leaving work...

...  this morning, after five hours. I was headed east on Macon Road, ready to get back home. I knew before I even got to work I was going to desperately need a nap at the earliest possible opportunity. They do some pretty strange stuff to me as far as scheduling goes - the biggest hazard of being a part-timer is that my work is completely random, and could be a four hour shift if the manager so chooses.

I got my work space cleaned up and headed home about 10:30, and passed a man who really caught my eye. He was on a very small bike, one that could possibly be designed for a six year old, with tires of a very small diameter. The frame was so dimunative, it looked like he must have taken it from a kid and just recently removed the training wheels. This was a full grown man.

And he was wearing a black crash helmet. Not a bike helmet, a crash helmet. Like someone riding a motorcycle would wear. With a full face snap on, plexiglass shield protector.  So his head was completely covered. Furiously peddling down the street, as fast as his feet would go and the tires would turn. If he had not been a full size adult on a very small child's bicycle, I probably would not have even glanced his way, to notice the black motorcycle helmet. But it was pretty funny, as well as odd.

domestic bliss...

... is what we like to think when we look back on our mothers' lives when it was so common to find them all as 'stay at home' moms. Well before the term was even invented, when women were  expected to be the people who ran the household. The ones who did all the shopping and preparing meals, keeping the place sparkling, washing, ironing, mopping the kitchen floor every single day of her life. That's not me.

But I did quite a bit of housework today, enough to make up for several months of benign neglect. Cleaning floors, washing and drying and putting away, standing on my head cleaning the toilets and bathroom maintenance. Running that dratted vacuum. Finding a several generations of dust bunnies that snuck in and multiplied while unsupervised.

Then sucking up that scattering of feathers that leaked out of the comforter when people came to camp out on the futon.So many bits of fluff found their way out of the covering, it looks like the fox has been in the hen house. Indicating I should be motivated enough to find the hole and do some repair work to keep the rest of the stuffing corralled inside. The down is so warm and snugly when the winter winds blow, but so aggravating when the teeny tiny little bits of fluff organize an insurrection and try to break free.

Thankful for that dratted vacuum, as I am aware of how fruitless and frustrating the process of trying to sweep up feathers can be. I do hate to vacuum, probably due to forced labor as a kid, but thankful for modern appliances, electricity and living here in a civilized society. Thankful too that I have filled my quota of housecleaning for several months...

book review: "Windigo Island"...

... was the reason I nearly ran out of gas and found myself afoot on the way home in the downpour. Listening to the Cds had me so on edge, anxious for a good outcome, I was not paying attention to my gas gauge. I'm not sure if it qualifies as 'distracted driving', for which I could be stopped and ticketed, but I was certainly immersed in the tale. Written by William Kent Krueger, (copyright 2014), who is obviously very knowledgeable about native culture/history of the Lake Superior area. The title comes from a story in Ojibwa tribal legends about an evil spirit. Pure, undiluted evil: a windigo.

One of the main characters in the book is a "healer", someone our culture would likely term as a 'medicine man': Henry. He is ancient, no one knows his age, but obviously highly respected by his family and friends, all who encounter him. Henry seems to have some internal power, ability to draw on spiritual energy, that we in our highly superficial, trivial culture might compare to a Jedi warrior. As in: "Those are not the droids you are looking for."

A story Henry told based on the legends of his people, natives that were here long before the European invasion, in an effort to remind his friends of their own inner strength: We all have two wolves that live within us. One is love, the other is fear. The strongest one will be the one we feed. If we feed the one the thrives on love, we will be  more compassionate and caring, empathetic to others. If we feed the wolf that gains strength from our fears and anxieties, we will become that person, filled with rage and hate, bent on destruction of ourselves and others.

The story line is fast paced, easy to follow, people you feel like you have met, actually know. While the plot is heart-wrenching, about sex trafficking of young girls from the reservation. We all know how teenagers are never satisfied, always at odds with their elders, determined and head-strong. The two under-age girls left with an older female and ended up as prostitutes. The family that wanted them back would stop at nothing to get them away from the pimps/handlers who controlled every facet of their lives. Fiction but embedded with horrible truths.

Great story, fascinating characters, excellent read. I had times when I found myself, just sitting, parked, unwilling to turn the car off. What the folk at NPR call 'driveway moments', where you get to your destination, but don't want to stop. Driving around the block, or sitting in a parking lot, waiting for what a certain age-group will refer to as "Paul Harvey's: 'The Rest of the Story'."

there is another ...

...story to tell about hitting things in the highway that are too memorable. Heading  south from Atlanta towards home on the interstate, this time in the dark. Maybe seven or eight years ago. I was tooling along at a reasonable speed, probably just over 70 mph, and hit something that could have really messed up my car. But at that speed, and on the highway surrounded by other vehicles whizzing past as if you were at a complete stop, it is not possible to pull over and examine the problem.

You have to make an instantaneous decision. If you choose to stop, you are well past the actual scene of the problem, plus in the dark, on a busy interstate. Not likely you will be able to get out of traffic, off the road, find what you hit, and remain alive. So I did what the average red-blooded American motorist would do: hope for the best, and keep driving.

The sound that object made when it hit the underside of my low-slung Toyota made was seriously alarming. It also knocked loose a panel that protects the underside of the engine, and damaged the inner covering of the wheel well. Plus being really scare-y. A person stranded on a dark highway can always find cause for alarm, anxiety and concern: knowing how often bizarre behavior is headline news.

I honestly believe that 'news' is part of the reason they are out there, doing more and more creepy stuff. The publicity puts ideas in their unbalanced brains, whereupon they seek the attention and notoriety.  'Bad' news always sells, right? I am well known for sharing my opinion that 'there are crazy people out there, walking around on the streets, looking perfectly normal.' We just don't know to notice them until they suddenly surprise us by Going Postal.

I got safely home, not knowing what I had encountered. Found someone who would look under there and ascertain  no serious damage. Years later - just recently - I conclude that was another incident of big semi-trailers or cargo container trucks loosing tires. The driver often does not know he is missing an entire tire until miles down the road when he gets low on gas. Thereby leaving hazards in the lanes for other motorists to encounter, attempt to avoid. We have all been en route and had to suddenly swerve to avoid furniture, shrubbery, deceased animals abandoned in the lane. And we are all driving 'way too fast....

stupid, stu-pid, stoopid...

...or maybe stupid dumb and dangerous. Foolish, lame-brained, and dimwitted. None of those things appeal to me in the least, though I was saying them all about myself today. I was driving back from Florida in the pouring rain, immersed in a story on Cds from the library. When I let my gas gauge get down to the place where the last little bar was blinking furiously, warning me I was running on fumes. Or as the cheesy robot in the "Lost in Space" series would announce: "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!!"

Several times along the road, traveling where there are very few residences and vast open fields of cotton, peanuts, soybeans for mile after lonely mile, I passed through rain showers so heavy I could not see. And randomly happened to look at the gas gauge and realized I was in serious trouble. Undecided as to whether to back track or plunge ahead.

I didn't know how far away the next, best, close-est curb store was but felt I would not make it. So I stopped at a house, where there were vehicles parked in front, a little ATV on the porch, and John Deere lawn mower in the carport. Asking if I could buy a couple of gallons of gas out of the can they use for the mower. The people who answered the door did not kill and dismember me. But also did not help with the gas crisis.

Saying the little town of  Blakely was only five miles up the road. I was hoping I could limp along on the electric storage batteries for five miles if necessary. It was only about 3 miles. I arrived in the driving rain, beside myself with joy to be sitting in line at the pump, not caring one whit about the price.

Realizing that this is probably the first time I have ever not even looked at the price before pulling up to the pump. And then my credit card was refused. Well, @#$%. I had six one dollar bills in my pocket. Probably enough to get me home, in the little (undernourished) toyo. I pumped all six bucks would get me, and safely back at home. Lived to tell the tale.

So here I am. Confessing. And presently determined to never let that happen again. What was I thinking?  Crazy and scarey...

while driving for hours...

... today when I went half way across the state, then halfway up the state, I was thinking about something that happened years ago. I was driving with my parents and little people from south GA to Tallahassee. We were motoring along a well known road, but one that is seldom traveled due to convenience and high speeds of four lane interstate highways. Out in the country, a good distance from any towns or rural residences. Right-of-way grown up with knee high grass in need of mowing.

I hit something along the edge of the road that seemed to sort of flip off into the overgrown underbrush. I immediately convinced myself it absolutely, positively had to be a small alligator. Swore that the bulky black thing I barely saw must have been an alligator. The kind with big teeth.

Idiot me, stopped, backed up, got out of the car to go back and look. A fully functioning, perfectly capable adult male got out with me, along with two small children that apparently could hardly wait to become the reptiles' lunch. What was I thinking? Why would you chase an alligator after you had just run over his tail?

Looking back, I now conclude it was not hungry or toothy, but only a black re-tread from a blown tire,yet I am thankful we all survived. After recently viewing some hopelessly stupid youtube videos of crazy people dangling food over the mouth of a gaping alligator, I am amazed and thankful we walked away with all our body parts. Glad it was probably a curled up piece of black rubber instead of a very irate 'gator.

the people who...

... come to my house and sleep will be much better satisfied with overnight accommodations now.  A recent guest reportedly described the bed she was in as 'like sleeping in a canoe'. And her sister said she would rather spend the night on the couch than try to rest on the futon. No one reported it to me, and I never ever sleep there, so how was I to know?

I called someone who I thought would be handy enough to look at it, and just conveniently have the right tools in his truck to resolve the 'canoe' problem. It took several calls over several days, but he came this afternoon. And as I suspected, had everything necessary to provide a quick fix right out there on the driveway. He was in and out in less than an hour.

The futon is back together, and ready for testing. I hope someone will visit soon and take up the challenge: canoe sleeping? Which might not be all that bad anyway, as I know people on boats did it for years when on extended sea voyages. I know the futon is not perfect, and certainly not the same as one's own personal space. But I am guessing probably a better experience than the bouncy-ness of  tandem sleeping on an air mattress