VERIZON ET AL, PART II

Happy Husband lolls in the pool in less stressful times.

Husband received an unpleasant surprise in the mail after all his contorted convolutions with Verizon, the telephone company,  not Verizon, the wireless company.  I heard mighty cursing from our little dingy dark den full of cats, and wanting to spare the cats further corruption let them outdoors.  It appears that when he sought to change his telephone setup to lower his bill, he incurred charges, $297.00 worth of charges.  The temperature soared in our little den, which is electrically heated so whoopee a bit.  Then the telephone conversations commenced.  The script from a former blog can be cut and pasted here because it was the same.  They still don't know who we are or why we'd be complaining about a large bill.  Thank you, Sam, you own my sanity and I'd be defenseless without you because I'm an introvert and waiting to be smushed by the mighty foot of corporate-clandestine savagery.

After much wrangling, Husband agreed to pay a small fee to return to his old setup with all parties.  Has he learned his lesson yet?   I hope so.  Jumping on something because your friend, or a relative of your friend, says so is dangerous.  We can only hope that those folks aren't around when the decision of whether to disconnect my life support is made. For that I rely on daughters #1, #2, and #3.

Back to normal, we await the arrival of Granddaughter's cell phone, which must not be activated until we phone daughter #2,  Aunt Diane, who will then change the number to match granddaughter's old number.  Oh Dear Lord, how did it all come to this?  That number in the Bible, which is supposed to identify us as individuals before the end of time...was it a cell phone number?  And why does FedEx not recognize our address as deliverable?  Corporations are people too, my friend.  That is extreme baloney, or perhaps Supreme (Court) baloney.  I hate to get political on my family history blog, but there you have it.  We studied in school that monopolies were bad things, and American workers were good things.  What changed?  Around here we have Walmart and Food Lion supplying majority needs.  Only 50 years ago, my parents owned a grocery store and made a living.

If we seriously ask ourselves these questions we will be labeled as job-killing, baby-killing, and unAmerican.  I could live with the America of my youth, like most people; but when America becomes as concrete-block stratified as it is today, some folks are going to be talked into supporting bad stuff.  We all fit that.  Still, big business is one thing, public ownership of this country is another and we all share an ownership of our nation by the very act of paying taxes.  To say that the helpless and unemployable in this country have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps is inane.  There has to be public charity or aid. That and public education are the most hated policies by the seriously rich.  The seriously rich also want wars and who better to fight them than the uneducated children of the modern vulgate.

This rant was brought to you by Verizon, the telephone company.

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

What does it mean
To be beautiful?
What spoils the view
Ugly selfishness
Lusty wantonness
To name a few

What does it  mean
To be beautiful?
I really wish I knew
 Purple mountains' majesty
Over a fruited plain
Or two?

What does it take

To be beautiful?

Colors so strong of hue

Spirit, Heart and Mind

sing out,

“We are Red, White and Blue!”

A response to  http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

HAPPY VETERANS DAY

NANCY, THE COW

When I was still in elementary school, my father bought a cow and brought her home to our 30 acre farm and country store/home.  He tried everything, having grown up on a real working family farm.  We had two pigs, Ricky and Johnny, who seriously lacked personality and social skills.  "Nancy," as our new cow was named, had personality, but was more challenging than Daddy had anticipated.  While she provided more than enough butter, cream and milk, Mother was overwhelmed with too much of a good thing.  She churned, skimmed, and boiled (for safety) milk for our use and had much to spare.  For a while we were in surplus with items made from milk, including Mother's famous butter pound cake. You can only eat so much cake.

Ricky and Johnny watched with quizzical interest as Daddy daily chased after Nancy, who was obsessed with freedom.  To boot, Nancy was hand-raised by women and had no interest in or respect for men.  Couldn't help but admire her for that.  Time and again Daddy had to resort to asking for help from Mother or me.  I felt Nancy was making my point for me, that women are just as good as men at everything.

Since there were no other children in our family, I used to commune with Nancy after school and soon she began to look forward to our talks.  I fed her what goodies I could find and she enjoyed licking my hands and face.  With a tongue as raspy as sandpaper, I didn't need to exfoliate.

Whenever I approached her tied in the field, she would rush madly to the end of her tether and give me pause for my safety.  She was a big inscrutable animal and I was a sliver of a girl.  I didn't want my final adventure to be "trampled by a cow in the bud of youth." Somehow I know my intimidation was surely excessive because she did indeed love me and the feeling was mutual.

Without pictures of Nancy, I send along my version.  

Nancy, the man-hating cow

LIFE

To find oneself alive is at once wondrous and mysterious.  For nine months we gradually come to know our own awareness and witness the muffled sounds of a world just outside the womb.  When Mother cries or becomes excited, we perceive her cries or protestations magnified.  It is a fine home with mostly warm baths, no hunger, and soft walls that caress our coiled legs and compacted bodies.

Then the day comes unwanted, violent, and world shattering, when we are forced from fetal Utopia into a chaos of bright lights, beings other than Mother, and detachment from security into endless space.  Hands slapping us into vocalizing our horror are delighted when we utter our first scream.

Daughter #3 cautiously observes all things new.

Childhood is long and humiliating.  We can't wait until we are a grownup.  We fall down and cry; we run away from home and are spanked; we do things to explore our boundaries and have mixed success.  We chew and swallow food that we abhor.  We attend school and graduate school and begin adulthood.

I play Miss Muffet at a May Day celebration.

Adulthood is busy and needs to be a field of competition;  competition for paying your way with jobs and careers;  competition for finding happiness in a life companion and children to carry on; and fulfilling all the personal dreams of achievement featured on our personal bucket list.  For some it is an outer crust, a show of wealth, for some it is a high hat of personal importance, for some it is a sensory composition of what is was to live.

As a grownup, I always felt fulfilled by gardening.

Having sat upon our self-specialized seat, we reach the narrowing lane of life where we sense the ride may soon be over.  A sense of losing all we built to our design begins to enter our thoughts and we reflect on all the people in our past who no longer live.  What did life mean?  Was it just a challenge?  Did we do it right?  Were we really born to just achieve wealth, status, or fame?

No personal goal achievement ever felt as good as participating in Nature.

I conclude for me that the only time is now and that every now has to be appreciated, no matter what your status in the world, which after all is just applause for the soon-extinguished ego.  I conclude for me that appreciation of this beautiful world and its inhabitants is the only value that outlives life.  It is the ultimate thanks for the ultimate experience and adds to a collective living choir of never-ending praise.

My mother marveled at everything celestial and I do too.