Rest in Peace My country Tis of Thee!

It is the hardest event to watch….when one’s beloved has reached an age that society deems unfit to work. To watch a vibrant active man who loved his profession and excelled beyond his colleagues abilities being kicked out for racial prejudice is heart breaking. As a professor he was the most caring of teachers and his passion for his subject infused his students with the desire to learn.
Now he is out to pasture, a forced pasture, by those who helped put Trump in office and those who reelected and doted on Bush. To side line a person because of his origins is cruel and short sighted; however, we now see how blind these people are.
The education system, once a grand testament to our forefathers, now breeds consumers, insipid leaners, and truly ignorant people. Our once proud yeoman nation is a hovel ruled by ultra elites. A citizen is either a serf or an elite.

The Elites mock the learned ones and belittles their knowledge as superfluous. When has any culture thought knowledge was not a good thing? When has a society even begrudged teachers, mocked teachers? Yet this country has been mocking teachers for generations. Television is the mirror of society however it also is the creator of society. We have become the sitcom citizenry. Inept dad, sexy mother, obnoxious rude children, the brunt of most jokes are the educational system.
Where has this taken our once great nation? We are morally bankrupt, spendthrifts, hate filled people who scream obscenities at strangers in public.
So this is where I am with a vital man who is forced to do nothing when his dream was to teach as long as he lived. Thank-you to all you phony people who think you are Christians, who think you are patriots, you are neither. This country is tanking because of your hatred and your willful ignorance. Rest in Peace My country Tis of Thee!

How to Stop Caring?

I went to shop and saved money by not buying a cake or something nice to eat. I did see that saltine crackers( all the new boxes) are now less than 16 ounces...but the same price. This for some reason really irritates me. I feel cheated and stolen from for some reason. Since I used to teach a modern version of Home economics I really pay attention to prices and weights.. How many of you are old enough to remember coffee was sold by the pound( 16 ounces)? My cat food cans once were 6.5 ounces a can now they are 5. Cats do not eat less. I do not ( well now I do) make less coffee in a week. A jar of mayonnaise was a quart( 32 ounces) now many are 30 ounces or a fraction so doing math in ones head is very difficult when trying for the price per ounce. It is not done for metric sake since the grams are not even either it is all done to make thinking by the shopper harder to decide which is a better deal. My income has not gone up and T-rump will make sure it goes down. My standard of living has been sliding for 18 years at least....Or when coffee stopped being by the pound. I do think that is closer to 30years since my Dad was still alive. SO I have another useless irritation that I can do nothing about and I do not know how to not care. I feel sorry for the young people thinking this is right, It is ard living in the new normal when I can remember the way it was just a few months ago and saltines were still a pound box.

The Tragic Loss of our Lifetime

After my initial reaction to the devastating results of yesterday’s election I am further appalled at learning that women actually voted for Trump. I can not believe any self-respecting woman could vote for such an odious man. Of course I have been watching him since the 1970s and to me he is simple rich white trash. However this is not about Trump he is the president elect no matter what I think.
What I want to write about is Hillary Clinton. No matter what she did or did not do in the past she would have made a better president simple because she would have been our destiny. By that I mean she would have felt the 100s of years of women suffrage, of women’s lot in life, of women’s oppression and all the trials and tribulations we as women have gone through, our mothers, our grandmothers and so on.
Hillary would have felt the weight of history on her shoulders and would have wanted to leave a legacy to be proud of. No matter what you think about her past adventures her presidency would have been different. Whereas this is just a gig for Trump some spectacle to look good with.
Not Hillary, she would have tried her best to leave this country better and united like never before. I was a Bernie Sanders supporter in the early stages but could accept Hillary as a viable President. She is educated worldly smart and a woman who came from the bottom….all of us women start at the very bottom no matter what we do. If we are no eye candy then we need to work twice as hard, learn ten times as much to be thought of as just OK.
I am sad that we can not have a woman for President in my life time. I do not see anyone equal to the job waiting in the wings; I am getting old and still there is no one to represent me in the government except a precious few women who fought their way to their seats. Yes we are oppressed here in the United States but women do a lot of the oppression. We have been pitted against each other by men like Trump….the only things that matters is our beauty. If we have no beauty we are nothing in the eyes of most men out there. If we have brains we are subjected to ridicule, innuendo, and rudeness that would have a man punching others in the face if he had such treatment.
But now American will never be great; no matter what The Donald says. As empire we hit the plateau some years back and are now heading down the slope of decline.
A woman president would have made a difference since she would have had all our mothers past watching her and approving or not approving of her actions as first woman President. But other women did not give her a chance and used lame excuses to not voting for her. It is tragic and we will rue that action. Other women voted against their own best interest because they refused to be sisters united. Our biggest fault is letting men decide our worth. And we lost everything this election.

Aftermath

After the election news last night I felt sick inside; my stomach turned and I could vomit. I also felt incredible sadness. I am in shock actually, because all my ideals, my beliefs have been proved wrong beyond any doubt.
I was always proud of my country thinking there was basic humanity here at least the regular people were at heart kind and caring. I have been ignoring the signs for a while I know that now.

After 9/11 things got very bad for me. I was harassed at work and lost my job. My career was destroyed on purpose by the same people who voted in Trump yesterday. So I have been dealing with this stress since 2002.
But I never lost my faith that Americans were down deep decent people. Until last night when they elected a racist hate-monger with no grace or class. Just a blunt sledge hammer personality which sees every thing as something to be destroyed for his perverted pleasure. He is the boy who tortures puppies, he sets ants and butterflies on fire with a magnifying glass with happiness.

It made no difference to those who voted for him that he was disrespectful to women, hated huge groups of people…We see his adult children spoiled, above the commoners, They grind their boots on our hands while we pick up their leavings in desperation.

I now see with eyes open that there is no more American ideal; no American dream except greed and avarice. Money for the rich is good and if a person is poor he must die to decrease his use of resources.
I am sad, and sad is such a little pathetic word for how deeply I feel this loss of country, of ideal of what I thought my grandparents immigrated to give a better life to their children and grandchildren. It is such profound deeply gut grabbing feeling. I am sick. I am bereft of any hope. Let the world burn now. I no longer live.

People vs Human Being

I have decided that people are all of those of my species that are nasty, evil, and just not evolved to the point of compassion, love, and intelligence.
I had a set of cards made up to give to people who want my email, telephone number, and the spelling of my name like business cards. In the blank place where I was to put profession or a whatever I am I thought a long time. I am no longer an English Professor. The people who black listed me in San Antonio saw to it that I would never work again. So then what am I? I write poetry and make crafts take care of home and cats....nothing much really. I decided to put Human Being.
I am an evolved Human Being from where the words Humanity, Humane, come from. Since most of the people I see and know are not that evolved People describes them best. People are scum-buckets, self centered, cruel, evil....a litany of bad words in all their definition glory. So when ever I write I hate people it is not the Human Beings I am speaking of. Much like the Chief in "Little Big Man". Human beings are in the minority. People are a dime a dozen and mostly take one they are free. I can go through the list of who they are but for a real Human Being they will know whom I am referring to.
Q picked up Munchkin from the street this morning and she is now dead. Munchkin was a baby, all fluffy and very pretty but wild. We are feeding her mother and when Munchkin showed up she was fed too. People allow these cats to become feral by being too cheap and mean to spay and neuter, then turn them out when they are no longer cute kittens. Throw them away as if their life does not matter. I have news for you People. All lives matter. And right now every life matters more than People's lives since People are the blight on the face of the earth. Cheating, lying hate-filled, thieves and degenerates. People are pathetically depraved. That is why Human Beings are such a small minority on earth. We are killed off fast by People. Like cockroaches People breed and swarm all over the Human Beings.
So, when you contemplate your actions EVERY action think are you a People or a Human Being? How evolved are you really? Do you cry for a Munchkin, for those who are fleeing the wars we started in Syria? Are you happy with the thought of more wars, or hungry children in our own country, begrudge those who just can't function and call them bad because something inside them can't? Think about it. Our numbers are small and that is why the world is in the crap shape it is in. One Human Being for 10,000 People can not change anything although we try every day. We try.

Autumnal Equinox

We met a man yesterday at the desert wild life reserve. He was driving an old pick-up truck in pretty good condition and had his dog with him. He drove up the dirt road and in about 10 minutes returned. He parked and got out. A humped back with a rolling gait to look at the visitors kiosk. Sweetie was there and greeted the older man. I say older but he probably was out age. They chatted and I said my hellos. He was lonely and Sweetie sensed it. The day was warm and still. The air was quiet and scented with the last of summer.

I could hear them speak even though I had wondered off a few yards. The man was mostly wanting to not see me….He had lost his wife 7 years ago, his love his soulmate to cancer and I think it was painful to see us together.
He had not been on a vacation for 7 years. I can tell he was in mourning all this time. He said his camper trailer sat for these seven years, and when he decided to go for a trip he discovered his trailer was destroyed by mice. So he bought a new one. It may have been a good thing since his wife’s presence would have been with him this trip.
His life was one of survival and epic as anything in a novel.

His family had escaped from Hungary in 1956. His father, mother and older sister left in the night and joined a group of 200 people to escape to Austria. When they had arrived only 80 remained his family was still together although his father was wounded in the leg by Soviet guns. He this child had narrowly missed being shot as he was slow hitting the ground and felt the bullet fly by his head.
Once they had escaped they came to the USA. As a young man he was sent to Viet Nam. He was a POW and his body was tortured and he was damaged for life from his ordeal. His humped back was the testament of his survival and service to his country.

While listening to his stories I was thinking about Sweeties’s stories.
Both men are remarkable and no one will know their stories.

The Man was concerned about his dog in the truck even though it was not a hot day but still a vehicle can warm up. He then told us the story of his new sweetheart. His dog was rescued from dog fighters and was slated to be killed at the shelter that day. She is a brown pit bull. Medium built and having know pit bulls well built. She was gentle and loyal and grateful to her new person. He was devoted to his new sweetheart. She was shy but I could see she would die for him. He gave her water and took her for a walk as we were getting ready to leave.
Q gave him his card and said to call and we can have coffee and sweets and chat before he goes back to to his tour of New England.
Q was and is always sincere when he makes the offer for tea air coffee…..people here in the US do not understand people from different countries. Americans are not sincere in their offer of hospitality…..being from immigrant stock myself I know this. My offers are sincere. I know when others are just saying ya’ll come back with its hollow silent please don’t unsaid.
I heard so many stories yesterday, and Q has told me so many. I also have mine. We are different from all the several generations born Americans. We know what it is like to be shunned and ignored. Q especially. So while he chatted with the Man. I observed the drying blueberries on the stems while listening to the Man’s stories. Feeling the sadness of his loss but also feeling a bit better inside that this humped back man with an odd gait had his love, his soulmate for 33 years at least, and now he has saved this new love from death and misery. I also feel calm inside knowing I have the ability to welcome him and his dog to my home.

Nobody Gets Out Alive

We brought home an old, dilapidated cat 25 days ago. She had been sleeping on the stoop or the deck of our house that we are trying to renovate so we can move. One day she came in and checked out the house and slept in the tub for the time we were there. The next time we came we brought canned food. She ate well. One week we noticed (well how could we not notice) a huge tumor/lump on her right front side. On the way home I said we bring her home next time at least she will be warm and dry and loved since she is going to die. We brought a carrier the next time and she was quiet, for a cat, during the 3 hour drive home. We took her to the vet and the worst fear of cancer and nothing to be be done was realized. So she was home with us. She enjoyed the fact that every time she asked she was fed. She ate well. Growled at the others.
When the doctor was examining Smokey (she was a fluffy grey cat and should have weighed 10 to 12 pounds not the 9 she was) the doctor said Smokey had been horrible kicked/ beaten at some time in her past. She had no muscle tissue left on her right side....clearly from traumatic damage that only a fiend could inflict on a defenseless animal. She slept in the bathroom it was out of the way of others and she already enjoyed the tub at the other house. She took a few days before she ventured out and discovered the cat water fountain and the rest of the house. She would saunter out at meal time or when she wanted something and meow at me. I would get up and feed her. I would pat her and scratch her ears and chin and neck while she purred like a motor boat. She was sweet and gentle and took no crap from the gang of visigoths that passed for cats in the house. Yesterday she was extremely bloated. She had not wanted to eat, She would waddle out for water.
This morning it was decided we take her to the doctor and we were there right at opening. Yes she was dying. We usually let them die at home since many had a small zest for life until the end. But Smokey was uncomfortable and had pain. It is very hard to say euthanize. But I had to make the decision. My girl, our girl was made comfortable, she was purring and I was rubbing her chin and neck where she liked it best. With in seconds of the lethal but gentle combination she was gone. Just relaxed and no more. It was hard. I can't cry anymore it is all stored inside and I just numb down and my insides become nothing. Crying would be a release. When my time comes I want to be able to pass like Smokey. To have an injection to sleep deeply then another to stop the functions. Merciful, gentle, compassionate, and humane. Those who argue against that for people are the cruel fiends. They are the ones who would beat a cat nearly to death for what ever perverted pleasure they got. The go to church and sing. My Smokey has passed beyond the rim. She joins the many cats we have rescued, loved, and lost. My heart is numb. No tears yet but inside I mourn her life lost but know she was loved for the last days of her life.

Some Truths From Experience

Many things have been happening that have shown me the error of our collective ways. From observation, experience, and life I have fallen face flat into the one Truth no one will see until it is too late.
Conservatives and the members of the GOP are short sighted and live in a fantasy world.
How can this be true you may ask? Easy. Every single one of the Republicans I know are selfish people. They consistently vote against their own best interests because what ever they are voting against will benefit some peoples or groups or classes of people they prudishly disapprove of. A classic example is my Aunt. She is 99. She is a life long, card carrying Republican. Yet she is appalled at how old people are cared for and treated in the social system. Some social councilor/pastor whatever comes to chat with her and it is decided between them that Old people need to vote for better conditions. I question this. The conditions today are the results of What you sow, you reap. She never once voted for school bonds..."I have no children so why should I pay for other people's brats" .....She voted against every social program and help that were up to the vote either by issue or candidate platform because she did not want to help...druggies....poor people...immigrants....lazy people...families.... She was so incredibly short sighted and selfish that she could not or rather would not see that her own best interests are tied directly to societies best interests. There is no help or care for very old people because she begrudged others this same care all her life. So why should anyone care now that she is old. What did she care when others around her were old?
This takes me to the second thought that has kept me awake lately.
YOU are not temporality poor. Your ship will not come in, you will not win the lotto, the slots will not pay off so you can live the easy life. You will have to work at a job you are not thrilled with. If your parents were not filthy rich and if you are not in politics you are as rich as you will get now. What is it that you want that this windfall will create for you? I was reading through a 29 year old journal of mine and seeing the desperation of my poverty if only I could win..... What did I want...gold plated toilet seat? Fancy car? Mink coat? No I wanted to be able to go to the doctor and get the help I needed for a simple accident that has left me with chronic pain today. If I had medical care back then I would not have this pain today simple as that. The things I wanted were simple : to be able to pay the bills of daily life, enjoy some time with friends and family.
Did I want something for nothing? No. I paid taxes I wanted something from the taxes I paid. What I got was round and rounds of endless wars, money wasted on interventions in countries we had no business interfering with in the negative way we were doing it. Never once had our foreign policy gone to help those countries who had real poverty and needed real help. My taxes went to the Military Industrial Complex so people, not me and not you, could become as rich as Croesus.
Once I realized I am not going to become wealthy I saw how many people still lived in that fantasy. Stupid people. I worked, I went to get education. I enriched my life with the free things...literature...music...art things that are available to all of us.
Which brings me back to the Truth. The GOP are not for YOU they are for themselves wrapped in the false hope that you will someday be rich so you must protect your future interests by protecting ours today. GOPers are not moral, they do not care about you are a person or us as the society. We are cash cows for their extravagant live styles since yes they want gold toilet seats, mink coats and fancy cars. They want to spend a million dollars on their daughter's wedding to put on an extravaganza for the serf( hearing me HRC?) They want everything they see, they want to put as much distance between them and us as they can. Trump never did his own grocery shopping he is from a wealthy family. HRC has forgotten the days of driving herself to work, shopping and changing diapers.
Oh did I mention the Democrats too? Yes They are no more for you then the GOP. They want theirs and to hell with you. You are a cash cow.
When you are 99 and can not do for yourself you can look through all those lovely White House Christmas Cards you paid for and take comfort that you donated sums of money and got nothing but a Christmas card. As you sow So shall you reap. Your Chickens have come home to roost. You made your bed and now you must lie in it. See all those old sayings are truths......Wake up and smell the coffee folks your ship sank and you are at the apex of your life.

My Life ... since a Venn Diagram is complicated

My Frustration level is at max. I have a head ache all the time, my shoulder, which attracts the stress is painful to the feeling of nausea.
I have given a home to my old 98 yr old aunt.
I have a husband whom I love and want happy. We live under the constant fear and threat of all the aftermath of 9/11( you all would not understand very well.)
All my aunts stuff came to this house with the few things of my mother's stuff I saved after her death( that event lasted 6 years and is another circle in the Venn)
I have a fixer upper house which I bought before the Old One needed a place to live so it is in need of fixing.
Old One did not like the downstairs room( which is the warmest w=room in the house while all the rest of the house remains cool enough for my comfort. ) Because it was too small. She was very nasty about not wanting such a small room.......I was ready to put a nice accessible powder room in that room so she could not travel all over to use the bathroom at night....It is a decent size bedroom. But no. She needed the biggest bedroom room in the house. I have had to put extra heaters in the room and with the main house hold furnace it is like an oven but still she complains about it being too cold...nowhere is 85º too cold, especially when it is below zero out side.
I need to function in a too warm house all the time because she only sleeps in the biggest bedroom which is upstairs and needed a stair lift chair $$ to get upstairs. All the bathrooms need new toilets since she did not like anyone them not high enough for her $$. Since she is all over the house all the bathrooms need to accommodate her.
I need to remodel the downstairs bathroom because it is a sight and I knew I would need to fix it when I bought the house...no can do yet....why? No one to do it...this area is bereft of workers of quality, or ethics.
I painted my own bedroom in self preservation since I wanted somewhere to be that was pretty and nice for me...yes selfish me... it is OK but with out a ladder not as nice as I could do and I was exhausted since the move to here was another circle in the Venn diagram that overlaps with the mother diagram. Please put all the diagrams inside the post 9/11 aftermath...there are three that overlap that one but not here yet.

Last year Old One took a tumble because she refused to wear grippy socks while walking and she slipped on the floor and banged herself up enough to be in the hospital.....was that any respite for me? No. For 30 days I needed to wait until the hospital called to tell me she would not be sent home today....I could not get anything done, is was the dead of winter and I still had no one to do any work here in the house for me. As well as every day...every freaking day she could have been discharged and I would need to drive the 45 miles to pick her up at the notice of the phone call.
When she was sent home she was given nice home heath care workers that came in an helped her bathe, do a little physical therapy which she needed (she is not dead yet and can still do things to make it easier on herself and me)
A nurse to asses her once a week. She threw a major tantrum and refused all help...meaning I now had more work than before.
She does not have dementia she is spoiled and stubborn and used to having everything her own way. Make a nice circle for her too.
I was able, or at the time I thought, to find a contractor to do stuff for me since I had frozen pipes and the back of the house foundation would collapse taking the back room bathroom, laundry room and deck with it. OK fine now I need to do this but If I do this can I get the kitchen done( I did not want state of the freaking art hight end kitchen just a simple change) No problem with the amount you have allotted you should get the foundation done the back room dry walled, the deck redone( since it had to come off for the foundation to get done) and the kitchen. And there was enough for a simple powder room since the bathroom downstairs could be out of service for a while)
I must say I called 5 foundation companies and not one NOT ONE showed up to even look and give me an estimate. This guy looked ok and I like a stupid desperate fool said OK.We will start with the powder room since the toilet was already there.....I can only work weekends... OK... I figure a month of weekends. He became Oh by the way this is a problem , Oh by the way that needs to be repaired oh by the way ........FTS.
I was beaten down and had a huge mess in the house that I just wanted freaking done. And the foundation was in imminent danger of collapse, for real and still......
I am still dealing with everything plus a husband who needs to be tended to as a loving wife wants to.....He is another circle and I am always not doing something right. No he has not been here since the beginning since he has his own set of Venns that he had to to and one of those circles still overlap these other circles. There a five more new circles to put in but at this point I am tired and what is the use.......I am tired.

Over all view of life in the wake of the republican misanthropy

I have a nearly 99 year old aunt living with me. It is obvious that she needs more full time care than my 24/7 can do. I am exhausted, I am living in a jail and it is my death sentence since I am not a young person. She should be in a skilled facility that can help her out of bed to the bathroom, and help her to her chair and when she needs to move around. She can walk with a walker but I would say she is at maybe 40% capacity. She can not stand up longer enough to pull up panties or slacks to dress. And using the bathroom she can manage most of the time except when she falls. She falls 2 ways a slump to the floor and the argument with the floor and the floor wins which results in broken noses and many bruises and swellings. There is a lot of other little things she can and cannot do. However it is my health and life that I am now concerned with. I wanted to enjoy a day out with my husband just a day.But I needed to cancel out today since she fell and then told me getting out of bed was hard and she almost could not do it. When there was help for her( consequently me) after a major fall last year, she threw out all the nice helpers that came several times a week. If she would not have been bitchy she would have learned strengthening exercises and have had to do them instead of sit all day. She may not have been stuffing her face with cookies and candy( if she does not get her snacks she throws a tantrum. I tried to get her to loose a little weight since for her size she is about 25 pound over her best weight. But she threw a fit over that too. So the only things she lies to do is sit watch TV or read. I am tired and feeling so trapped by my own good intentions, but it is obvious she needs to be in a old folks home. However that is not easy nor cheap. And here is where the republicans fit in...they hate medicare and anything to do with poor people. Yes she is poor but has a pension and her social security. She has my home and I am suppose to sacrifice' my life for hers according to the government. I say Phooey. A few of those bombs and drones can easily take care of 100s of Old old people until they finally die. But the repubs like the war profits.... I am sad, disappointed since I have not been on an outing for more than 4 years....I am worn out.

Trapped

I am so trapped. I have no where to go. I hate every breath I take right now. Nowhere to escape this hell. Nowhere to go. Each day will be like this until other people depart. No respite, no rest. No air to breath. If I began to scream out my anxiety I fear I will never stop screaming until my vocal cords snap. There is nothing holding me down but gravity and nowhere to go.....

Watching the Sea

I am watching the tide come in, the small waves rolling and undulating gradually covering the sandbar that the stream's meander has cut on its way through the marsh. It is a narrow spit that keeps the stream as a tight S curve to the bay. The channel has deepened. What is interesting is the level of the tide has rises a lot since I started watching a few years back. Once, even at a full moon high tide, the sandbar was never covered. Now a regular tide covers it and creates waves with a bit of froth. If the sea level is not rising then the land must be sinking a bit for this to happen. It is pretty and looks like soon I will have waterfront property. I like the sea. I rather watch the sea than people. I rather depend on the sea than a clock.