tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87195917548307130532024-02-07T16:49:22.868-08:00Just A Keyboard AwayWherever I am, and whatever I am thinking. If you want to stay in touch, this is the best way.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.comBlogger174125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-25804384772624603872023-09-16T02:32:00.002-07:002023-09-16T02:32:34.354-07:00Has It Really Been This Long?<p>I've been posting directly to Facebook not for over a year, all rants and raves and thoughts on the natural processes of the world, and some not so natural. I decided to take a look at some of my older musings and realized that I hadn't done a blog post for over a year.</p><p>A solid year.</p><p>It boggles my mind. I write so many posts, some cathartic and some based on random thoughts, that I was a bit thrown off kilter that I hadn't posted here in so long.</p><p>I guess that's how life works sometimes. You share and share and share, throwing bits of flotsam into the Universe, that when you stop, it's like the earth slows down to a crawl and you lose actual time itself. At least for me, that's how it feels. Blogs are not as fashionable as they used to be, it's more of a YouTube internet right now, with short snippets of influential goings-on. I will admit, it's one of my favorite pastimes of late, and I watch a lot of the darned things, mostly dogs and gorillas. I have no clue as to why.</p><p>This morning, my thoughts crept out of my brain somewhat slower than usual and I was remembering our childhood housekeeper, Willie Mae. This was the 1960s, and we called her our maid. Both Mom and Dad worked full-time, and I needed looking after, and that's just what people did back then. She lived with us part-time, because it was easier and more comfortable for her, because she was already ancient when she showed up like an unleashed Rottweiler, ready to take on demons to keep my little sister and I safe. </p><p>Willie Mae was a force of nature, to use an old cliche. She came to us by some invisible ether, suddenly showing up to iron everything, literally, and to bake us pound cake that has never been equaled to this day. She was stern and you did not cross this woman or all hell would be released. She was there in the morning at some point ( I was already on the school bus) and when I got home, she was there, waiting at the front door like an ominous presence that may or may not have needed an exorcism. Early days with Willie Mae were rough. I was not used to toeing the line, shall we say, but this woman knew how to use a wooden spoon. She had raised her own children, and now she was raising us.</p><p>Over the next eight years or so, Willie Mae became such an engrained member of our family that she sat at our kitchen table and ate with us, carrying on in all of the conversations, just like an old family matriarch would do. She slept over some nights, when the day had been too long for her, and going back to her own home, deep in the wilds of Silver Springs, with no running water or electricity, was an inconvenience. She never worked weekends, Dad always diligently gave her a ride home on Friday afternoons. Her stories were fascinating to me, and I have always loved story-tellers. I cannot tell you how old she actually was, but she had stories of what she called the Old South. She told me about hunting for crawfish in little "cricks," how dancing under moonlight would make you crazy and how washing up your hair with rainwater was just the best thing. She made us the most delicious sour orange pie I've ever eaten, and regularly schooled our parents on how to cook up collards, fry up shrimps and lay down biscuits and pie crust the "right" way. She taught me to iron, to do laundry (we used a washing machine, but she sometimes washed up dad's khaki shirts in a tub and used a scrubbing board) and hang it up on the line to dry. She sent me out to feed the chickens and collect the eggs, making sure I spread out some crushed oyster shell so the hen eggs wouldn't be so fragile. She tolerated our dog, but never let her in the house, because dogs didn't belong there. Try telling that to my current brood, who think everything in the house belongs to them.</p><p>A couple of things I do remember about Willie Mae the most was that she was a snuff-user. Not the "new" definition of snuff. Real tobacco snuff. She dip those horrible dried leaves in between her bottom lip and her jaw and spit vile juices of mixed saliva and tobacco in the sink, which was white ceramic. Thank goodness for Comet cleanser. Her snuff cans were lined up behind the partition between the cabinet doors above the stove hood, so that they would be out of sight. Willie Mae hated smoking, and Mom and Dad were both chain smokers, but dipping snuff was fine with her. I found those cans years after Willie Mae had left us and this world behind, and I wondered why Mom had never thrown them away.</p><p>I had tried smoking once. My friend up the road, Tina Evers, and I sneaked cigarettes into my room and we crawled into my closet to try and smoke one day after school.Now, Tina's parents smoked, in fact, everyone smoked back then, but Tina was as scared of her mother as I was of Willie Mae, so my house was the chosen haven for the cigarette trial. Willie Mae seemed quite busy ironing something or other, (I believe sheets) and watching television, so we thought we could hide in the closet and get away with it.</p><p>Our coughing, and the thin wisps of smoke coming out from under the door alerted her spider senses and she opened the door like the God of Thunder and started chastising us out with a vengeance. Tina ran out, dropping the cigarette, and running out the kitchen screen door to escape the fire-breathing monster that was Angry Willie Mae. She stepped on that cigarette with her house shoes within seconds, started out of the bedroom, grabbed her corn broom, and began to swat at me relentlessly, yelling at me the whole time about the devil and hell and how I had "better never do that again, you spoilt chile."</p><p>And I never did. To this day, I have never smoked a cigarette (of any kind) since.</p><p>I had so much respect for the woman. I respected her gruffness, respected her all-enveloping kindness and love, even though she tried to hide it, and respected her moral and ethical rules to live by. She shaped my upbringing as much as my own parents. She taught me respect for all living things, because everything had a purpose "from the ants to the eagles," and there was no difference in people, just skin color. I loved that woman, all of her.</p><p>Willie Mae died fairly soon after my little sister was born. She made an excellent wage as our housekeeper, with dad always being fair about paying for all the work she did for us, plus extra. She did not have health insurance, and it was not a requirement for employers to provide that at the time. She had been suffering for years with gall bladder attacks, and having myself suffer from that many moons later, I can not imagine the pain she hid from us. It finally sent her to the hospital, and she did not recover. I don't recall all the details, but I do know that her house and money (yes, kept in cans and buried under the front porch of her home) were all taken by her son, but Dad paid for her medical bills and her subsequent funeral and was happy to do so. I have no clue where Willie Mae is buried, do not know if she has a headstone, and still never knew her last name nor what happened to any of her collected treasures, mostly bird nests and foreign coins from far-off lands.</p><p>We got a new housekeeper, but she didn't work out. She was much younger, and had a massive afro, which she spent hours oiling and primping. She smoked cigarettes as much as my parents did, and always had one hanging out of her mouth while she was ironing and fixing after-school snacks. She watched a lot of television, curled up on the couch or on the telephone. We had one phone, a yellow wall model, with cord that was so stretched out, it made it into the living room. She was pretty much oblivious to my sister and I. When she was let go, it was up to me to govern myself after school, and my little sister was put into day-care for a little while. Those were the best years after Willie Mae, because I could run through the woods at will with my dog Sandy, which I thought was just a mutt until I found out she was, at least mostly, an English Cocker. I managed to get my homework and household chores done, still watch my beloved Dark Shadows on television before Mom got home.</p><p>Why she was in my thoughts this morning I haven't a clue. But, she was there, hands on her aproned hips, sluffing along in her well-worn house shoes, with her hair tied up in a bandana. As most things that touch my soul, I had to write a little missive about my memories of her and how she became so important and beloved to me. She is not, and never will be, forgotten. </p>Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-1686065091803421642022-05-04T04:55:00.002-07:002022-05-04T04:55:48.093-07:00Telling the Bees<p> <span> </span>Ancestry. com has provided lots of answers, verifying my innate passion for the Low Country, as so many of my father's relatives from Europe settled there, in the coastal wilds of Georgia and South Carolina. I knew that England and Germany (mother's side) were definite origins, and that my Dad always loved England as well as Georgia and South Carolina. At one point, he was thinking of moving the family from Florida to Coastal Georgia. One of the phrases I remembered he used on occasion was "telling the bees," and I swear I thought it was a dismissal to my many questions growing up. As in, "I don't want to listen to you. Go tell the bees." I was quite annoying in that respect. Probably in a lot of other ways, too, and most likely still am. </p><p><span> Well, lo and behold, I read an article about "telling the bees," which I happened upon quite by chance. It was in an article written by Bailey Gilliam, in a magazine,<i> Local Life</i>. Here's the explanation of the old, Low Country coastal (and British) tradition:, and some parts are paraphrased:<br /></span></p><p><span><span><span> "When love is lost or gained, one is supposed to alert the bees of the news. Historically, it is said that if the bees were not told of the important events in their keeper's lives, such as marriages, deaths, departures or returns in the household, a penalty would result on the hive and possibly even the family. If the bees aren't 'put into mourning' or 'invited to celebrate,' they may leave the hive, stop the production of honey or even die."</span><br /></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span> "While little is known about the origins of the tradition, it is speculated that it was inspired by the ancient Aegean concept of the bee's ability to bridge the gap between the natural world and the afterlife. The custom of telling the bees is best known to be practiced in England but has also been recorded in most of (Northern Europe). In previous centuries, apiarists would drape black cloths over the hives to put the bees in mourning or bring them cake for weddings or births as a celebratory invitation. When the beekeeper died, the hive would be served (food presented at the funeral), turned to face the burial site and be told that their keeper had passed away."</span><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span> "Even today, people still say 'go tell the bees.' For many, even those who aren't superstitious (or have hives as a source of income or personal use), telling the bees of love and loss can be an enormous help in the grieving process. If something is weighing on you, it might be worth a try to find a hive and go tell the bees."</span><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span> Infinitely interesting to me, although I haven't carried on the tradition of telling the bees to my own progeny. At one point, I did have plans to install beehives on my four acres in Kentucky, which was purchased along with the building, when the big move to Kentucky was made in the early 2000's. This was a beautiful, hilly pastureland, planted in clover, that my former husband and I had planned to build a house on, or at the very least, revert the existing barn into a place of residence. It was only about two miles from the downtown area, and </span>literally, a perfect place to exist. I buried my two Scotties, Rita and Lucy, on that land, on the highest part, by natural boulders, and never thought that a scant couple of years later, I'd be leaving it all behind to begin again. Divorce not only rids you of your spouse and in my case, best friend, it also evaporates any hopes and dreams you may have had with that marriage. Our plans to go to learn the art of beekeeping at a local Master Gardener's class (which I actually completed later on) so that we could have hives on the property were </span></span></span></span></span>dissolved. However, even though they were not "our" hives, beehives were indeed placed there by a beekeeper from Maysville, who gifted us with the tastiest clover/lavendar honey I have ever had.</p><p><span> I like the old phrases like telling the bees. Learning about the Gullah GeeChee and Low Country traditions have always been a big part of my soul in some mysterious way. The fact that I could suddenly remember this little forgotten phrase from childhood from a random paragraph in a </span>magazine decades later is amazing to me.</p><p><span> </span><br /></p>Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-50422534199982296612022-04-16T18:57:00.000-07:002022-04-16T18:57:08.152-07:00Is She Really Ranting About Toothpaste?<p>Yes, she is</p><p>She most certainly is.</p><p>You know, I grew up in a household that there was one toothpaste, and it was Crest. It prevented cavities. To my parents, that was most important, and whether or not any of our teeth were "ten shades whiter" made no difference whatsoever. We drank clean, fresh well water, which came out of the tap practically ice cold. No fluoride, the magic chemical of the 1950s, so of course, since fluoride was touted as the ultimate cavity preventer, we had to use Crest. Now, we kids heard there was a toothpaste on the market called Colgate, but it didn't contain fluoride at the time.</p><p>Now, this Crest came in a 8.2 ounce tube, with a tiny little cap which was forever rolling under the toilet or behind the door (our bathroom vanities were built-ins, so that tiny little caps could never roll under them). Twice a day, without fail, our teeth were minty-fresh Crest. The fluoride in Crest was no match for the hundreds of boxes of Snow-Caps, Malted Milk Balls and Milk Duds that were my passion for many years, but it was a noble fight. </p><p>Over the years, of course, toothpaste took on a whole new persona. Now all of a sudden, it became of primary importance to not only prevent cavities, but to make your breath smell like peppermint and whiten your teeth. Toothpaste became a cosmetic product that had to do everything that would make your mouth both healthy and sexually appealing. It was – and is – the new Snake Oil. And, not only this, but it steadily reduced the product in the tubes from 8 ounce to 3.5 ounces. For way, way more money. Reportedly, a tube of Crest cost just under 50-cents in 1956. Now, among the several offshoot brands of Crest, the highest priced one, with a spiffy aluminum-colored top (and not a tiny one, either) costs $6.99 (and it's 3.5 ounces of sparkly blue gel).</p><p>I have tried many toothpastes in my lifetime. I begged mom to buy Stripe toothpaste, and she did begrudgingly, but only because it would continue to keep me brushing my teeth, and since I was the kid with all the teeth issues, whatever she could do to keep cavities and the dental visits at bay was worth it. I used Ipana for a while, because it seemed more European to me, although it wasn't. At the tender age of 12, I craved anything exotic. In my hippie stage, I used tooth powder, which was messy and not very effective at preventing cavities, I'm sure. You name it, if it was on the shelves of the local grocery, I used it at one point or another.</p><p>Toothpaste now comes in plastic tubes, not metal, and it's hard to actually use all of the product. The caps have changed to the more convenient ones which allow you to just flip open the cap (thus eliminating the lost cap and the ensuing verbal thrashing for losing it yet again) as well as standing it on the counter. Great changes, yes. Paying a whole bunch more for half the product, no. </p><p>After all, it is just toothpaste. A specific product for a specific use. I think it's become way too diversified. Whatever happened to keeping things simple?</p>Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-9497565660686734062022-03-25T03:44:00.000-07:002022-03-25T03:44:05.905-07:00Gratefulness Without Measure<p><span> </span> I know, I know. It's a subject that plays in my brain and heart over and over again in droves. I pass off the constant feelings of gratefulness to advancing age, but you know, when I think back, I have always had an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness, both for large and small things.</p><p><span> What is gratefulness? Is it love unbridled, like a runaway horse? Is it guilt in small, tiny vials marked poison, which we drink and then, right before we close our eyes, we feel? Is it faith in something larger, universal, which grabs our gut and clenches it tight, wrenching out tears from the eyes and piety from the soul?</span><br /></p><p><span><span> I have no answers as to why some people are more prone to gratefulness than others. There are those who go about their daily lives, working and striving to create comfortable places to exist and purchase objects to improve their status or lifestyle, who appear to have a very low percentage of gratefulness. They use life to their advantage, and only to their advantage, and never take precious seconds out of their 24-hour time slots to be truly grateful for their sheer ability to be where they are in life. I've met those who are down on their luck, always complaining, always envious of the people mentioned above, who carry rot in their soul for not being in the upper </span>echelon, as if life threw them dark clouds from birth,</span></p><p><span><span> I have also met those who attribute their good fortunes to religious faith, faith in a creator-being who pats them on the head like little lap-dogs when they attend churches or prayer meetings, and who believe that the only reason they are blessed is because they follow their master without question. Don't get me wrong: I attended church (Episcopal) since I was a small child, and I've read the King James bible from cover to cover. I'm not writing this to diminish the power of faith. I'm writing this to ask you, in short, to examine your own gratefulness, or lack thereof.</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span><span> I have never felt, personally, that I have created my life alone. Every step along the way, from a mother and father who believed in my talent so much that they were willing to mortgage their home to send me to Parsons in New York City so that I could further my art. A mother and father who, for whatever reason, let me run wild for most of my youth, to explore my own </span>boundaries and to forge my own belief system in all things. Both of my sisters have been </span></span>supportive of me in their own ways throughout the years, both emotionally and financially, and I have had partners in life and marriage that have taught me lessons, schooling me in the emotional realms of love, pain, loss and grief.</p><p><span> Through it all, I have felt grateful. I express it in countless spoken and written words, and mean it sincerely. I have been given so much, and feel as though I have not returned it to those who have offered it. My life bloomed rapidly, like a flower with countless petals, and now, as the petals are starting to fall away, I feel even more gratefulness than ever. We are not meant to constantly bow our heads, to meekly retort our thank you's over and over again, to attribute all of our life's achievements to others. But, we are meant to step outside of our own egos and realize, in no uncertain terms, that we are not the sole creators of our lives. We are meant to recognize that we have helped to build our lives with the stones and pebbles others have given us. We are meant to be introspective of how we became ourselves.</span><br /></p><p><span><span> Some of the physical objects or financial gains we have acquired, the emotional pain or pleasure we have received, the places we have traveled to or lived in – all of these are those stones and pebbles that have made up our foundations. Be grateful.</span><br /></span></p>Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-17489859076400400982022-01-27T02:21:00.001-08:002022-01-27T02:21:42.359-08:00In the Still of the Morning<p> <span> </span>I've been so busy trying to produce enough art for another show, I've been keeping my mind locked up behind a very large and formidable locked door.</p><p><span> But, this morning, when I swore to myself I would stay in bed until at least 5:30 a.m. every day, I was up again at 3 a.m., like a frantic mouse, scurrying to and fro looking for that last morsel to take back to the nest before I settled in for a nap. No matter what I tell myself: "You need to heal, Brenda. You need to rest, Brenda"...nothing seems to work when the brain kicks in.</span><br /></p><p><span><span> This morning, my thoughts were on the lost. Not those orange-handled scissors that you swore up and down were in the basket on your desk, and now are nowhere to be seen. Not the brand-new jar of Skippy you bought just last week that has disappeared into the Twilight Zone of your kitchen. No, neither of those things, but the loss of long-known establishments and people that defined your youth.</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span><span> Everyone has loss as a part of their lifespan. We lose people that have been close to us, we lose people that we watched on television, we lose people that spanned generations of music and art. We got comfortable knowing they were always there, and now they are not, never to return. Places are the same way. Roadside gift shops with big shark heads and billboards touting "live alligators," at least here in Florida, were always my triggers for comfort in my state, silly as that seems. Seeing them on my day journeys throughout the state, knowing that inside them was the smell of orange-scented pottery and imported </span>Philippine shells, pirate flags and ceramic flamingos, plastic oranges, bamboo wind chimes and tacky decals for your glass sliding doors. All of them were the same for the most part, and every single one of them meant home to me. I grew up in Silver Springs, a huge tourist destination since the early 1800s, and there was one particular shop I rode my little pink Schwinn bicycle (with streamers, folks) every single Saturday afternoon (after the obligatory chores, a Tarzan movie and the following Creature-Feature on television) that was in a little corner niche on SR 40, which has now become a boring highway median. I took my weekly allowance ($2.00) and rode off into the sun to purchase a shell or two, sometimes "</span></span>lavender toilet water from France," leaving enough for a slaw-dog from the nearby Dairy Queen. Don't tell Mom...she hated it when I ate before my dinner (but how I dearly loved slaw-dogs, and ONLY from Dairy Queen). The Shell Shop was torn down many, many years ago. As were the Cloister Courts, built from coquina rock, that was the favorite motel for many travelers, and Yancy's Blueberry Farm.</p><p><span> Just recently, I read a post on Facebook that Tom's, also a well-known Florida gift shop, has drifted off into the sunset. It had been going downhill for years, but these last two years of minimal tourism and disinterest in the old Florida pit-stops finally made the final slice, and it has closed as well. This shop was on the road to St. Augustine, a route I still travel as often as I can, now that I'm closer. Nothing gives me a thrill as much as seeing a lighthouse as I come around the bend on A1A to Anastasia Island. I would often pop into Tom's. Just to remember.</span><br /></p><p><span><span> In the mid-70s, I was a dancing fool to David Bowie (cancer), wearing padded-shoulder jackets and high heels with my jeans. I had all of his albums, and think I still do, buried in a bin somewhere in the shed. In the late 70s, I took a job at ABC liquors as a bartender, wearing a little red "elf" dress, mixing drinks to the tunes of Donna Summers (lung cancer) and Glenn Frey (pneumonia) and shot a mean </span>game of pool to the tunes of Stevie Ray Vaughn (helicopter crash). I adored Jim Croce (plane crash), especially "Time in a Bottle," and am dreading the day when Jimmy Buffett is no longer pumping out his tunes of tropical living. They all left their music behind to bring us back to earlier days, and when the tunes I remember pop up on my car radio (yes, I listen to 70s and 80s music), I get a little misty.</span></p><p><span><span> Yes, I know, ch-ch-ch-changes are inevitable. Nothing stops change. But I am getting to the age where I </span>reminisce about the long-gone. Riding my little bike miles to downtown Ocala, which still had brick streets, huge, ancient buildings and a Woolworth store complete with a lunch counter, and board sidewalks in some parts of town, just so I could buy a little gift for my Mom or go to a movie at the Marion Theatre (I could get in with RC bottle-caps, which I picked up from the Jiffy Store parking lot). Music will always take me back, and I still watch the old movies and television series from time to time because I just plain like them. The past is a funny place. Not good to live there, but nice to visit.</span></p><p><span><span> </span><br /></span></p>Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-56494018165296613052021-12-28T14:09:00.000-08:002021-12-28T14:09:57.011-08:00All In Favor of Hummingbirds, say Aye<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">I’ve decided that, in part of my new attitude towards an overall health change –which does not include a strict diet with cardboard as the main staple, much to the chagrin of my new physician, who gives drill sergeants the demeanor of bunny rabbits compared to him– am going to take some time each day to reflect, to write, to go through my mental file cabinet and clear some debris.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">From my perch in my favorite patio chair by the pool, I looked around and gave some thought to all the pruning that needed to be done, and as I looked to the left, I saw how high my neighbor’s Cape Honeysuckle had grown, overtaking my fence and dropping dead leaves and flowers in my once fastidiously groomed pathway. There is no reasoning with him about trimming it into a nice, manageable hedge, as I have never met anyone who despised doing anything in the yard more, other than the man I married. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And then I saw them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Three, perhaps four, hummingbirds, dancing a frenzied waltz around from bloom to bloom. My heart lept in sheer amazement. When I moved in my house, the former owners had left two hummingbird feeders, hanging from a tree limb that draped over my other garden pathway. I was determined not to be a slave to hummingbird feeders, as I had tirelessly cleaned and filled them for years in my former rental home, and had never seen a single bird. So, I took them down, and not a month later, I saw hummingbirds, frantically searching for their former food source. I felt bad for years, and went through feeding birds, squirrels and when that became a problem, drawing beach rats and raccoons, I just eliminated all feeders entirely, focusing on planting native plants for bees and butterflies. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">But now, the elusive hummingbirds were once again making an appearance. So, sitting here in the balmy breezes of a Florida winter, I have become resolute that I will concede to the natural order of things, and let the bright orange blooms of the messy, invasive honeysuckle to continue to thrive, even if it does drive my deep-seated need to have everything somewhat tidy into overdrive. The hummingbirds did it. Clever little creatures.<i><o:p></o:p></i></p>Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-5730096666517840422021-12-17T17:07:00.000-08:002021-12-17T17:07:06.092-08:00From The Rabbit Hole of Pemphigus To A Whole New Journey With Medicare<p> What is it about turning 65 and going on Medicare screams "profit margin" to health care providers? </p><p>Before, I had the very least minimal health insurance I could get. Think of your car insurance and just keeping enough to get a new tag every year. That was me.</p><p>Far from complaining, but when I had my first, and now continuing, series of eye test, medical tests and dental tests when I turned 65, I went from being a healthy, active 65-year-old to being on pills that, if lined up in pill bottles on a countertop, it would look like an art installation. I'm on Cellcept (for the autoimmune disease), Prednisone (inflammation for the autoimmune disease), Lisonpril (blood pressure, probably from anxiety about taking all the pills), Metformin (Ben & Jerry's makes a wonderful ice cream called Salted Caramel Core, and it's double the amount of sugar any normal person should have in a day, much less a person battling impending diabetes), Berberine (anything to reduce blood sugar), Rosuvastatin (What? I have to manage cholesterol, too?), several "old person" supplements like Vitamin D, COQ10, and Folic Acid. There are a couple of other pills in there, too, that I am unsure of what they actually do – oh, and a once weekly pill for osteoporosis, which apparently I have in my lower back. Let's not leave out gingivitis, for which I had to have all my "quadrants"scraped and fumigated and medicated or whatever they do, and my eye tests which determined I have higher pressure than normal, and less than 20% of my optic nerves left.</p><p>Having said all this, you must remember that at the end of 2020, I was in great health. My weight was good, range of mobility perfect, eyes tested out same as the last four years and regular teeth cleaning could commence. I had my vaccinations, including flu, and all was good.</p><p>So, I ask you, why am I suddenly a member of the walking dead? Why am I popping pills like an out of control hypochondriac, and on doctor's orders no less? And, why are my blood tests that I have every three months getting progressively worse, which determines my apparent need to have even more pills to cram down my throat, at specified times during the day. </p><p>The side effects of medications are headaches, nausea and skin so thin that I put a band-aid on the other day (new puppy=necessity for band-aids) and tried to remove it, at which point my skin literally peeled off my arm with it. I'll show you the scar. I still have an open lip ulcer, currently being treated by Betamethasone Dipropionate, which apparently doesn't work, and three separate other topicals for skin and scalp sores. All of these gleefully dispensed by the elves at the pharmacy.</p><p>I want to go off all this crap for a year and see if my body returns to normal, or at least 65-year-old normal. But, I'm afraid I'll disintegrate into a pool of jelly. So, I faithfully trudge along, taking a specified regimen of pills at morning, noon, evening and bedtime. I just somehow think the system of prescribing medications to make you well....makes you sick.</p>Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-43037075855430510142021-08-06T17:43:00.000-07:002021-08-06T17:43:01.799-07:00Did You Think I Abandoned My Post(s)?<p>No, never. The need and will to craft words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs is buried deep within me. It's as much a part of me as my art.</p><p>It's just that, well, you know, Covid happened and really threw everyone on the planet in a loop of fear, timidity and, especially in my case, financial derision. Art shows were cancelled daily, and the list grew longer and longer. Luckily for me, I could file unemployment, having been in the workforce as a paid employee for over 40 years. And, the "Covid Money" and the "Trump Check" didn't hurt. I got repairs to my house done, a boatload of inventory done, and generally took a paid year of retirement off.</p><p>But, I get bored easily and needed to get back out into the world. I was ecstatic when, in January of 2021, the veil of fear started to lift, and my old ass could get vaccinated, both one and two, in February of 2021, and anticipated life returning to normal.</p><p>Which, dear readers, of course it did not.</p><p>My dental clinic finally opened back up, and I was long overdue for a cleaning. Got that, and a month later, had a blocked salivary gland. I have no clue if anything is related, but I suddenly developed ulcerous sores inside my mouth and on my tongue which kept getting progressively worse. Over the next three months, I decided to be proactive in researching what it might be and the best match for what I was experiencing was a particularly nasty autoimmune disease called Pemphigus Vulgaris.</p><p>Now, I was doing art shows now, and full-steam-ahead art shows so that I could pay all the credit cards down from my boredom purchases. I lost my buddy Wiggles in 2019, right after his mama died in 2018, so I was truly depressed. Both my best friends died. So, I had purchased another Scottie puppy from a wonderful breeder in Louisiana, and took a road trip to go get her. In the middle of a hurricane, of course. She, my little Ladybug, has been a saving grace for me this past year. She kept me active, kept me from disappearing into grief. But the mouth sores kept getting worse, and now I was developing lesions on my throat and my shoulders.</p><p>I secured a new primary care physician who worked with my insurance, but all I got were new blood sugar and cholesterol medication. Finally, after anti-virals (possible herpes) were prescribed, series of new labs done and "shingles" was suspect) neither of which were actually diagnosed, I managed to get referred to an in-network ear, nose, throat doctor. Had to wait a month, but she actually took a biopsy, after much prodding and pleading. Again, had to wait another month for the results, but they confirmed what I had known for over a year. Pemphigus. I was prescribed Prednisone to reduce inflammation, but she did not feel comfortable in treating a long-term autoimmune disease, so she suggested go see a dermatologist. This time, I got in under three weeks, but they did not treat oral lesions. So, I explained my story one more time, and she took two biopsies: one of my reddening, ulcerous shoulder and the other of my abdomen, where ulcers had begun to form in my belly button. Now, she referred me to a rheumatologist. I was looking at three months for an appointment, but I got lucky with the nurse who answered the phone, and she put me in the next available slot, a cancelled appointment from another patient. Finally, I thought.</p><p>The rheumatologist determined, just from the first biopsy and from looking at me over his glasses while sitting at a laptop, that I did have Pemphigus "most likely" and he put me on a Lupus drug called Cellcept -and a dosage of Prednisone as well, although a smaller dosage than the ear, nose throat doc. He said we would revisit my progress after my vacation trip, which was fast approaching.</p><p>Then, I reviewed the second biopsy with the dermatologist. Yep, confirmed Pemphigus Vulgaris, eating away at my skin and my mouth and my internal organs at this point. So, much larger dose of Prednisone (which I'm happy about, because that shit works), an antibiotic, the continuing autoimmune drug, and two different topical cortisteroids, one for my scalp lesions (hair loss) and another for skin. </p><p>So, I've been a bit low-key, having done my last art show in June, and preparing to gear up again in September to take another stab at paying off credit cards. I've sold the RV, preferring instead to deal with hotels and pulling a cargo trailer. When I find a much smaller, drivable camper trailer, I'll look into doing that scene again, with the emphasis on much smaller. And I can take my Ladybug with me.</p><p>Good news is that while I'm on the mend, this apparently will never go away. I don't know how I got it, how it managed to rear it's ugly head, but here will me it will stay. Hopefully between all of the medical professionals I've been to in a year and a half, we can kick this into remission and allow me to eat normally again, and not have a very concerning and ugly ulcer on my bottom lip. My hair loss may never recover so I have to figure out what to do about that (it's minor, but noticeable). I can finally eat something other than soup and mashed potatoes, so I know all the drugs are working, albeit incredibly slow.</p><p>It's been a lesson in pain, a lesson in patience and a lesson in how short life can be. I will never take the joy of eating Doritos in vain again, if I can ever get back to that point.</p><p>See you at the next crisis.</p>Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-46563928251887254372020-01-30T17:34:00.001-08:002020-01-30T17:34:36.073-08:00I Yam What I YamAnd it ain't no sweet potato.<br />
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I have my dark moments. I can be mean as a snake when I want to be. And right now, I'm not mess-with-able.<br />
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I've not had a particularly easy life so far, and I've got a whole closet full of skeletons, with bags of rotting regrets and bad decisions stuffed in the corners. I was skating on pretty thick ice for a couple of years, and now the ice has gotten a little thin, like my patience and my time.<br />
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We've all had days where we hide in corners lest we strike out at those we care about with unimaginable venom. It's one of those days for me. It's a good thing it's just me and the dogs for a week or two, because it gives me a chance to recover from this depression and get back to pooping rainbows and hugging unicorns.<br />
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The weather is currently horrible, which pretty much matches the turmoil I'm feeling inside for many reasons. My art shows have not been going well, but it's the luck of the draw as to "good ones" versus "bad ones." Timing is everything. The last two festivals have been rainy and cold and not financially viable, and I'm so over pulling a trailer which offers a 3-gallon hot water tank and no heat. Not to mention trying to find somewhere to park the thing for the night, I miss the days of a nice clean hotel room with television and 45-minute hot showers. And fluffy white sheets.<br />
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I've got mounds of things on my to-do list at the house, and they're weighing heavy on my brain. There are other things I'm going to have to pay someone to do, and if things don't pick up on the art front, then they won't get done. I've got the pressure of keeping my inventory up art-wise, and I've had a few days lately where I literally sit at my art table staring out the window, in a zombie-like state. I'm always in overdrive and it's catching up.<br />
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So, I'm back to forcing myself to go slow. To think slow. To just be more deliberate in my actions and careful to choose my words, lest I jumble up and tornado myself into hurting someone's feelings.<br />
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<br />Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-8226533518998033732019-10-16T09:22:00.000-07:002019-10-16T09:22:22.370-07:00Gosh, It's Been a Long Time.Always an avid writer of stories, teller of tales and composer of ridiculous rants, I am shocked that the last time I contributed to my pitiful little blog was November, 2018, when I lost my doggie, Pearl.<br />
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I guess I just stopped. Parked my rants and my thoughts in the front yard and let them all rust.<br />
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Time to crank it all up again. Time to share all my brain goop with others, and hope that I get random responses and every now and then, a little justification for my need to share.<br />
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I've started really trying to be aware of my carbon footprint, at least as much as I can. I can't do the hybrid car thing, as I am madly in love with my Jeep. And hybrid cars won't pull my art trailer. I have to rely on my Big Gold Suburban for that. So yeah, I'm still one of those using fossil fuels and will until I freakin' die.<br />
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Unfortunately, solar is too expensive to install as well, and that's a shame, because, living in Florida, it's a perfect match. I hate relying on Florida Power and Light, and really hate paying an enormous electric bill every month. You see, as well as being a fossil-fuel guzzling car hoarder, I have an in-ground pool that demands its filter to run at least 6 out of 7 days, 8 hours a day because, again, I live in Florida. Thus the electric bill. It's an expensive chlorinated bathtub, which I float around in like a bloated manatee for about 30 days a year.<br />
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What I am doing now, other than sincerely trying to eat organic, is researching compostable plastics. I am an avid recycler anyway (living with an avid non-recycler, so it's a shit show every Sunday evening when the recycling goes out to the curb), so looking for things that I normally use and cannot recycle is becoming something I devote time to. A big change is using compostable trash bags made from recycled plastics. I decided to try an online service called Grove Collaborative. Primarily because my local health food stores want outrageous amounts of money for compostable plastics, and Grove Collaborative does not (25 13-gallon bags for $4.95 is affordable). I also bought some sandwich bags, eco-friendly laundry detergent, eco-friendly household cleaner (much like Mrs. Meyers, my current five-year favorites) and a few other things were free (because this is a subscription service, which you can cancel or change at any time). Besides, who wouldn't want cedar-rosemary scented stuff? I mean, really.<br />
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Starting to sound like an advertisement for Grove Collaborative, so I'll stop here. But, I'm happy it's affordable, and it's really hard to justify spending a gob more money on natural, eco-friendly products when you're living art festival to art festival, so I'll buy them as often as I can. And I'll continue to buy as much organic and free-range as I can, because it's just the right thing to do - for my body and my conscience.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-85304662500092107892018-11-30T16:50:00.000-08:002018-11-30T16:50:06.456-08:00Pearl is Gone, and I Am Lost For A BitYou know, I really don't want to be that person. You know the one. The one who won't stop talking about her dog, how great she was, how much you miss her and how you should have done more.<br />
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But, I am.<br />
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I went to an art show this past weekend, and it was a good one. I currently use a camper in my travels, small but efficient, with a shower and a place to sleep. And Pearl was with me. I worried that the trip was too much jostling, too much here and there for her frail health. But, being away from her in her passing would have filled me with so much angst that I had to take her. She was comfortable in a little rolling cart, on her favorite pillow, and at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon, she passed.<br />
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I knew it somehow - that it would happen that weekend. She drank some water dutifully, tried to walk and pee, then stretched her neck over the top of the cart and gasped a few times...then, peacefully passed. I was holding her, touching her heart and calling her name. I had to keep my head and heart in check for three hours during the show, then another two hours while packing up the tent...but the minute I was in the car heading home, I was lost. Lost to grief, lost to infinite sadness.<br />
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I really don't believe in the afterlife, honestly. I believe that we return to energy, as we are born of energy and live as energy. I buried her body that night, and haven't been able to visit the grave yet. I am grieving and think of her every hour of every day since she died. She has left a wound in my heart. I miss her.<br />
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I'm not quite all right yet. I'm in a bit of a fog. I'm adulting. But what I really want to do is push the grief to a crescendo so that I can get over it. I want to look at all her photos, I want to relive all my best moments and remember all the goodness that was that little dog. I helped her with all her puppies, and nursed her through her worst times and would have gladly taken care of her for years to come, even if it meant constant attention. She gave me unconditional love, even when I was impatient with her, or complained of how I had to walk her or groom and bathe her. She was a loyal companion.<br />
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When we leave the earth, we are gone, and all that remains are memories. When I die, she will die with me.<br />
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She deserved so much more.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-89395647495766174132018-10-26T00:22:00.003-07:002018-10-26T00:22:49.932-07:00The Foods Of Historical SignificanceI'm not sure why, but recently I felt compelled to revisit some of the foods I grew up eating when I was a child.<br />
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I think it was an old Monty Python sketch about Spam that launched this uncomfortable journey.<br />
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Because, like most every American household in the 60s, we ate a lot of Spam.<br />
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Spam was the meat du jour on any given day, and to my recollection, almost every Friday evening. The big thing in our household was "Breakfast at Night," whereby we ate scrambled eggs, toaster waffles, bacon and fried Spam. Saturday's lunch menu was always Spam sandwiches (on Wonder bread, of course, with plenty of mayonnaise. As kids, we didn't care, because Big Meat was always cooked on Sunday (whether it was a gorgeous beef roast, complete with savory veggies or a roast chicken, with dumplings cooked in the juices), so we knew we would have "real" food to gorge ourselves on the next day. Sunday's all-day cooking would result in lots of other leftovers that did not resemble Spam.<br />
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Dad loved the stuff. I loved opening the cans, because it required a mysterious "key" with which to hook onto a small metal tab, and if you took your time and rolled back the metal just right, you could open the can. If you broke off the metal, well, then it was time for the pliers, because no can opener, electric or manual, could open that rectangular contraption. It was my singular achievement to roll back the metal so tight that you couldn't tell where the metal and the key became fused. It was something I was quite good at.<br />
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I decided that a taste of the 2018 variety of Spam was in order.<br />
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I had recently purchased a tin of Deviled Ham, another of my childhood memories (again, on white bread with a lot of mayonnaise) and I found it to be suitable for a chip dip, but not a sandwich. One can was all it took for me to decide it wasn't suitable for that, either, after I had a bit of stomach distress after eating the whole thing (I bought the double-size). I had also bought a can of "Sweet Sue Chicken and Dumplings," which we ate in double doses when we had a no-cook evening, and I remembered it to be a savory meal of tasty dumplings with real chicken, stringy and pressure-cooked just like the real thing. The can I opened had the dumplings stuck to the inner lid, smelled of Alpo, and had bits of rubber squares masquerading as chicken. We won't even get into the description of what the dumplings tasted like.<br />
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Spam has tried to corner the market on all things instant meat, with several varieties, ranging from "spicy" to "lemon-pepper." I bought the normal, run-of-the-mill Spam, marked "original," and was dismayed that the can no longer sported the essential "key" with which to open it. After opening the can, the first whiff brought back all those things I loved about Spam, along with the "squishy" sound it makes as you pry it from its container. I sliced it up, and placed two on a piece of sandwich bread and took a bite.<br />
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I'm not real sure how I survived the 60s, eating Spam as a food source. Or, for that matter, Deviled Ham and Sweet Sue Chicken and Dumplings.<br />
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It tasted remotely of ham, but mostly of a slimy grease, for want of better words. The next morning, I decided that I would fry up a slice. Needless to say, I did not need to put any oil in the pan, as it contained plenty all by itself. It did make a slight difference in the taste (better) but not on the "this will give me a heart attack if I eat any more of it" register.<br />
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And, since I am not fond of, but have had plenty, "TV Dinners," mostly Swanson, I think I'll leave those convenience foods off my list for a little while. When Mom discovered the Amana Radar-Range (it took up half of the kitchen counter, and shined like a beacon in the night), she also discovered Swanson dinners, pre-packaged with meatloaf, fried chicken and salisbury steak, along with a spoonful of corn or mashed potatoes (heaven forbid green beans) and a brownie that never quite came out of the paper dish. There weren't a whole lot of varieties of food in TV dinners back then, and unfortunately some of them still came in the aluminum plates, which took care of Mom's first microwave in about 30 seconds. After much wailing and absolute despair, another one was purchased at Sears, and TV dinners were no longer in the freezer, for fear of another incident. It was a bit of a status symbol back in the day to have an Amana Radar-Range, and Mom was very proud of her new appliance. She wasn't going to take another chance. Dad's limit on purchasing appliances had been reached.<br />
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I've never been able to master a lot of the great foods I grew up eating, such as fried okra and green tomatoes, Sunday roast with Yorkshire Puddings (cooked right in the enamel roasting pan - yum!) and fried fish (I ate the crunchy fried fins like they were candy). Dad cooked frog legs and oysters and rabbit (and I ate every single thing without hesitation), but I wouldn't not touch a frog leg today, and certainly not rabbit. I haven't cooked a Cornish game hen for decades, nor have I dined on goat, dove or alligator, also dishes prepared by Dad on any given weekend. I'm giving up on Spam and Deviled Ham, and gladly so. Cans of Sweet Sue will never grace my pantry shelves again, hurricane or no.<br />
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I have yet to revisit tins of Corned Beef Hash (also a staple of my youth) or LeSuer English Peas (try as he did every year, Dad could never grow English peas to any great extent, and love them he did), but I think I'll let my digestive tract recover for a while. Some things you don't need to remember.<br />
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<br />Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-32534757322290217642018-10-15T00:55:00.000-07:002018-10-15T00:55:52.689-07:00Beware the Awareness of GreatnessAs some of my friends know, or don't know and perhaps don't care, I have a true affection for Tom Robbins.<br />
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Not Harold Robbins, also a novelist, or Tim Robbins, an actor of dubious fame who had the also dubious pleasure of sharing a great deal of his life with Susan Sarandon, another one of my mental idols, along with Marilyn Monroe and Will Rogers, all for very different reasons.<br />
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No, I was introduced to the written meanderings of Tom Robbins back in 1980, when I read his third novel, "Still Life with Woodpeckers," having been an aficionado of book stores (and reading) back in the day. I was looking at a table stacked with the newest publications and saw his face on the back cover. So, I suppose, even before I read a word, I was intrigued by his "look," which in a word, looked almost exactly like a cartoon I had drawn on a paper bag back in high school, a vision of what I hoped my future husband would resemble. In fact, my husband at the time did resemble him, with a bit of a lackadaisical swagger, tousled wheat-colored hair and that crooked smile. But, soon after our daughter was born in 1979, I was divorced from the aforementioned husband, and sadly so. But I digress, as usual.<br />
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The book's cover also intrigued me. It was a beautiful rendition of a woodpecker (the large variety of the bird, I believe) holding a match, and was reminiscent of a pack of Camel cigarettes. The back cover touted that it was a "sort of love story" that "dealt with the problem of redheads." Flipping immediately to the back of the paperback, as I am wont to do before reading any book, there was a scrawled statement: "It's never too late to have a happy childhood." I purchased it ($4.50) and I have been hooked on Tom Robbins and his books ever since.<br />
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But, I have never, in all these years, dug into the man himself, preferring to learn him from his words, and to savor the snippets of his life written on the inside covers of said books. When I learned he had written books prior to this one, I was down at the local Barnes & Noble, purchasing them to savor up even more of the strange wisdoms I found to be so like my own. I have purchased every one of his books since, reading them with cookies and milk, reading them on buses and planes, reading them after Friday night beer escapades (although not for long).<br />
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In 2011, a sort of autobiography was released, "Tibetan Peach Pie." Of course, I had been out of the reading habit for well over two decades by this time, and didn't find out about this book until 2018, but in need of diversions, and having a bit more free time via self-employment and semi-retirement, I purchased it.<br />
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I read about his childhood, his marriages (which also strangely resembled my own) and his former and current philosophies of life: then, now and forever. He described his voice as having a North Carolina affectation with a heavy dose of Appalachian twang. I realized I had never heard his voice.<br />
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I had never, in this age of internet stalking, googled him. I was content to read his words, marvel at his acquired wisdoms, gobble down all of his imaginative scenarios with singular characters of whom I would have been sitting at a bar with, and probably have at one point or another. But now, I needed to hear that voice.<br />
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So, I found a YouTube video of an interview done with Tom Robbins. An 80-year old Tom Robbins, who had lost that boyish grin, that tousled hair that bloom of youth. Not the Tom Robbins I had admired for decades. I am only loyal to two novelists: Tom Robbins and Carl Hiaasen. I've heard Carl Hiaasen's voice and it matches his writing, and that lovely slightly honey-smooth Southern accent is definitely pleasing. But, Robbins' voice is creaky like an old pantry door, with almost no discernible accent, much less one of the Southern variety. I attributed this to his many years in Washington state, where there is no accent to speak of. I wasn't devastated, but certainly not overjoyed. What I had expected to hear, and what I heard, were not cohesive.<br />
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Sometimes, I have found, it is best to leave a bit of mystery, a bit of wonder, in all that which we find interesting. It's good when we can have that tiny tidbit of our own imaginations about something - or someone - unknown. Perhaps knowing everything about those whom we hold in high esteem is not necessarily a good thing. If Robbins manages to crank out another novel, I will surely buy it, if only to see what bit of takeaway wisdom I can glean from it. But I will never, ever google him again. I am content to know just enough.<br />
<br />Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-44214442383496738702018-10-13T03:17:00.001-07:002018-10-13T03:17:26.176-07:00Pearl is Ending Her JourneyAfter a series of what appeared to be small seizures, my little Black Pearl may be on her last and final days.<div>
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Pearl is my little Scottish Terrier, purchased for me not long after I lost my soulmate dog, Rita, to a brain hemorrhage brought on by a nasty fall on the staircase leading to the second floor of my building in Kentucky. I grieved for months. So did her companion, another Scottish Terrier named Lucy, and she died three months later, in her sleep. My husband informed me that we needed to have a nice dinner out, and he proceeded to drive south from our home. I loved being in the truck with him, he was always full of interesting stories. I do have a thing for storytellers.</div>
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Two hours later, we arrived in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where we stopped at a Cracker Barrel. That's where we met a wheaten Scottish Terrier, a beauty of a puppy, although he was almost a year old. This was to be officially Dandy Jack, called affectionately "Jarhead" by my former Marine husband, TJ, who wanted to ease my heartache a bit. He was a wonderful dog, perfect actually, but he wasn't my Rita. He followed me dutifully, was easy to train and love. A couple of months later, we went on a road trip to Missouri, where I met a small Scottish Terrier, who became my Black Pearl. She was offered up to me, along with her littermate, and I saw the she was the shyer of the two, and seemed a bit sickly. </div>
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So, of course, as she was in need of a caretaker, and I was in need of a little soul to take care of, I chose her over her feistier sister. As we drove away, the first thing little Pearl did, after licking me to death and yipping off and on, was to pee on my lap. Yep. We were bonded. </div>
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Since then, my Pearl and I have been inseparable. Her first-born son is my Wiggles, whom I adore. I also have charge over two of her pups, Calypso and Violette. When my painful divorce brought me back to Florida, she rode with me in the truck, hanging out the window, ears flapping in the wind. The first time she had ever been to a beach, she threw herself into the sand with a vengeance, immersing herself in the salty sand. She chased crawfish in mountain streams, but the ocean was altogether different. How she loved the beach!</div>
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It's always Pearl with whom I have shared my heartaches, my loneliness, my solitude for the past twelve years. She has given me total loyalty and immeasurable happiness. If I had a bad day, Pearl was there, giving me those eyeballs of love, pleading with me for a walk and a talk, and somehow she knew that just her presence was enough to ease the anger, the hurt, the confusion and the frustrations of any given day. She hated that, after the first years of my being home every day, I was soon back at a full time job, leaving her looking at me out the window of my bedroom.</div>
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She has been showing her age of late. The past month has been a heartbreaking decline in her physical health and she appears to be fading. As I write this, she has had small seizures off and on during the previous day and night, and I have not left her side. She has bounced back from each seizure, slowly, but has been eating and drinking and walking, if but incredibly slow and measured. I do not see pain in her eyes, and she is comfortable, being transported outside for pees and poop, and whatever room I end up in, she tried to follow me, as she always did.</div>
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However, this morning, she cannot move. She won't eat or drink. She has labored breathing. I am giving her eyedroppers of water and milk every half hour or so, but she is going. She knows it, and is leaving me with grace and dignity, while I am in denial and can't accept her passing. I am too selfish to let her go. She is not in pain, and sleeping mostly, even when the other dogs come around and sniff at her, sometimes licking her face for a drop of milk caught in her whiskers. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I won't have her euthanized, because I don't believe in it, unless an animal is truly in pain. I have her progeny here, and they seem to know, and I have to give them love and care, even while my Pearl is resting on her pillow, near my art desk, and I will give her as much comfort as she needs. She will go in her sleep, so I stay awake as much as I can, so that I can be there when she does pass. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I just don't want her to go. </div>
Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-12167009120383037612018-09-13T05:34:00.002-07:002018-09-13T05:34:15.089-07:00She's a Brave Little ToasterI made an analogy a few days ago to one of my favorite cartoon movies, "The Brave Little Toaster," in which a group of outdated appliances are left in a remote cabin by their owner. They get lonely and decide it's time to go find him. It's really a story of bravery, loyalty and courage – and friendship.<br />
<br />
The analogy I made was to my youngest little dog companion, Violette. I have five dogs. Two of them had a former caretaker, my daughter, who could no longer keep them because of a rental agreement, and when I married my husband (should I say current? I get married a lot), he came with an old spaniel mix who was a Christmas present for his son, over 12 years ago, who quickly decided "dog life" was not for him. So, yes, five dogs, whom I would never abandon.<br />
<br />
Long story short, or at least semi-short, is that Violette has gone mysteriously and rather suddenly, blind. Not sure why, and can't really afford to have a series of very expensive tests and vet visits to determine the cause, because the outcome is still the same. She cannot see. It doesn't appear to be cataracts, as her lenses are clear. They're just, for want of a better word, vacant.<br />
<br />
My hubby's dog is blind as well, and cannot hear, either. But, she's well into her teens, the oldest at about 16, and has been this way for at least two years. She's a pro at being blind. She sleeps mostly. You don't have to see to sleep.<br />
<br />
But this little dog, the smallest of all my Scottish terriers, was just about the most ferocious little rat-killer on the planet. She lived to chase vermin, whether they had scales, fur or feathers. Nothing escaped her rattlesnake-like aim when it came to disposing of Other Creatures In The Yard. She and her siblings would hunt in a pack, one scaring the ne'er-do-wells out of hiding, one chasing it right into Violette's path, and of course, that was certain doom. My hubby took to calling her "Pineapple," because she was so snappy and fierce, but could be the biggest mush when you scratched her ears just right. Violette had been sold to a retired couple in Cincinnati when she was 9 weeks old, but they didn't know how to deal with a puppy this lively, so they gave her back to me at 13 weeks of age. She was a mess for a while, having been caged for all of those horrendous 4 weeks, not allowed to interact, no playtime, and very little human contact - or dog contact. She proceeded to hide under the sofa for a month, refusing to come out, not sure of what had happened or where she was, not to mention four other curious dogs who <i>thought</i> they smelled her before...<br />
<br />
I would gently slide a plate of food and a bowl of water under the sofa, and within an hour the plate and bowl were empty. She sneaked out at night to use a pee-pee pad (my former husband and I lived in a building and no yard) and she just wasn't ready to endear herself to any human, much less her dog-pimp mama. Finally, after many days of coaxing, putting her food closer to the outside of the established Violette-Zone, she started to soften and became the glorious rat-killer and barky-thing we grew to know and love. She stopped snapping at her siblings, started to actually enjoy playing with them and was finally able to interact, which included being the best little dog on a leash ever.<br />
<br />
She stayed this way most of her nine years. Until about three months ago. Literally, overnight, this dog could not see. And, she has developed a large lump, which the vet said was most likely mammary cancer, and would require surgery and treatments, to which an estimate of well over $5,000 was snootily given by the woman, who eyed me up as not only a dog hoarder (they were all in for annuals and rabies), but as an uncaring and obviously unfit human mother for the little thing. So, as she is not in pain (I have that written down on a piece of paper by the aforementioned arrogant vet, along with a sour recommendation that I have her euthanized), I am sadly letting Violette be one of the statistics of People Who Cannot Afford Her Own Insurance Much Less That of Her Treasured Pets.<br />
<br />
Violette went back into hiding for a while, unsure of what was going on, and took up semi-permanent residence under a huge bamboo armoire in the living room. She did come stumbling out for her daily walkies, and she always got extra attention, always being paired up for walkies with her lifelong sibling and litter-mate, Calypso.<br />
<br />
She started to walk into furniture, walls, people, car tires, trees and the miscellaneous objects that she probably never took note of when she was a seeing-eye dog (puts a whole new perspective on that moniker, doesn't it?). Once she started to get her bearings, though, she started to shine, however dimly compared to her previous luminescence.<br />
<br />
She walks very slowly, not out of pain, but out of necessity, in the house and yard. She only time she resembles her old self is when she trots down the middle of the road on her walkies like a champ, because she senses there are no obstacles to maneuver around. She adores this time of her day. She instinctively pulls me over to relieve herself on the grass, and then goes right back to center lane, jauntily prancing about like nobody's business. And, this is where my heart breaks, every single evening.<br />
<br />
She has taught me what true bravery is all about. She has no hesitation in finding her way, although she has lost partial hearing, too (that was a while back, because of an ear infection, and yes, it was vet-treated). She investigates and goes under, over and through, without an iota of where she is or what she is getting in to. When you call her, she sweeps the area with her eyes, moving her ears, trying to eco-locate. She inevitably turns the wrong way, not sure where the sound is coming from. She runs into things, she underestimates depths and sometimes just stands, unsure of her whereabouts, searching for clues. She learns how to navigate with the feeling of wood deck, stone, grass and asphalt under her feet, and trudges bravely on, to find her path. At night, she is no longer crated, but comes in to the bedroom after I make my way to sleep and jumps on the bed, cleans her paws, scratches here and there, and finally, as I have settled in, she jumps back down and makes her way to Under The Armoire, where she prefers to spend the rest of her evening.<br />
<br />
She does all her usual dog things. Barks when the others bark, cleans the food bowl like a champ and occasionally lets me love on her a bit, returning it by licking my face and putting her head close to my chest. I still treat her like I always did, letting her stumble a bit sometimes, waiting until she determines what is in her way, and watching her move around it, slowly, but very surely. She doesn't jump on any furniture anymore (the studio chair was always her territory) but sometimes, I put her up there, thinking that's where she wants to be. She jumps down, preferring to be on the floor, where she has familiarity.<br />
<br />
Her quality of life appears to be normal, if but a bit arrested. It's my quality of life that has changed. I now have a heart more full of love for this previously annoying little critter, who barked and barked and barked and barked some more. This dog, who was always getting under bushes chasing God knows what, and digging at the fence line like a crazed inmate at Alcatraz nearing the point of freedom. This dog, who was constantly killing cute little furry rats, which I had to cry a bit over and bury in stone-covered burial plots because she would then try to dig up her quarry again for double-measure. This dog.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, in the midst of hardship, we should all look to the lessons that life is teaching us, no matter in what form it takes. This little mess, this little problem child, this little annoyingly loud and irritating creature...has taught me what bravery and courage and will to live is all about. <br />
<br />
I am well and truly humbled.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-6858023512866385302018-08-09T11:07:00.001-07:002018-08-09T11:07:30.556-07:00Checking InFrom time to time, I get a bit nostalgic and review my early posts. There are 160 of them, you know. Actually, this one will make 161.<br />
<br />
In fact, I was numb when I read some of the earliest ones, back when I was married to someone else, living in a different state - and state of mind - and questioning my life and all of the drama in it.<br />
<br />
I gave a quick, horrified thought to deleting them, lest they be read and my life from then to now be summarily dissected.<br />
<br />
But, you know, in the spirit of authenticity, I left them in situ. They were my thoughts, they were my emotions, they were - and are - my truth. It is my progression from doubtful, scared and pensive to empowered and fearless. I had to give to receive. I have always felt a need to write, almost as much as I've felt the need to create art. I jot down phrases I hear, descriptions of people and their actions, and search for my own truths via words on paper. I love to read other blogs, written by people acting out their lives and emotions without fear of reprisal. Some people are more private, and prefer the comfort of a personal journal, only read by themselves, but I write for anyone to read. It's who I am, it's my extension of authenticity.<br />
<br />
How can a person know another person without seeing them as their authentic selves? What do you have to lose? Afraid of someone seeing you as you are? No, that should not be a fear. It's an honor to experience a person at their most truthful and vulnerable. Respect that honor, for it is those people who will become part of your story. The others who scoff or do not attempt to understand - those are the people that are very rarely a true part of anyone else, because their ego is too powerful a deterrent to becoming part of someone else.<br />
<br />
So, although it pained me to relive some of those feelings, those questions I never got answers to, well, it was a much-needed reminder of just how far I've travelled, both physically and emotionally. I treasure the written word for remembrances, almost more so than photographs. When you write things down, it comes from somewhere deep in the soul, and photographs are visual memories of the past. Words speak volumes. Photographs are worth a thousand words? Not in my mind.<br />
<br />Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-82207709159092648222018-07-23T09:21:00.002-07:002018-07-23T09:21:42.121-07:00The Loud SilenceI'm a busy person. Busy with normal chores, busy with art, busy with being busy. Most people are, and the times of old and the times of the future are all the same. We are all just busy.<br />
<br />
This morning, and it is barely so in my neck of the woods, I sat completely still for a minute, and it was not on purpose. It was as if someone somewhere had pushed the pause button in my brain and my body happily responded.<br />
<br />
I heard the silence in my world for the first time in ages.<br />
<br />
I liked it.<br />
<br />
I used to read quite a lot of books. I don't anymore because when I read books, it takes me out of my reality and into a world created by someone else. My eyes get tired reading books. But, it had to be silent when I read, because I totally absorbed myself into the characters and the situations created by the book authors.<br />
<br />
My eyes get tired watching movies and television shows, too. And listening to NPR sometimes really jacks me up with all the coverage in Iran and Syria and Presidential Crap. The endless cackling of the two car guys drives me up a wall and the radio game shows are becoming a bit banal.<br />
<br />
And, I discovered just today, just a very few minutes ago, that I like silence.<br />
<br />
It feels good to have a few moments of nothingness. No radio blaring, no television, no audible interruptions. No dogs barking, no traffic noise, no aircraft overhead. Mental yoga.<br />
<br />
I could concentrate.<br />
<br />
I could pull clear thoughts out of my brain. I could rationally separate the dramas of the weekend into little storage compartments, to save or discard. I could let go. People have told me for years that I needed meditation and I wryly joked that possibly they meant to say "mediation," and didn't even consider sitting in silence for a few moments (or more) to recharge, reset and just breathe. I sat in silence this morning, and watched cardinals on the tree outside my window, dragonflies bobbing along with the wind and the butterflies moving erratically from one flower to the next in the garden. I started to focus on what I could actually hear from inside my studio (there are no ticking clocks here), which was the steady breathing of one of my dogs, summer crickets from outside one of the windows and the air from the A/C vent...and that was it. Before, I had not heard these things really.<br />
<br />
Even in silence, there is noise. But, it is less severe, less intrusive. To a deaf person, it must be like closing one's eyes for moments of silence. Limiting the senses seems to strengthen them.<br />
<br />
If I had to lose of of my senses, I'm certain that I would much prefer to lose my hearing. Because, in these few moments where there was no noise, it was blissful.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-52563215411158441092018-05-27T06:46:00.002-07:002018-05-27T06:46:30.905-07:00The Longing of Days Gone ByNo, not getting all nostalgic for old relationships and past loves or the onion rings I so loved from Tizen's Dairy on Silver Springs Boulevard.<br />
<br />
I reflecting on, of all things, advertising memorabilia.<br />
<br />
When I create art, which I do every day, I have to look up and get up from my desk lest I get overly tired and supremely cranky. Today my eye caught an old thermometer I have hanging on my studio wall. I haven't noticed it for a while, and it has "Staebler & Son, Good Coal," on it, along with the address of 115 Depot Street, and a charmingly simple phone number of 2-6578. No city. Nothing else. And the thermometer still works.<br />
<br />
I have loved advertising since I was little. I collected matchbooks, old magazines, advertising cards, post cards – literally anything that advertised a product or business. No big surprise that I had a 22-year career with a newspaper, and started out in...advertising, creating it for businesses of all kinds who supported the print media king of the day - newspapers.<br />
<br />
Now that I have changed my career to that of creating my own art, I still have bits and pieces of advertising on my walls and in little boxes and drawers of desks that remind me of days gone by, when print advertising was the only way to get your business out in front of people who would buy your product. There was no radio to speak of, no television, no internet and nothing but magazines, newspapers and the best of all advertising ploys - the giveaways. Smart businessmen looking to promote their business to more levels than their own communities would print their names and numbers on fans, thermometers, wooden crates, pencils, pins and various other doo-dads that people picked up and used in their daily lives. Giveaways from commercial merchants are still in use today. And even if I don't need that ballpoint pen, notepad or frisbee, I will flock to commercial vendors at art festivals and grab up anything free they give out, just to keep it all alive for me.<br />
<br />
I don't have nearly as much advertising memorabilia on my walls as I used to. I had framed grocery receipts, old advertisements for hair shampoo and laundry soap, and plenty of "Black and White Scotch" terriers on the walls. I had old postcards advertising soaps, perfumes and exotic locations. I still have a few things hung up, but certainly not as many as before. I still have a fascination for wooden crates, with the printing printed into them, and have made them into shelves, cabinets and have them nailed into my studio wall in a wood mosaic. Whomever has this house after I pass onto another plane of existence is going to wonder what in the world ever possessed me to use all this old wood on the walls....<br />
<br />
But for now, and hopefully many more years, I'll be happy with all my old bits and bobs around me. They remind me of a much simpler time and place, and, although I didn't live in the 30s and 40s, I would have loved to have seen it. And I would have bought coal from Staebler & Son.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-6322493296420035182017-11-08T13:36:00.001-08:002017-11-08T13:36:51.151-08:00There's Something Gratifying About Slicing Bread I bought some bread the other day at Publix. A loaf of brown-topped and soft "English Muffin" bread.<br />
How the store can keep this in stock is a mystery to me, because I would buy every loaf they had if I knew I could keep it fresh.<br />
The only thing I didn't know was that it wasn't pre-sliced.<br />
Which was - and is - ultimately one of the best things about it.<br />
Let me begin by saying, I'm not a big eater of bread. Never did like it much. Growing up, we had the Wonder bread, because white bread was best for BLT's and peanut butter sammiches. And, it was 50-cents a loaf, and even cheaper if you went to the day-old bread store, which Mom did every week.<br />
The chickens got most of my sammich....and they loved Wonder bread, so it was an even trade, because they provided me endless hours of true fascination.<br />
Anyway, as I was looking through my knife drawer for a bread knife, which I seemed to have sent off to someone else via a thrift store (because who needs to slice bread anymore?), I pondered how I was to get even slices with my trust filet knife. In the end, it didn't matter, because the is one of the true satisfactions of unsliced bread. I learned this. And another thing I learned: how wonderfully pioneer it makes a woman feel to slice a loaf of bread.<br />
As women, most, if not all, of us have that weird little buried gene that makes us feel like we've ground the wheat into flour ourselves, that we have made the butter and that we have baked this loaf of bread in a wood-fired stove - when we slice a loaf of bread ourselves. It makes us feel all Little House on the Prairie. It makes us feel we have accomplished a feat not unlike building a great pyramid or padding a canoe straight down the Amazon with nary the loss of an eyelash. It feeds the inner soul to the depth of the ocean just to slice a loaf of baked bread. It is amazing. I just wanted to run out and plant seeds and feed chickens. I wanted to get up early to milk cows. I was instantly transformed into a bonnet-wearing, calico-dressed 1890s-oppressed female of the species waiting for Trapper Dan to come home from a long trek in the winter snow.<br />
Well, maybe not that tangled up in self-sufficiency, but I sure liked it.<br />
So now, I'm hooked on unsliced bread. I think I'll go cut a hunk right now.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-38543782906349214292017-11-01T14:02:00.002-07:002017-11-01T14:02:51.245-07:00Creating Art. That's Not Really WORKING, Is It?<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="67i1p" data-offset-key="a7far-0-0" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="a7far-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I have to whine a little bit. I just do. I'm exhausted. I don't just sit in my studio and create art. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="1f5r7-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I also have to run down shows for weeks on end - every single year - looking for shows that fit my demographic, my budget, my schedule. The deadlines to apply are usually way in advance, and sometimes, I miss getting my application in (with $$ jury fees) before that deadline. Then I wait, again for weeks on end, to see if I got in the show, and hope I did, because I didn't apply to any others for that time frame. And, if I did apply to others, I have to hope and pray I got "the other one" if I got waitlisted or denied entry to a show. Either way, I've lost one or two "jury fees." The cost of doing business, my ex used to say.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="1f5r7-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I have to do my taxes for the state monthly (because I can't put money aside for the quarterly reports), market my show, read reviews on shows, read art blogs, buy replacement supplies, research demographics, make sure I have all my art inventoried and recorded (as well as scanned/photographed for the website). Oh, yes, and the website, which usually needs a complete update after every show, as do the inventory sheets. I also write feature stories for a magazine, which I LOVE to do, as well as review columns on shows (which I attend on the weekends I don't work at one). And here's an eye-opener: the creation of art on a daily basis is mentally exhausting. Seriously. It is. Nothing I would rather do, I'm not complaining. I'm just whining.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="65qhl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">This doesn't include the rest of the normal housekeeping stuff and the general attention to at least a minimal amount of hygiene and self-care (I have learned to go a whole day without make-up). Oh yeah, and the bill-paying, the grocery-buying, the dog-walking. I have literally learned to buy toilet paper online to save me from having to go out in public and lose two hours of time that could be spent doing art.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="65qhl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Right now, I'm in a self-imposed two-week crisis mode to make art. Up late, up early (well, earlier than the usual 5 a.m.) - and all because I don't feel comfortable with the amount of inventory I have. The more inventory, the more you sell. It's a simple equation. I don't make a lot of "big" art - so I have to make a fair amount of smaller art. The smaller art flies off the walls. The larger art takes a wee bit longer. And, I need a return on my investment quickly. I have roughly two weeks between my shows, unless I get crazy and go week to week, which is something I have done, don't like to do, but sometimes I can get away with it.</span><br />
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<span data-offset-key="65qhl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">It's like being a member of a band on tour. Just less profit. It's like being an actor on a film site (with a whole freakin' bunch less profit), with months and months of grueling creative work pouring out every orifice, with relatively no break in-between because time is money in the film industry. Just like in any creative field, where you sell yourself, your work, your time.</span><br />
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<span data-offset-key="65qhl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">And it's nail-bitingly frustrating when you have a slow show, with bad weather or no buyers or, worse, not enough art to entice anyone into your space. It's driving hundreds of miles starting at 2 a.m. to set up a show. It's setting up your tent (which takes 3 hours) in physical conditions I can imagine the pyramid builders were subjected to: hot, dark, more hot and at least one or two cuts, bruises or banged toes. Then, eight hours of marketing your work, and grabbing a burger on the way to the hotel. Next day, you can actually get a cup of coffee before the marketing starts again, and the three hours of taking down your tent and packing up your art begins...and the drive home, hundreds of miles.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="65qhl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">When someone glibly states that it must be fun to sit at home and create art all day, I just smile. It's not really like WORKING, is it? Not really. Right?</span><br />
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<span data-offset-key="65qhl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I think I shall call it a day, at 9 p.m., and have a glass of wine before I crash into sleep. </span><br />
<span data-offset-key="65qhl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span data-offset-key="65qhl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">And I'll do it all again tomorrow, because this IS my job. It IS what I do for a living.</span></div>
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Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-18566801272143561202017-10-19T07:03:00.003-07:002017-10-19T07:03:41.400-07:00There's A Reason People Live Where They Live...although I have never understood why some people live in west Texas. That's one that has always stumped me.<br />
<br />
What I'm saying is, everyone has their reasons for living where they do. Some are financially strapped and cannot move, some have partners in life that won't move and some are so buried in generations of family history that it would be counter-productive to move. Why start over somewhere else when three generations of the male hierarchy has owned the town funeral home? Get my drift?<br />
<br />
My parents moved from various states before they landed in Florida, specifically a mysterious place they referred to as "Frog Hollow." They had lived in Oklahoma and Maine, and had briefly discussed Miami at one point, as that was where their honeymoon was. Point is, I grew up in Florida. The old Florida, not the beach-sand Florida. The Florida with huge granddaddy oaks with layers and layers of Spanish Moss dripping from them like primordial goo. My summers were five months long, of cold (50-degree) weather from October to January and February marked the beginning of spring. I never had a good hair day, never wore shoes if I didn't have to and I knew from birth that clear nail polish kills chigger bites. I took rain showers in the afternoon, fished in any available pond for pan fish with my little green Zebco rod and reel and chewed on sugar cane when I could get it. When I got older, trips to Daytona Beach on the weekend were mandatory for a couple of giggling teen girls, intent on getting a tan, with hair looking like Farrah Fawcett. Never got the tan nor managed to recreate the famous hairdo.<br />
<br />
I wanted to live in England, with the damp and snowy winters, and the huge farmhouse around every turn. I wanted to live in Colorado, in an artist colony, painting mountains and landscapes and drinking expensive tea. I wanted to move to Oregon, where I would live by the rocky coast and throw pottery and make wind chimes. I wanted to live on St. Lucia in the Caribbean, where I could make a living carving coconut heads for the tourists, and ride home to my beach shack every day on my yellow bicycle. I dreamed of living anywhere but where I grew up.<br />
<br />
Then I did move away, to many places.<br />
<br />
But, I always came back. Back to Florida, with the smell of rain and moss and pine trees. Back to the land that formed my happy youth, my direction in life, my memories. And I came back for the last time in 2009, and I won't be living anywhere else.<br />
<br />
I'll deal with the odd weather, the almost insurmountable heat, the biting things that attack you from out of nowhere. I'll deal with the natural disasters, the salt air and the lizards. This is what I know, and I'm comfortable with it.<br />
<br />
Sure, I miss seeing Maine in the fall, with the gloriousness that is crisp, cold air and bright red leaves. I miss the smell of lemon in the air on the Isle of Capri in the spring. I remember how magical the first snow was in Kentucky, as I peered out from my studio windows and watched it gently fall from the sky onto the downtown streets. I miss the lilting chatter of Jamaican folk at the markets on a hot summer day.<br />
<br />
But all these memories are places I can go, places I can visit. I'm home in my own paradise now, where a vacation is truly a vacation, not an escape. Adopting a life paradigm of gratitude for where one lives has a price though: peace. The price is peace. I am content.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-7747168854829340032017-09-20T06:47:00.001-07:002017-09-20T06:47:03.715-07:00Generators Need Oil?<div class="MsoNormal">
Day Two of Irma’s aftermath, and I have become intimately
attuned to my little Ryobi generator.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To me, pouring gas in it was an achievement on my own. But,
when it stopped after running four hours today, I was flustered. I checked the
gas and it was all good. Unplugged the one cord, tried to start it,
and….nothing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could not call my hubby at work, because A) He never
answers his phone and B) He never answers his phone. So, I grabbed the neighbor
and forced him at gunpoint to come look at my generator. Well, not really
gunpoint. But I did give him the hairy eyeballs. He sauntered over and said
maybe it was the oil. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oil?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know, it never occurred to me that you needed to check
the oil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was like my Toro lawnmower
all over again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sold it because it
wouldn’t start and I didn’t know enough to realize they have oil sensors, and
when it gets low, they fold their arms over their chest and will not start, no
way, no how. I have an electric lawn mower now, because my little patch of lawn
is now roughly 100 feet, but I have learned about lawn mowers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But evidently not about generators.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was convinced it was a spark plug.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not just any spark plug, but an elusive Bosch
A7RTV spark plug. So, my mission today, other than to charge up my phone and
bask in the luxury that is air conditioning, was to find a spark plug. I found
all of the instruction manuals, and, loaded for bear, walked into Lowe’s, which
was operating on emergency generators themselves. “Why,” I gloated, “I might
just buy TWO.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nope. Nothing that even remotely compared to what I needed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, I drove to Home Depot, who sell the Ryobi generators.
They did not have power, but they were running small generators at the
cashier’s stations to run the money-taking tools. You had to be escorted in, one
customer per associate. I was lucky and got a cashier, who knew absolutely
nothing about spark plugs, generators or apparently customer service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, no spark plugs. “You’ll have to get
them online, or maybe a car parts store.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Off to O’Reillys, who also had no power, and also had no
spark plugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A guy standing at the
register asked me if I checked the oil, because generators have oil sensors.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I looked at him so dumbfounded, he must have thought I was
mute.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I came home. Filled the incredibly-hard-to-get-to-without-being-a-surgeon
oil spout with 10W30, which is what the book said, and checked the
incredibly-hard-to-screw-back-on dipstick until it registered full. Waited the
mandatory five minutes, per the Form of Intelligent Life standing in line at the
register at the car parts store, and pulled the cord. Nothing. Checked the
book. Nothing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Got back in the car so that I could get cell service (about
ten miles down the street) and left ten voicemail messages to my hubby (who
never answered the phone) in increasingly frustrated and murderous tones.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I stood in the blinding sun and stared down the generator. I
decided to try one more time. Set the choke in “start,” clicked the button to
Idle “off,” and pulled. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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The damn thing started. And it’s been going for two hours
now. I wouldn’t say purring like a kitten, but still grumbling and growling and
charging my other Ryobi batteries, which run the fan that allows me to sweat
just a little less when I’m trying to get to sleep. Oh, and the refrigerator,
which provides me with ice and filtered water. Through the door. Sheer heaven.<o:p></o:p></div>
Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-72422911633159574102017-09-20T06:43:00.001-07:002017-09-20T06:43:49.449-07:00Post Irma...A Floridian's Tale<div class="MsoNormal">
So, it’s Day One of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma hitting
the ENTIRE state of Florida. No electricity, and no Internet and no phone
service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But, I do have a generator, but it’s not designed to run
24/7 to keep the fridge going, and in order to use any other appliance (like
the very necessary coffee-maker), you have to plug and unplug. It’s my “art
show generator,” bought specifically for night shows to keep lights on and to
power up the phone and iPad. God forbid you should try and use it for a hair
dryer. Those things suck amps.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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My hubby is a man who is not good under pressure. He’s
Chicken Little in a pair of oversize work boots and an ever-growing beer
belly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to prepare for Irma, he
cut plywood from work, screwed it into the house over the windows with a LOT of
screws, put all the furniture into a corner on the deck (which I had done
earlier, but evidently did not do correctly) and got the generators running (he
has a big powerhouse on his work truck). When Irma arrived in our area (East
coast), she had calmed down a bit, after taking out all the islands off the
southern coast of Florida. Her greed for land still wasn’t completely satiated
by the time she hit the lower coast, so she pushed her away around Miami and
Naples, after taking the Keys in as an appetizer. She was a Category 2, and
waning, by the time the outer bands hit me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was still enough to deposit over 17 bags of leaves and
other material, including one hapless rat, in the pool. Irma’s winds ripped
apart my plumeria like they were lettuce leaves, uprooted my Key Lime and in
general, caused yard havoc that will take me a week or more to clean up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, my little Florida Bungalow, built in 1956, held up like
a champ. No loss of roof, no ripping off of doors, no broken windows. She
didn’t shake, rattle or roll during the brunt of the storm, and although I am
surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the Halifax River on the
other, no storm surge or flooding. I am blessed. It’s not “Somewhere Off A1A”s
first rodeo. She has seen Donna, Charlie, Andrew and Matthew.. And maybe a
couple of other nasties in-between.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m sorry I missed my festival in Jekyll Island, Georgia,
which was scheduled for September 15-17, and was cancelled because of the
original path of Irma, which would have taken her right up my coastline and
into the Sea Islands. After not working festivals for three months, with
September being four, I sorely need the income. My creditors in Kansas care not
about hurricanes. But, it is what it is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I still feel blessed in so many ways, so be able to create
art for a living, and that my house is intact, my dogs alive and somewhat
happy, and my family are all safe. I’m still making art, albeit by one light on
the work table, and brushing off gnats when they get stuck in the paper glue. Why
doesn’t window screen deter gnats? No internet is making me realize how much I
have come to depend on it, and no cell phone service at my house forces me to
creep out of my cave to communicate. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s all good, people. It’s all good. <o:p></o:p></div>
Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-36283240193369736702017-07-31T01:30:00.001-07:002017-07-31T01:30:58.649-07:00Forty Acres and a Mule"Forty Acres and a Mule" was a post-Civil War promise made by Sherman to the freedmen of the Reconstruction of the South that every man be given that for his own use (and I say his, because women still did not have the right to own land) in Georgia, primarily off the coast – the Sea Islands, and in very rural Mississippi and Arkansas.<br />
<br />
It has come to mean, generally, the American Dream, of a sort. In fact, I almost named my little slice of heaven "Forty Acres and a Mule," but opted for a derivation of a Jimmy Buffet song instead, not wanting to evoke visions of an old South era struggle. Instead, I'll evoke visions of sitting back, margarita in hand, by the ocean, somewhere off A1A.<br />
<br />
But, you see, that time of the Reconstruction in the South made everyone not Northern or of privileged Southern background on fairly equal ground. Lots of land, but no one to own it or work it. No money to bring back the grandiose plantation farms which had provided not only Northern climes with tobacco, cotton, rice and sugar, but provided the South with survivable income. With the abolition of slavery, and hear me: I advocate strongly any abolition of slavery, no matter where it occurs, came a problem not anticipated. Both black and white Southern people had nowhere to go, no jobs, no money and no means of survival. Whites were not included in the "Forty Acres and a Mule" provision - only freed slaves.<br />
<br />
Thus the time-honored practice of share-cropping came back into the picture.<br />
<br />
Share-cropping provided landowners of Southern property (which had been seized by many Northern families, as well as retained by Southern gentiles of long-standing family history) with people who could work it for a share of food grown, providing some profit, and they could live on the land without cost. It was a win-win situation for survival. The freed slaves who were offered land as compensation also had share-croppers, both white and black, to help them establish their agricultural independence. In essence, this was paid slavery. Share-croppers were not clothed, fed or provided medical assistance, as they were before the Civil War. They were literally on their own. There was no welfare assistance, no food stamps, no Social Security. This was the Great Depression, and it was a hand-to-mouth existence.<br />
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Probably the only time in old Southern history that the playing field was level for both Caucasian and Negro families.<br />
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And guess what? Our ancestors all got along on that level playing field. They were all down to the nubs in the 1937-era South, and they shared their fates, their homes and their crops. No-one claimed they were "better" than anyone else, because the reality was, they were all the same – struggling to stay alive, to feed their children, to work the land and to find peace amongst themselves. Children, both black and white, played, ate and worked together, attended small home-schools to learn some education, however little, and their parents had no disagreement with their associations.<br />
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It was a short period of time where everyone learned to get along. Then, of course, the horrors of lynching occurred, mostly in part by the hate mongers of the KKK, who targeted anyone of black descent, or any whites who would not denounce friendships or who defended blacks in any way. Yes, there were white lynchings, buried deep in the archives*. Everyone who wasn't "pure" was in danger of losing their lives to these self-proclaimed "cleansers" of the white race. Segregation was once again enforced. And once again, the South became a battleground.<br />
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It's time to put aside the blame of slavery, and to put aside the issue of racial indifference. It is 2017, and although there is still the essence of slavery in many parts of the world, there is no slavery here in America, and hasn't been since Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States. We are all "share-croppers" now, some of us black and some of us white, and some of us as mixed races. We may not work the land (although now we call them "itinerant farm-workers"), but we all work for a means of survival in one aspect or another. Women can now own land (thank you very much) and vote – although there is still a wage issue. Education, a right to work and health care is open to everyone. As a nation, we have so much more than we had back then, and yet, our race issues still carry hatred from the past to the present.<br />
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It's time to let it go. It's time to move forward. We are all on a level playing field.Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8719591754830713053.post-26169106295598945312017-07-21T09:43:00.002-07:002017-07-21T09:49:59.645-07:00The Conundrum of Water HosesLaugh if you must, but I have a particular aversion to water hoses.<br />
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I've bought at least 50 in my lifetime, and not a damn one of them, yea, verily I say nary a one, was worth the time it took to haul it up to the cashier and buy it.<br />
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The last one I made a decision to purchase has changed my whole outlook on back-yard water hoses.<br />
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I have had countless "green" ones, in every length they are made in. You know, the cheap $20 ones that either kink up immediately after taking the packaging off, rolling into little kink balls like gray pill-bugs after a storm or the "kink-less" variety, which is false advertising to the highest degree. They all kink up. I've laid them out in the hot Florida sun, in one long length, looking ever so much like a firehouse hose exercise, just to get it to the point that I could roll it up on the hose hanger in some sort of orderly fashion. Of course, when I turn the water on, and start unraveling the hose to use it, it bends into five or six right angles everywhere, necessitating the dreaded "put-the-sprayer-down-and-unkink" walk of anguish. Flipping it around just kinks it up even more.<br />
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Then I bought a "commercial-grade" hose, which must have weighed 65 pounds, if an ounce. This was for a 50-foot hose, that never unraveled from 25 feet. And it never, ever got used without one kink somewhere along the line. So, partially because of weight and partially because I was trying to keep the hose from kinking, I chopped the bloody thing in half, refitted another hose end on it and used it until I was totally exasperated with the thing.<br />
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So then I went straight off the deep end and bought the "As-Seen-On-TV" version of the crinkly-green earthworm advertised as a hose. Expands, contracts and doesn't kink. Lightweight. Came in a box the size of a hosiery packet.<br />
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For the first two weeks I was hooked. It had issues, such as it was small in diameter when expanded, so not much water for jet-cleaning pool decks, lizard poop off window sills and the like. But, it was magical in the way it contracted back to a piece of yard when the water was off. I was convinced that I had found the solution to all of the problems I had with other hoses.<br />
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Until it ripped a seam.<br />
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Suddenly, a gusher started appearing mid-way into the hose, and I had no water pressure at all. I thought about what I could do to save my little green earthworm hose, but nothing was going to work. You can't use a hose repair kit, because the ends of this hose go into a flattened crimping piece, which isn't sold anywhere that I could find. Plumbing tape, electrical tape, and sewing it back didn't work. The power of Niagara Falls went through that hose, and once broken, never repaired.<br />
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So, I'm on the sixth hose I have purchased in three years. I went to Home Depot, and credit card in hand, bought a Goodyear Flex-Hose. It's also fabric, but really heavy-duty, and amazingly lightweight. It expands, but never stays flat, and doesn't crinkle up. And it's black, not neon green.<br />
It's a 5/8-inch diameter, so water comes out sufficiently enough to blast mold off the deck chairs.<br />
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I am also happy to report that this hose has NEVER kinked up. As in not once. It did fake me out with a kink, but a simple flip of the hose, and it's gone. It rolls up perfectly, and since I no longer have a metal hose hanger, does not appear to have any possibilities of ripping a seam. It cost $32, so if it craps out after a year or so, I'll have to have another rant, but so far, so good. And, I'm waiting until I can go get another one of these babies for the front yard.<br />
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As for the green crinkly hose, I threw it in the trash, but my husband, who is as near to a hoarder as I have seen, promptly pulled it out and threw it in the shed. I guess you cut cut the ends off and use it as a boat rope...Just A Keyboard Awayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702015765513838359noreply@blogger.com0