It's the End of the World, As We Know It?

Oh, I've been so content in my own little world. Watering and watching my plants grow, sitting on the patio and enjoying the summer, how could I have gotten so complacent? Why had I forgotten to live in fear? I lived that way many times, worrying about this silly little thing or that. Y2K had me totally sucked in. I bought extra at the grocery store every week. We had enough rice and beans stored up that it took us over a year to eat them all. Oh the visions I had of going back in time to before electricity and what it was going to be like. Would people try to get in and steal my
beans and rice because they weren't prepared and hadn't stashed anything extra away?

So I've been taking a little vacation from all the events that the future could hold. Why worry about them, I can't really do anything about them anyway. Especially if the event will end the world. I'm not Wonder Woman.

In the middle of yet another beautiful day my sister calls me up and starts filling me in on the 2012 extravaganza that's suppose to be coming up, oh around, or on December 21, 2012. Ok, I know this can't be the date because it says right in the bible, let me look this up, ah one place is Mark 13: 31-32. "Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will remain forever. However no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself." So I doubt that date is right. Anyway she was watching the History channel all day long and they were having specials about 2012. She was also concerned about there being a giant earthquake here in the Willamette Valley and the dams would break and we would all be washed away here in good ol' Eugene. That's what the guy said on the TV. Shoot that might happen tomorrow. More fear and dread. I always sort of figured if we had a large earthquake that that would happen. They say the Indians wouldn't stay in the valley during the winter and I always figured it was because it flooded here, they didn't have dams then.

But I've digressed, lets get back to 2012. The planets are suppose to line up some way and the magnetic pull will cause the earth to turn upside down switching the poles. When I heard that, I just figured we might be in a different climate, like what is exactly opposite us now? We'd have their climate. I wonder what that would be like, when the poles switch. Do you suppose the sun would move in a different direction, maybe sideways, like North to south, when the switch was taking place, or would we be plunged into night in the middle of the day? Or day in the middle of night? Would water run up hill? Wrong! This will supposedly cause all kinds of earthquakes, floods, etc.

There is even a website out there where you can enter a contest to become the next ruler of the world after the world is destroyed. I wonder how that works?

This all sounds really strange and a bit scary. Will we make it past this point in time, just like we did with Y2K?

What are we to do? Live life the best we can, do for others and stop thinking of only ourselves, for that is what God put us here for.

Foie Gras, What???

I get an alternative news email weekly from Alternet. That's alternet.org. The other day I was reading one of the articles in this email and was totally shocked and throughly disgusted. The article was about Foie Gras. What is Foie Gras? You ask. Well that is precisely why I went to read the article, I didn't know what it was and wanted to know. Fatty duck liver, that's what it is, fatty duck liver. Now if just knowing what it is isn't reviling enough, then you need to know how this 5000 year old delicacy is produced. You see there aren't just overweight ducks out there waiting to give up their livers, they have to be force fed. For you see Foie Gras is not a natural food, it's a man made delicacy. There are farms out there, mistreating ducks multiple times daily, shoving tubes down their throats and pumping them full of corn.
I read this article with total disbelief and distain for these cruel humans who would harm a poor innocent ducky. Ducks have no defense what so ever. At the end of the article there are links to farms who's sole purpose is to manufacture and sell the fatty livers of poor ducks. They tell how well they treat their ducks, give me a break, only feeding them twice a day. They don't mention that they are force fed enough for 3 meals each meal.
What is wrong with the human race that we want to mistreat animals so we can eat things we shouldn't be eating? Sometime ago I saw a video from China where they were catching sharks and cutting their fins off and then throwing them back into the water, like they thought they could still swim and survive. And another one where they caught dolphins and drug them through the streets, alive and placed them in a building and beat them to death. Probably so they could make soup out of them or something.
Here's some links worth checking out if you are so inclined. http://drbenkim.com/earthlings-documentary.html http://www.alternet.org/environment/140991/foie_gras%3A_how_a_5%2C000-year-old_delicacy_inspired_the_world%27s_fiercest_food_fight/

The Insurance Game

Oh boy, am I mad today. I've just been on the phone to my dentist, who had sent me a bill with a charge for perio charting on it. Which they hadn't billed the insurance for. So I call them up and say "Hey what gives? Why was the insurance not billed?" "Oh" they say, "the insurance won't pay for perio charting!" So I proceed to tell them that my insurance used to pay for everything. She finally says she'll call them and check on it. But I'm thinking, I better check also.

One swift call to the insurance and all will be well. Not so fast..... The insurance is not there to help me, they are there to line their pockets. It's all a game you see, and I will not be defeated!!! I ask them my question and then they say "I need to put you on hold" Ok that's fine. She comes back and says that code I had given her which the dentist has used is no longer valid. I, being the nice person I am, thinks that the whole world is nice and heck just ask her for the correct code. She'll give it to me so then business can go on the way it should as usual. They will pay for a service which they are suppose to pay for and all will be well. Hold on, not so fast. She in a slightly hushed voice says " We can't give out codes." In my outrage, I was amazingly sweet and told her "ok, thanks, I'll check with my last dentist and get the code from them." I knew that she was just some poor person doing the bidding of the big guys at the top, sad, very sad.

One more phone call to the old dentist and I find out that they change the codes yearly and charge for the new ones. Health insurance, what a racket. It's a wonder they pay on anything. A very sweet gal there looked up the codes and gave me one that she thought might work. I called my dentist back and of course she hadn't even called yet. This receptionist is something else. She has lost 2 of my payments so far. I have to keep a close watch on her. So I have given her the new code, we'll see what she does with it.

Must make a note, that we need to fight for everything we have, and nothing will be given easily. Of course in my little world it would be.

In the bush

Ok, how many times has Scott told me to shut the door. AAHHHHH. I was chatting on the phone to my sister and soaking up some sun on the park bench outside, when I became aware that I was seeing out of the corner of my eye a black thing. Oh no, I left the door open again. The same door which Boaz had escaped from.
This time it was only Dually who had absconded out the door. And straight for the bushes along the side fence. Now when Dually escapes you don't just go pick him up, as I have learned from watching Scott one fateful night when he had escaped and was hanging out in the wilderness. Scott thought "I will just pick him up and take him in the house." Oh no, that's not the way it happens with Mr. Dualls. Scott was immediately bitten and went running for the house. And Mr. Dualls? He remained in the bush, just where he wished to be.
So I had to ambush him and try to head him off in the right direction toward the open door. This took a bit of time, getting on my hands and knees, crawling through the wigelia and quince. When I was under there, I was brought back to my childhood days when we used to make a fort every summer in the neighbors grape arbor. I wonder now why they put up with us, maybe they just didn't catch us. Anyway under the wigela was a great fort, lots of room and no spiders, that I could see. I had to coax Mr. Dualls back through the hole in the fence, which was a missing board. Then go back around to the backyard and crawl under the rhody bush. Well I finally got him to cross the yard and go back in from where he came. But what an invigorating morning. And I thanked God I was still able to crawl under a bush at the age of 53.

Some Days Sunshine, Some Days Rain

Having a cat missing made me do all sorts of research on lost cats. I found out that if the cat is an indoor cat, he will be totally alienated in the outdoor world. His scent is no where to be found, so he will hide and hold up until dark and then begin his journey back to the house. Since Boaz was chased from the yard, it took him a bit longer to get back to the place where he got out. They stay in hiding if you are right there by them and won't make a sound. This is total fear.
Also an indoor cat is a lot more less likely to be ran over by a car, or get into other problems which a lost outdoor cat might encounter. Being used to being outside, they tend to stay out in the open more and snoop around. You know what they say about cats.

Well we did find Boaz, he was in the corner of the backyard. I found his glowing eyes peeping at me the 3rd evening that he was out. And we were both very happy to be united again. He seemed no worse for wear, a bit hungry and oh so loving. Him and Dually hit it right off again. So we have our wrestling matches in the mornings. Thats the sunshine we had.
Then about 3 days later, the rain came. Logan, our beautiful, sweet german shepard dog started acting a bit strange. Scott insisted that he would be alright, but as the evening went on he got progressively worse. He was all bloated and kept trying to throw up. I finally called the emergency vet, it was 11 by this time and they said bring him right in. We packed him up, he was getting pretty vocal , so you could tell he was in pain. They immediatly said that they needed to ex-ray him and that he would probably need an operation which would cost around 2,000 to 3,000 dollars. His stomach had gotten twisted and the gas was trapped in there. They would need to move everything around and possibly remove his spleen. We told them to take the exray and let us know what it showed. His stomach had been cut off for so long, it had began to die. Of course there was no way we could afford to pay that much anyway, so we had him put to sleep. It was a long silent drive home and we both felt pretty numb. We plopped into bed and the tears flowed. Realization was sitting in, we no longer had our dog and had just spent 400 dollar which we needed to live this month.

It has been 2 days since and I'm constantly reminded of him. Sweeping up his hair which was everywhere, removing his name from the food storage bin and picking up a stick he had placed on the patio the other night in an effort to get us to play with him, not to mention the numerous dog flops still in the yard. Oh there will be life after owning a dog, a much cleaner one, I'm sure.

Boaz, please come home

I've lost my cat. It wasn't oh the cat just disappeared. No it was something I did, and I am so terribly sorrowful.
You see I, Me, I left the door ajar. How many times had Scott told me to latch the door? It was probably just barely open if not at all. I'm sure it was Dually with his big paws who gingerly opened it so they could both go out and have a little fun. Thing is Dually stayed in the backyard and Boaz wandered up front to the porch where he was met by a young male un-neutered neighbor cat who had claimed the front yard for his own. As hard as I tried to make him just go away, he had the gaul to stand his ground and pick a fit with Boaz. Boaz slowly left the porch and was chased by the neighbor cat into the bushes and attacked, not once, but twice. Scott tried to break them apart, but they both fled and we don't know where to. It was dark and we couldn't see.
So I said I was going to sit on the porch last night, all night because I couldn't sleep anyway, knowing that my cat was outside and possibly hurt and scared. But Scott said I couldn't do that. You see its all my fault, if I hadn't left that door ajar...........
I've searched a couple of the neighbors yards, but not all. When I go to work I will have a flyer printed up and will distribute it.
The house seems so .....empty without Boaz. You see he had the best motor, always purring.
And I'm prone to tears.

House Guests

Ok, I'll admit, Scott and I are a bit recluse. When it comes to socializing we just aren't that great. So when our choir director called the other day to ask us to host a couple of kids from a California Baptist College, well I really didn't know what to say. I was put on the spot. So I said I would check with Scott, knowing full well what he would say. See I've lived with him for 27 years.
So here it came, the speech about being a private person and not wanting people he didn't know in the house and all about how he has trouble communicating with people he doesn't know. I knew all of this and I'm pretty much the same way, but deep inside there was a sense of wanting to stretch a bit, or going into the unknown, the social unknown. So I calmed him down and we decided that we would try this.
Now with great apprehension we waited for the day, last friday to be exact. We went to the concert and watched the kids sing and play in the orchestra. Searching through the bunch and trying to imagine which ones were going home with us. There was a very tall guy in the back row, I just thought man we'd need a long bed for that one. There were several black guys there. One in the back row was very large. I thought whoa he needs a big bed. Here I was sizing them all up for beds, like an undertaker eyeing people for coffins.
We waited after the concert for them to tear down the risers and change their clothes, then we all gathered in the sanctuary and waited to be called and matched with our guests. They gave out all the girls first and then started in on the guys. Scott said he felt like he did in high school waiting to be picked in PE. He was almost always the last to be picked. Not a good feeling. So we were finally called and we got this little skinny guy with glasses and another whom was still busy cleaning the dressing rooms, so once again we waited. Ok we were told we were waiting for David Newman and everyone seemed to think he was quite a hoot. These kids had been out on the road for 2 1/2 weeks and staying in people homes all along the way and paired up differently each night I suppose. So finally after almost everyone has left our thin friend Bobby, went to get David and low and behold he was the large black kid in the back row. And quite funny indeed.
They told how at one town they ended up in the morgue for about an hour, I guess the guy who was keeping them worked there. And then there were the older people who acted like they had never been very close to a black person before and asked if his people liked mustard? And they wanted to snap pictures of them all together on and on. Of course it was much funnier when he told it. And as you can see I had to get a picture also. I'll probably be in his next comedy routine. But thats ok because Scott and I learned and stretched and actually had a good time.
Oh, Bobby came from Texas, didn't know where he was or what day it is. He said he just gets on the bus when they tell him to. He is a freshman and plays the trumpet. And David came from California orignally and I think is a junior. Many blessings to them both and our prayers are with them.

So I was working out the other day. Minding my own business when a women who I vaguely know entered the room and started working out on the machines also. Another gal in there mentioned that she had gotten her hair cut and then she proceeded to mention that she couldn't wash her hair herself because she had had an operation and couldn't use her arm. So I pondered on this for awhile and it came to me to ask her if she would like me to come to her house to wash her hair for her, since she couldn't do it. And she was so totally amazed by this act of kindness, and it made me feel good for asking.
You know there really is so little that we ourselves can do to make this big world better, but if we just look at our own little world and try to work on that, we can accomplish a whole lot and help each other at the same time. I'm gonna try to do more for others, I'm a helper at heart.