Did anyone see Survivor last night?  The women are KICKING ass.  I love it, they’ve won four out of five challenges, and while the men may have gotten it together early, the women are keeping it together when it counts.    Yes people I know, but didn’t we establish yesterday what a loser I am.

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Stupid people, do and say stupid things!

http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Sands/7085/index.htm

This whole site just generally cheers me up and makes me shake my head.  I may be a loser sometimes but at least I’m not stupid.

Added: April 1, 1997
South Carolina: A man walked into a local police station, dropped a bag of cocaine on the counter, informed the desk sergeant that it was substandard cut, and asked that the person who sold it to him be arrested immediately.

and then there’s this one.

Added: May 27, 1997 HumourNet Collage 351
A friend of my wife swears this to be true: She is in a nursing class at a state university, and the instructor is talking about human reproduction — specifically, about the nature, physical construction, and chemical composition of the male gamete. The point she makes is that the spermatozoa are mostly composed of sugar, to provide fuel for the “long swim.” A blonde (who else?) nearby, obviously vocalizing before temporizing, blurts out, “So why [is it] so salty?” Class dismissed.

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When the whole day comes together in a moment of clarity…..then you know it’s time to take a nap.

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Time to take off for Hot Springs to pick up youngest from school.  Thankfully the snow, rain, and ice have given me a break.  Tootles for now, have a great Friday.

Why, oh why am I such a loser?  I frustrate myself, no one has to do it for me.  I had this lovely blog all typed out and then hit the cancel button.  What a lame brain thing to do.

BRAIN:  Pinky are you thinking what i’m thinking?

PINKY:  I don’t know Brain, do all losers hit cancel?

THIS is how I have always felt.  So I am borrowing it as a direct quote from Wil Wheaton, my all time favorite geek.

       Music isn’t something that I just put on in the background. It is always the soundtrack to my life.  http://www.wilwheaton.net/

I can bring up clearer memories when I hear an old song than when I see something.  Some get a blast of memories from a certain smell, like crayons or apple pie.  I get it from songs.  Here are some slightly weird examples.

When I hear Will The Circle Be Unbroken I think of my grandmother that I blogged about last time.  My mom told me years ago that they sang that song at her funeral.  Roxanne by The Police reminds me of a girl I went to high school with, she hated that song with a passion.  Even though I haven’t seen or heard from her in 20 some years, I still think of her when I hear it.   on the flip side also by The Police Every Little thing She Does Is Magic, reminds me of the first time my honey and I did the deed because he started humming it when we were done.  Now there’s a good memory.  Sorry for scarring your psyche kids.  Tubthumping by Chumbawumba reminds me of when said husband was in Korea and I was so lonely I couldn’t stand it.  I know it’s a drinking song but I love the chorus to that one.

It’s a Beautiful Day in The Neighborhood, will always reimind me of times of gentleness and safety. And today sadness. 
Thursday, February 27, 2003

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The snow and ice that we got hit with this last week has really thrown me out of my routine.  Being out of work for the first time in 7 years, I have been enjoying sleeping past 5am, getting on the computer as early or late as I want, and puttering around the house.  It was a shock when I got up the other day and my husband was on the computer.  It took a muddled minute for my brain to figure out that the street was under an inch of ice and he couldn’t get to work.  So for two days I felt like I couldn’t blog.  (some have a shy bladder, I have a shy weblog)  I know that’s really stupid because if he wanted to read my xanga all he has to do is type indigolady into google and I’m the first one that pops up.  He has read some, if not all of this, and yet it still makes me feel odd.  Why should I care?  I guess it’s because of all the people in the world I care more about what HE thinks than I do anyone else.  After all what if he thought it was bad….well hell, I could have told you that honey.

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Brief update for those who need or want to know.  Daughter who had a nervous breakdown or whatever the politically correct term is now, is doing MUCH better.  She is seeing a counseler and hopefully  things will continue along this brighter path. 

 

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My self-editing machine is broken so I need to stop this blog now before my computer self-destructs.  Besides there’s absolutely nothing going on in loser land at the moment anyway.  Cheers to all and have a good day!

I took Em back to school tonight and on the drive home I remembered something my mom told me years ago about her mom. 

My mom was born in 1931, she is the oldest girl in a family of 8 brothers and 2 sisters.   Her mom had all but the last child at home, for some reason, with this one they took her to the hospital, which was  30 miles away.  After the baby was born my mom was allowed to go in to see her mother.  The new baby brother was in the nursery and it was just the two of them in a dimly lit room.  Mom said they didn’t really talk and after awhile her mother sat up on the side of the bed and began brushing her long auburn hair.  She remembered thinking to herself how beautiful she was sitting there and how much she loved her.  She didn’t say anything though and the moment passed, a doctor and nurse came in with a wheelchair and took her mom out.  She died that night.  To this day my mom regrets not telling her mother what she thought, I like to think that her mom knows.

Eva Leona was her name, she was 36 when she died.  She’s the reason I tell my kids I love them so often.  She’s the reason when I look at them and think they’re beautiful I don’t hesitate to say it, even though I know it will just brings groans of, oh mom. 

It always reminds me, don’t leave the important things unsaid.

I sit here staring at this blank box and wish I had the talent and power with words that so many I know here in Xanga land have.  Not a jealous kind of want, more like the, I am so full of ideas and passions why can’t I express them, kind of want.  I should have paid more attention in school, to late now. LOL     Actually I think it’s more of an innate talent that some have and some don’t and thankfully I have found some who come across clean, clear, and while not always brief almost always interesting in one way or another. 

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I have also found, here in this box, people from literally around the world who feel, think, and live just like I do.  If the computer is responsible for making the world a smaller community, it is also responsible for opening up this community we call Earth.  The exchange of personal information and experiences going on in Xanga and places like xanga should make it impossible for us to go to war, we might be killing our friends, or friends of friends.  Isn’t everyone on this planet a friend of someone?  It makes me sad to think that my friends in other nations look at the U.S. as warmongering.  I learned living overseas that Americans are arrogant, and that the ordinary citizens of other countries really don’t think about us on a daily basis.  They are busy living their own lives.  But when we, as a nation allow our leaders to move ahead with something that the majority of the people don’t agree with,  then yes, we receive the attention of the world.  Why this surprises some is beyond me.  We are becoming the “bully on the block” and have been going down this path for a long time. 

I know this could be written clearer, more concise,  and definetly with better grammar and punctuation(my weakest subject) but if you feel as I do, visit the link.  (thanks morgane)

Write or call your congressman today.  If you put it off, here is what will happen.

Your sons and daughters,

your husbands and wives,

your fathers and mothers,

and your friends, will give their lives to fulfill a political agenda for George Bush.

  http://www.endthewar.org/default-new.htm

official end of rant thank you for sticking to the end.

It’s all MORGANEs fault, her blog yesterday reminded me of how much I truly love The Chronicles of Narnia.  So this afternoon I read Prince Caspian and now when I should be in bed I’ve started Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  I re-found one of my favorite qoutes.

Aslan is talking to Prince Caspian and he says; “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve, and that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in Earth. Be content.”

I have to go read now, just thought I’d share a little of my dorky delight with you, my friends.  BOOKS

The south can be really weird.

There is a saying in the south: Just because the cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t mean you can call ‘em biscuits. 

This refers to “Yankees” who move to the south and have kids in the south, but still aren’t to be considered from the south.  In other words your still a “Yankee”. 

It’s like this girl I know, she’s 18, she was born up on the mtn., at home, but her parents are from Jersey.  She was home schooled along with her brother until she was a jr. in high school and when she finally got off the mtn. after 16 years, no-one really knew her and she has the most amazing jersey accent anyone has ever heard, yet she’s never been out of the south.  Hell she’s not been out of Arkansas, as far as I know.  It was pretty comical to hear people ask where she was born and raised…it’s less than 15 miles from here.  Nobody can quite believe it.

Myself on the other hand, I was born in the South, raised in the West, married a Yankee, and had both of my kids in the West.  One in Arizona and one as far West as you can get, California.  Yet I am considered completely Southern by everyone I know.  WHY?  “My people” are from the south, going back generations.  My grandpa lived in this county for 75 years…his parents came from even further South before that.  I have so many cousins that after living here for 15 years I am still meeting them.  Yet I wasn’t raised in the South.  My accent is an amalgation of mid-west, California flat, and to my horror an occasional twang.  That’s my giveaway the accent.  people who know me are used to it, people who don’t but are from the south always ask me where I’m from.  Depending on the situation I usually tell the truth, I was raised in Arizona.  But always when they hear that my parents and grandparents were born right here, I have an automatic “IN”.   I am just the poor southern girl my parents hauled away and I found my way home somehow.   Why is that, and why would I even want it?

Last night I smashed my finger carrying in wood for the stove.  The words that came out of my mouth were not ladylike in any part of the country.  We don’t have any other heat but wood.  It feels good to back your butt up to a hot stove on a cold night.  It feels like shit to have to go get the wood in the freezing cold.  That’s been one of my bigger prayers since we moved into this house, Lord grant me a heat pump and ductwork.  Wood stoves as the only source of heat must be southern thing.  At least I have a state of the art bathroom.

Speaking of….when we were in Spain I loved all the bathrooms.  Every house we lived in had a bidet.  Handy dandy little things they are.  So when we moved into this house and remodeled the bathroom I wanted a bidet.  Okay, says hubby, I got my little convenience.  The idiot at the hardware store, his name is SKIP  was so blown away by my purchase that for the next year when I came into the store if there was anyone around he would say “she has a bidet in her bathroom, have you ever seen a bidet.”  For awhile I considered leading tours to the great wonder that is my bidet, please put your quarter in the box.

This is the only place I know where they close school for the first day of deer season!!!  For one inch of snow and yet refuse to close for Martin Luther King day.   Ah the south.  They think it in their heads yet are politically correct enough to not say it out loud.  Did you know that for awhile the first mile into Arkansas from the Missouri side was adopted by the KKK, people kept knocking the sign down until finally they came up with a reason to get that stretch of highway un-adopted.  Can you believe that?  I swear it’s true!!  Talk about embarrassing.  

Sometimes I feel like an alien on a strange new world

Speaking of alien encounters, I’m going to Hot Springs to pick up my kid from school on Friday.  If you don’t know what aliens I’m talking about go see Riottgyrrrl… if I had a brain I would link the proper blog here and you could with ease go read about her alien encounter in Hot Springs.  My brain shut down though so you have to find it yourself.  Maybe I can talk Morgane into teaching me that neat little linking trick.  hint, hint.  I’m so subtle it’s scary.  Anyway it’s her Feb. 4th blog. 

I am off to browse so if I think of anymore later I’ll be back…can’t say I didn’t warn you.

More Spain different day or

all I really wanted was some real Spanish lace:

My sister Lona and I went to  Segovia on a bus and spent the whole day wondering around town, it was there I  had my first run-in with a gypsy.  There seems to be something about me that brings out the worst in the gypsy persona.  Either that or they can spot an easy mark.  We were down in the heart of the old city, by the largest part of the Roman aquaduct, when I was set upon by an old gypsy lady.  She had lace mantillas and I made the mistake of making direct eye contact with her.  She followed us for two blocks with me saying in my sternest voice no,no,no.  She obviously didn’t understand Spanish.  For the low price of ten dollars I got a machine made mantilla and some peace.   I thought I had won the war in one easy cheap battle.  Was I ever mistaken.  Round one to the gypsy who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Gypsies have a better communication system than Altel and Microsoft put together. About a week later i’m home when a gypsy bangs on the back gate, I made a critical error here, I went outside to see what she wanted.    She has two baskets, now these are nice machine made baskets,  though she is saying she made them, I know she’s lying, my sister is a basketmaker.  So i’m telling her I don’t need or want the baskets and she’s telling me her kids are going to starve to death because I won’t buy them.  I tell her I don’t have any money, she starts getting louder and tells me she will have to be a whore to keep her kids from starving.  Finally she throws the baskets over the fence and starts walking down the alley yelling at the top of her lungs that I killed her kids and she is going to die a whore.  What could I do I ran after her, shoved thirty dollars into hands and asked her to please go away.  QUIETLY!  Round two solid gypsy win

Madrid rostro–one of my favorite places, basically it’s a huge flea market with anything and everything you don’t need conveniently placed in one ten block area. (sidenote-put your wallet in your front pocket and wear your tightest jeans)  my husband and I weren’t looking for anything in particular but we did want some Spanish flavor to send home to family and to take back with us.  Enter the roving gypsy.  By this time I know I am the worlds biggest shmuck so I send in front line weaponry…my old man.  He can make babies cry just by frowning at them, I may have lost round one and two but hey I’ve got the big guns now.  He even makes telemarketers hang-up on him…that’s true power.  I see him go into his program of deliberate procrastination, look at everything ten times like you just can’t make up your mind, mull and ponder, get wishy washy until in disgust they give up and leave.  I’ve seen it a hundred times and it has never failed.  Patience as a tool of war.  He’s ten minutes into his play when she pulls out from the bottom of her basket the most beautiful table cloth I’ve ever seen.  30 seconds later the shmuck moves in and walks away with the machine made, machine appliqued, machine lace table cloth thats only been out of the bag once in the ten years we’ve been back stateside.  round three gypsies….war over!  Oh did I mention she threw in some matching napkins, what a wheeler dealer I am.

Look at me all tough leaning against a tree…who knew three old ladies could bring me to my knees.

This is what I listen to when it’s raining and I feel like a strung out hopeless case!  Blah doesn’t begin to describe today, hopefully by later this evening it will start picking up.  In case you haven’t heard it this should be considered one of Eric Claptons best. 

Last night after my incredibly frustrating attempt to catch up on my reading and post a new log, I went to bed.  If I had been lucky I would have slept, as it was my mind started drifting.  Down, down, down into late night weirdness.  While in Spain we took a day trip to Burgos, after ten years have past and I had completely forgotten most of the details this came to mind on the cusp of sleep and wakefulness.

Burgos has one of the largest cathedrals I’ve ever seen, even by Spanish Catholic standards.  It took around 300 years to finish and covers city blocks.  I remember we walked around it for hours gawking at the statuary, and spires.  The gargoyles, and saints.  It seems like every corner you turn, every step you take there’s something fantastic.  Gothic in the truest sense of the word.  Eventually we made our way inside and decided to take the standard guided tour.  It was what we saw on the tour that kept me awake last night.  Two things, the first grotesque, the second breathtakingly beautiful.

The crucified Christ has to be in every cathedral in the world, made of wood, ivory, marble, more things than I can think of here.  In Burgos, about 125 miles North of Madrid, they proudly display a crucified Christ covered in skin.  It’s so old that even with testing they’re not completely certain what type of skin, they think that it’s buffalo of all things.  When you stand there staring at this thing they venerate as a holy artifact, your close enough to see that it looks human.  It looks like the dried corpse of Jesus.  It looks grotesque in it’s corner of the church.  The scent of the flowers left in offerings start to overpower everything else.  Heat from the myriad of tiny votive’s surrounding the cross heat up the space that a few minutes ago seemed immense.  In my logical mind I hear the guide, I hear him and his explanations, but I can’t take my eyes off the cross with poor dead Jesus.  It was like driving past a car accident and trying not to rubberneck, you can do it but damn it’s hard.  It was my two chattering girls that broke the spell and brought me back from my fascination with death and resurrection.  On with the tour.

After you’ve walked miles thru endless naves, crypts, and private chapels you’re usually done, this time the church conviently ended the tour at a little gift shop right in the church.  I started to browse only because of the old man running the shop.  He was so proud of the cathedral that you could tell he felt it was his private domain.  He hadn’t worked in there for years, he worked there for decades.  I knew he could tell tales if only he would.  After he practiced his English on us and we practiced our Spanish on him, he motioned me to a dark corner at the end of the counter.  There was a plain wooden cupboard hanging on the wall, he unlocked the doors with great ceremony and anticipation on his face.  Inside was the most incredible work of art I have ever seen.  Mary Magdalene in all her beauty.  Her skin glowed, her hair looked like a breeze might lift a curl any moment.  Her eyes were full of the mysteries of life.  If she had turned her head and spoke to me I wouldn’t have flinched or been surprised.  Helen of Troy had nothing on this woman.  When I asked the shopkeeper why they put this of all the art in the cathedral in a dingy little cupboard in an out of the way corner he explained that while it was attributed to Da Vinci it wasn’t proven to be truly his work, therefore it is much less venerated than some that have been authenticated, even though they are of lesser quality or maybe the artist is not as well known.  It didn’t matter to me.  I bought the little book he had written to raise money for the church.  I had to…you see it has pictures of both 

 Ultimate ugliness and ultimate beauty both seen in the space of a day.