I needed a prescription AND this Muslim cashier waited on me - which was possibly even as long as six months away .... She smiled as I approached the counter, and she said, "Oh, hello!  I will never forget you, but I'm sorry I don't remember your name!"

And I told her my truth:  as long as you'll never forget there is at least one decent American who doesn't vilify you for practicing your faith so openly, that's all you need to recall!!!

On this Memorial Day, in light of this tragedy and so many, many others, some of which don't even make it to the news cycle, I'm calling all of us To Be That Person - To Be That Type of American -- That Type of HUMAN - because - after all! - it is called humanKIND! - and, too - never forget these words of Martin Niemoller:

.First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me - 

The updated, social media version, by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, reads:

First he came for the Muslims, and I said "Guys, let's take a wait-and-see approach here."
Then he came for the Mexican Americans, and I said, "Let's not be sore losers just because the other guy won."
Then he came for the press, and I said, "What makes this country great is our peaceful transitions of power."
Then he came for the women, and I said, "Try to have some compassion for the frustrations of the other side."
Then he came for the black community, and I said, "I know it sucks, but wait four years."
Then he came for me, and I said, "How could this have happened? I did everything I could."

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Almost June :)

"And this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and of wings ..."  e. e. cummings


i thank You God for most this amazing” by e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
e.e. cummings
1894-1962

SLICE OF LYME 5-24-17: PEOPLE'S EXPECTATIONS OF THE CHRONICALLY ILL

That Blue Line & an 8 year old little girl ....

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

And you say - what is this, now?! (incredulously-voiced, eyebrows raised, ? eyes)

I will preface this to say that one, for-profit, healthcare system swallowing///forcing out any other 'brand' for 60+ miles, is not a whimsical, lighthearted situation for the patient on the receiving end! - for too many reasons than I can even type in ;- But what made me hold on and not literally, physically drive myself to exhaustion just to get any type of healthcare, was my specific provider, Donna ... She listened.  She cared.  We have a shorthand that happens between close people. And ... she had a problem w/ this healthcare system, too, but - bought the house, her & the hubs liked the area, this was her field - whaddya gonna do?!

Whenever I have an IBS flare, it almost always begins with some type of extraordinary stress - the whole situation with a certain mobster's girlfriend in the hit show "The Sopranos" tells it extremely accurately!  And so, when a flare hit me, end of April - with Mother's Day lurking around the corner to kick in my heart some more - I figured well that's to be expected, after all ... and as soon as that dammed 'holiday' blows the calendar ....

Except that's not at all what happened - it has continued onwards, to the point that I can't even stand myself in my unwashed, musty clothes I'm wearing around the house, because I am too depleted to make it to the laundromat and be held hostage ... and - speaking of such a term - yeahhh.  I'm being held hostage by this dammed IBS flare that won't stop!  It has already derailed and altered things, things even far more important than feeding quarters into slots ... and so earlier today, I decided to adult myself, and call Donna - well - ok: the way the system works is you get the nurse, and you leave a detailed message, and they call you back --

And that's exactly how it did work, with the recorded message naming all three providers for this one particular nurse, including the full name of Donna, my medical blessing .....

When the nurse calls back, she delivers such amazingly bad news, that - when I get off the phone with her - I actually have to go in the other room, cry, hug cats and dollys ... it seems that Donna has figured out a way to stay in her field AND her house AND get out of this system, too: she's putting in an extraordinarily long commute, to work with the vets.  God love her!  I love the vets!  I support the vets! --

-- one question, tho:  who's going to support me?!

... so the nurse takes all my info down ... and after I try to do a few little things online again, I realize that yeahhh I need to go lay down again. The cats and the dollys and all of that, and hugging my sore tummy, too .... and as I'm laying there, the phone rings.  DO YOU KNOW THAT - 9 TIMES OUT OF 10 DURING THE DAY WHEN MY PHONE RINGS - IT'S NOT A BUDDY OF MINE: ITS THERE FOR-PROFIT HEALTHCARE SYSTEM, WANTING THERE POUND OF FLESH FROM A PERSON ON A FIXED INCOME, WHICH GAULS ME & REMINDS ME OF A CERTAIN SCRIPTURE VERSE - HEHEHE, YOUR DAY IS COMIN'! -- ANYWAY, BECAUSE OF THAT, I DON'T GET UP TO ANSWER IT --

But when my cell phone gives me the signal that I do actually have a voicemail, I figure I'd best drag my aged to imperfection self out of the bed and come out and see --

-- I'm - stunned.  A doctor - a doctor who has never, ever seen me f2f - based on the nurse's notes - thinks I need to drive myself 16 miles one way to the ER and request a cat scan and bloodwork because he said so.  -- And you say - what is this, now?! (incredulously-voiced, eyebrows raised, ? eyes) -- BECAUSE -- were this Donna who knows me and who has literally examined me inside and out -- honey, I wouldn't even be typing!  I'd actually be in the emergency room!  

As the old primal-scream rock song says, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU YOU YOU whoareyouwhoare  ... if you can't even see my body in person, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO TELL ME TO TAKE MY BODY TO SOMEONE ELSE I DON'T KNOW?!  Yeahhh, I'm ready to take my body, alright -- back to NJ, to some previous doctors I had -- or would another state I used to live in be closer?  yeahhh but in NJ at least I could visit people .... sad, sad, sad, mad, bad old world it is, and I'm just sick and frustrated enough, I may even do just THAT!

Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Remember that nice guy with the odd stutter ....

In the early 90s, I worked in a large organization that had its own print facility.  The manager's name was John.  He was a pleasant fellow, but he had an odd stutter, unlike anyone else's I'd ever heard - he repeated every word twice.  So, for example, I would arrive at the Dutch Door for their department and he would smile his way over and say, "hello hello Jean Jean how how are are you you today today?"

I was at a point in my life where I was wearing an engagement ring but ... it was to Mr Hem and Haw and geee I don't know ... and would you believe, we got into a big fight over John!  Because I walked down to the Print Shop one day and there was a big party going on - John was getting married!

John was getting married?!  The geeky guy with the double-word stutter was getting married, while the handsome, well-spoken, athletic, ok slightly quirky but so am I and how he loved my daughter!, I was engaged to, couldn't move past the ring?!!

Needless to say, my engagement ring was broken within about six months or so, if I remember right ...

A few years pass by; a world passes by, in my own life; I've changed jobs, for one - oh, there are constants, certainly - one of which was that I always worked as an election poll clerk ... This year, we are shorthanded, ergo, they are sending someone in from another district ...

In walks a woman whose appearance screams I AM A DYKE WHO BELONGS AT THE NEAREST GAY PRIDE PARADE - in fact, some people actually didn't even think Kay was a woman ;-  However, as the long day went by, even the slightly suspicious older ladies melted, when they heard Kay talk endlessly about her baby boy, even showing his first professional portrait she just so happened to carry in her wallet (well - of course she had a WALLET!) ... In the ebb and flow of conversation, we learn that she is one of the only female prison guards in a notoriously tough mens prison - well, gee whiz! that wasn't any shock to me personally! ... Now, this was circa 1991-ish, and times were different than they are today, and I figured to myself, 'Ok ... so she married a guy because she wanted a baby.  I get that - somewhat.  I mean - why MARRY?!  Or maybe its compromise on both sides?!'  My mind went spinning and spinning with questions that not even I - as tacky as I can be at times! - could just pop right out and ask the woman with the Marine Drill Sgt. haircut.

AND THEN HER HUSBAND CAME IN WITH THE BABY, AND I WAS LITERALLY FALLING BACKWARDS INTO MY CHAIR, AS HER HUSBAND SMILED DIRECTLY AT ME AND SAID - JEAN JEAN IT IT IS IS SO SO GOOD GOOD TO TO SEE SEE YOU YOU AGAIN AGAIN!

I knew John enough to know - nooo, this wasn't a compromise marriage; the man was as straight as a plumb line.  But - how?  and how did this baby --?  and why?  -- my poor head just wouldn't stop! but thank God my mouth was stopped-up, because Kay actually worked for us several other times ... once she told a marital story - the kind bored women with no voters share - about how John had been distracted in traffic and bumped the car in front of him ... and she put her hand on his arm, and said, "Let ME take care of THIS."  We all tittered away in girly giggles, with knowing glances at one another ... We also learned that John's parents - two hardworking, middle-class souls - honestly never thought there son would get married, and so - "but - we INSIST!":  wedding present: they bought them a new house!

Oh boy, I remember thinking to myself - this is going to go like a lead balloon at divorce time .... because - how else could this story end, right?!

So I was just sitting here and guess who came to my mind???

Ahhh, in the age of Google and social media, you know ....

I was sad that Kay had passed away at age 62 of heart disease, after a distinguished career as a sports official (no word on her former employment), but what stopped me completely and made me re-read was - one of the survivors is HER HUSBAND OF 26 YEARS, JOHN

There were TWO children listed, and they were far much more easier to locate, being of the technology age ... both are or have been, college students of the highest order, community-spirited - the whole list of things that would make any parent burst with pride!  The daughter - well, she reminds me of another couple I knew, where both husband and wife fell in the homely as a holler-creek hen house category, yet there only daughter was beauty queen gorgeous! -- same here.  The son looks like a younger version of his dad, without the glasses.

26 YEARS?!  How -- and how did they -- and how did they even meet?!  I'm a writer, and as the late, great Ann Landers always said - folks, I can't even make this stuff up!

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Thursday, May 18, 2017

Another shock ....

I honestly don't even know if I should publish after I type this out, because even without using names and details, it may just be too easy to put pieces together -- be that as it may, my solace, my way of working through something, is to write, so .....

I was just sitting here, watching a video, and I had an "oh yes! " moment : it was about creating a vision board ... and of course! I very distinctly remembered the dear soul who introduced me to one, and how all that came about, and so I did the 2017 thing - let me Google her ....

Well, she passed away several years ago now, actually.  She was still young enough to be out in the work force.  It was listed as "suddenly, at home".  She was not free from a serious illness back to the time I knew her (which was in the earliest part of the 90s), but she managed it very well - so well, in fact, that she was able to hold down a full-time, demanding job, raise 3 children, have a successful marriage, a lovely home, even counsel people on the side - which was actually where her truest calling and direction was, always, but economics of living in the most expensive state in the country dictated otherwise ... so - remembering all that she was to me in even the brief space of time that we worked together - I next decided to see if I couldn't find one of her children and write them a lovely little note on how dear their mother was to me.

AND THAT'S WHEN I HAD THE TRUE SHOCK

Back when we worked together, her two daughters were teenagers ... and she told me that she & her husband were going to have figure something out, about their working hours - because one daughter was starting to run a bit wild, and taking her sister along with her.  "Jean, I came home from work the other day, and the two of them are hanging half their bodies out the second-floor window, talking to these - guys - derelicts!" (or some word to that effect) "in these cars" -- you get the picture!  Well --

-- its not just what happened in the time after I knew this woman --

-- its the WHEN.  The when of what happened - of that one daughter that was the wild one as a teenager -- who became an adult that 'seemed' to be 'doing ok', including having 'a decent job' -- until it was discovered she had stolen a considerable amount of money from them.  And ... she did prison time for it.  And -- yeahhh.  The dates are too close.  It literally broke her mother's heart, "suddenly and at home".  In this beautiful home where she had brought so much good and so much God, where she poured her love so freely; in this home where her daughter began running around with the wrong crowd, taking wild advantage of parents who had to work to put the food in her stomach and the hair rinse she neeeeded and all of that ... she went Home.  

My heart is broken, too, my dear friend ... but I want to be so much more like you now, I'm trying not even to be angry that THIS DAUGHTER is the one posting all over social media beautiful photos of her beautiful life ... including tributes to her late mother .... 

... ok, I'm not as good as you were sitting at that desk beside me and teaching me about vision boards inbetween handling the switchboard, the ever-beeping fax, all of that ... so, I'll ask for your help ...

... just as I realize you must still be directing it like a sunbeam to your children -- including the wild child that broke your human heart but never, ever your soul

Quotes, and birthdays, and all of that ....

When I went to publish on my Facebook wall all that today, May 18th is - the famous days, the this and the that - I was reminded that it is the birth day of Pope John Paul II ....

So much has been written about this man, by far better writers than myself - well!  So instead what I going to do is ask you to keep his image in your mind (or, in front of you, if you have it) while you look at these quotes from our U S President - oh, there are more I can add ...:

(On Carly Fiorina)  "Look at that face - would anyone vote for that?!"

(On one of his own close relatives)  "If she weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her myself."

(1991)  "It doesn't really what the media write as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass next to you."

(On hiring working moms)  "She's not giving me 100% - she's giving me 84%,and 16% is going towards her children."

Friday, May 5, 2017

Lighthouse Faith - Lauren Green (J1669)

Lighthouse Faith - Lauren Green (J1669): Lauren Green, Chief Religion Correspondent for Fox News reveals her own personal journey to a deeper faith and validating the accuracy of science aligning with a Biblical view of creation.

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Abbey Roads: Matt Talbot's Birthday

Abbey Roads: Matt Talbot's Birthday: +2 May 1856 – 7 June 1925+ Lord, in your servant, Matt Talbot you  have given us a wonderful example of  triumph over addict...