Tell me, honeys...

Why is it when I decide to get more organized, things seem to get more complicated? Figuratively AND literally.

I straighten some things in my room; more stuff comes in from seemingly nowhere (when really it's just from the truck, or out of the horse trailer tack room and finding non-horsey items). I straighten things out in my closet, and find more stuff in my room that seems to just have a tangling orgy when I'm not looking!
When I need more light to see what the hell I'm doing, what used to be pleasant (my pink party bulb in my nightstand lamp) is suddenly nowhere NEAR enough.

Buddha might say that it is my WANTING of these things that brings their opposite.

Zen is being at peace with shadow and chaos as much as light and order.

I can see those things. But, BUT I really like finding things I'm looking for, and not pulling out cat's food bag, a sock, and a roll of TP when I'm only fishing out my laptop power cord... I want to be able to depend on things that I spend time and money into maintaining. I guess I really am attached to those expectations. Not knowing if your stove, your car, your PLANS are going to work... we really couldn't function if those things didn't go as expected at least some, or most of the time!


What if you had to? Our worlds get turned upside down all the time. If not us directly, then people we know. What if you lost your mate, then a month later your job, and then one of your cats, and your RV catches on fire... then your brother disowns you, and a longtime friend decides she likes her life better without you in it... and while you are moving you lose what's left of your belongings from the divorce... well, I'm being slightly redundant. That saga needed installations, for any who missed it the first time: parts One, Two, Three, Four, my Awakening and Hell Night.

We don't really OWN anything, do we, darlings!?

That is the test, when our stuff dispossesses US. That's when you know. What would you need for your basic survival? Your friends, family - who can you count on? It's not pleasant (especially in February) but think of it, honeys. Just for a moment.

Because of my experiences, and their proximity to each other, I feel aged, but closer to wisdom; jaded, but free. Free to see things as they really are, because what I wanted would have none of it! I'm not talking about wanting a diamond ring, or a kitten, or a house... I took Sheryl Crow to heart: "It's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got!" ~That was me! I was satisfied.


Whether jaded or free (or both?), I know now that the future, much like the silhouettes of those giant trees across the street in the evening fog, is only lovely because it's edges are still fuzzy.


(P.S. ~ I know that sounds fatalistic. It really isn't supposed to be. What needs saying too is that the rest is up to YOU!)

Valengine's Day

OK, so Valentine’s Day is coming. And it can’t be over soon enough for me!! Now before you go making up your mind that I’m some kind of feminazi, or just someone who doesn’t get anything for this holiday, hear me out!

So every day after New Year’s – and some ways before even – we have to endure commercial after commercial (get the not-so-indirect point there!) on TV and radio, billboards… and if you’re like me, and happen to not own a TV and listen to your own CDs in the truck, and are lucky enough to be spared the billboard scene, you probably still will visit a grocery store and get hit in the face with a million of those floaty heart balloons and more pink flowers than your optic nerves can process.
Shameless, I tell you!

And what are they all hocking? From the side of the road even (in case you are one of the evidently MANY suckers who either forgot—or refuse—to put any thought into the gift or the meaning of this day) where you can find limitless rows of identically stuffed cellophane blobs full of…

And yes, this is my point… Chocolate, flowers, candy, bath foof, even silky robes and fluffy slippers, maybe a cute stuffed animal—are these the ingredients that apply to our population? NO!!

When do you ever see pre-season tickets, beef jerky, baseball caps, magazines, leatherman tools, maybe even fishing poles and bait happily wrapped in camouflage plastic? Do they even make cellophane decorated with camo?
How is this day supposed to be anything other than Make Your Vagina Happy Day? It is completely geared toward the fluffier parts of us.


Think of it—chocolate to elevate that snappish, foul, after-work mood, soft fluffy things to tame the nagging tongue because you know you didn’t take out the beer bottles like she asked you to, and happy bath stuff to keep her occupied for a while so you can actually do what you’ve always wanted after your day at work: to rest in the quiet, maybe sit with your socks on with your pants unzipped on the couch, and nibble on cold pizza while perhaps flipping through the channels with the remote all to yourself… Ahhhh!!!

Well, there it is. Now I guess I can see why it is some people still go for this stuff. If I think about it on that level, how it may actually be more manipulative than I first thought, how maybe it’s all a ruse and WE are actually the suckers—I may even get a bit upset… if I could only muster up the will after using my chocolate-covered fingers to find the faucet through all this foam, and turn off the bath water…

Egads, I've been AWAY!!

It has been a TERRIFIC year for me so far, honeys, tho a tad chasing my tail it seems... I haven't read you all in such a long while it may take me a WEEK to catch up. But I will.

I have been a bit miserable at home but things are changing. In the meantime, while I concoct a story for you all, I will leave you with this bit of peace:

Wednesday Madness

Well so much for the Monday regularity. I'd like to say I'll do it when my life is a bit more regular, but sheesh by now I guess it's time to admit, this IS my regular life! Order in Chaos.

So, enjoy. These peaceful moments are fleeting. Think not always what you have to do next. Take a few moments (however long they measure in REAL time) to think of nothing but beauty and peace.

Of course this is me talking to myself, but I just thought I'd let you in on the conversation~

I AM... The OTHER Woman.

Mid-morning. He comes over, after everyone in the house has gone. We walk for hours, the two of us, ignoring that we are spending time with each other when our own loved ones are missing out. There is beauty, understanding, unspoken feelings that just seem right...

Yes, folks.

We hate them, we shame and shun them, sometimes we may say, You Go Girl, but we always hope she stays away from who belongs to us.

Why, you ask, when I have one at home who I love, and loves me in return? What sense does it make? Is it possible that I need more than just one? They aren't even the same sex.

Well, when you see this face, maybe you will be in love too...


Yes, Meathead.
But Meatie belongs to someone else.
Meatie himself does not even care to go home when he is with me.
He stays for sometimes days, even when I beg him to go home.

We go on our long walks... and this is the only view I get.



When I open the door in the morning, he is there, in the front yard, waiting to escort me on whatever business I have for the day.


Even when I'm cleaning stalls, he sits overlooking the valley where the puma and bear live, and says, No-one is going to harm you on my watch.


He hears the shrill voice of a woman calling him home when she discovers he's out roaming again.


He just turns and asks, Where are we going next?
He loves me better.

Sometimes I feel so torn.
Torn that I have to leave him outside when I eventually finish my duties outside. Torn when he sits at one door after another, knowing I am inside, whining to let him in from the cold. The cold air, the cold cement stoop, the cold woman who will chain him up the moment he goes back home.


Then there is Mew. How can I continue seeing him, spending all my time outside, when she is in here, ready to yell at me for being out... Why so long? she screams, in that crotchety, old-smoker, my-vocal-chords-are-going-out voice of hers. Then again, there are moments like these:
What is a human to do?!?

Resolutions?!? Shmesolutions!

But. I will say that due to some thoughts and realizations of late, I have decided (coincidentally at the turn of the year) to only purchase groceries that come in no packaging, or recyclable packaging. There are so many options nowadays that I just flat refuse to throw one more thing in the trash. Because I am a very visual person and can see my backyard piling up with teabags, Trader Joe's Moochi packages, the seemingly innocuous plastic wrappers inside the recyclable cardboard... I'm DONE!


I'll use what is in my cupboard, but from now on I'm gonna be that crazy lady you see in the bulk food aisle, wearing the fashionably co-ordinated and colorful clothing, bringing her own bags to pick out fruits and veggies, the glass container that has been weighed at the checkout stand beforehand so the cashier can subtract the weight from the price of the goodies inside... remember in all the westerns how people had boxes to put all their sundries in? How nobody, once proudly astride their steeds, ever just rode around tossing fast-food containers and candy bar wrappers in the streets? Well. Call me .... whatever. Maybe it's living on the farm. Maybe it's the roommates' constant drivel about composting (howabout you EAT what you COOK) and who is going to take the bucket down to the composter by the barn. Maybe it's having vegetarian horses. Maybe it's becoming more aware of living a simpler life. Maybe it's my watching the old episodes of Kung Fu (and writing a book of the great quotes therein).

Whatever it is, honeys, it has got me.

Happy New Year!

Lots of changes in just the last couple months, some people are beating the big C, some are moving away from the past and going forward with their future (even if it isn't in Florida) and some have loved and lost... others are finding themselves, and continue to explore what it means to be parents. And people. Just plain people.

Dream big, honeys. We all deserve it.