Did He Say Mendelssohn?

No wait. He said meddlesome. Hey!!

Well really. I never! (Actually, I probably have.) I mean, I make the effort to keep my comments anecdotal so they aren’t seen as meddlesome. And I know I can be moody, like those dips into darkness, so I try not to impose those moments on others and just read sometimes. And really, couldn't any response to a published plea for attention be construed as meddlesome? Heh... I think so. But whatever. I dig it. I don’t like meddlesome people either. Like name-callers. So back atcha, fella! Feh.

But hey, I think it's in the nature of humans to meddle. There are meddlers in my life too. Here’s a list of my fave 5:

5) Hubby, who likes to turn on and tune in the TV to a program he likes before leaving the house, and I'm the only one at home. (Hmmmm. I can’t choose myself?)

4) Visitors who feel a need to tell me how to do things. Even really basic things, as if I wasn’t managing at all myself before they stumbled through my door.
(Hmmm... on this note, I wonder if youth really need advice, or just time, and life.)

3) Single, childless veterinarians who tell me I must meal-time my pets. Sheesh, I haven’t even successfully meal-timed my family. (But then, I don’t feel a compelling need to.)

2) Chiropractors who keep whacky hours and TELL me when I must appear for a lecture, wherein he TELLS me how much time I must spend each day doing his whacky exercises. (That’s right, I’m pushin’ 60 and I need some young twerp who calls himself a doctor telling me how I must live my life. Heh.)

1) People. Well.. hehe.. I guess I better qualify that since people are at the root of most annoyance on this planet. Lemme see, how about those who take EVERYTHING, including themselves, so very seriously. Lighten up people! We’re on the ride down. Might as well enjoy the wind in your hair. (With that in mind, most of the posts on this blog are written tongue-in-cheek. That means they should be read with a salt-shaker at hand.) ;o)

~~Thought for the day: If there is anyone on the planet who is perfect, I’ll bet they’re really impossible to live with. We all have flaws. Keep a perspective. ~~

But I digress. I notice when I want someone to meddle and solve some bothersome problem for me, they rarely do. No, I have to struggle with it. Although my daughter came through for me recently when I showed some confusion over terms of sexuality. She filled me in. Lemme see:

Heterosexual ~ people who are attracted to the opposite gender.
Homosexual ~ attracted to same gender.
Bisexual ~ attracted to both genders.
A-sexual ~ likes neither gender. Hmmm.
Trans-sexual ~ wants to be the other gender.
Pan-sexual ~ not really a sexuality, more of a philosophy that
it’s ok to love anyone, regardless of gender, race, cultural heritage and all that. (Now see, I thought a pan-sexual was just
somebody with an unhealthy love of pans.)
All-sexual ~ a bisexual hermaphrodite
(My daughter admits she invented this one.)
Auto-sexual ~ someone in love with their car.
Bi-curious ~ just wondering.

Do I have it straight? Oh... possibly an unfortunate choice of words. Ooops.

But I digress again. Back on the subject of meddling, there’s those people who are johnny-on-the-spot to answer rhetorical questions you only asked to provoke thought. In fact, not only do they answer, they do it right away. Of course. *sigh*

Of course, I don't really need the label. I mean, when you get a compliment, like "you're a beautiful being," it passes by before you can say "aw shucks." But something like "meddler," well, that could stick like the nickname "Stinky" at a junior high school. Oh well, I’m told I spend too much time online, and that’s probably true. Like many people these days, I have a bucket list. I’ve been enjoying crossing things off it and a lot of those things have been online activities. One thing I still haven’t gotten to though is re-acquainting myself with my musical instruments. Not an online activity, except for the guitar tuning site. Mendelssohn? Nope, probably more like the Eagles or John Denver. Sunshine on my shoulders. No kidding. And I'm going to put my hand to more original songs... call the first one, Sweet Release.

Dreams ~ Creative Sparks in the Night?

Do you ever have active or interesting dreams where you wake up suddenly in the middle of the night and remember something about the dream you were just having that seemed somehow inspirational? Of course, you go back to sleep and in the morning you can’t remember what it is you thought might save mankind. So you put a notebook and pencil on your bedside table, to record anything you might come up with in your sleep. I mean, it might be important, right? So naturally you don’t want to forget it next time it happens.

I woke up one night with this great idea for a writing project I was sure would win me some sort of important prize... Pulitzer, here I come. So I carefully wrote down a key word I thought would surely bring the whole wonderful thing back to me when I read it in the morning. Well, I got up and did my bathroom thing. Then I went back to the bedroom to get dressed, saw the notebook and vaguely remembered writing something in it. Eagerly I flipped the pages until I came to the one I’d written this no doubt pithy key word on. “Clouds,” it said. “Clouds?” I repeated out loud, perplexed. Wha...?? Now just what was “clouds” supposed to mean? Not to give up too easily, I went to the door and looked outside. The sky was blue and cloudless. Some help that was. I tried to imagine clouds in the sky, figuring I might somehow conjure the inspiring image that had been given to me in the night. I closed my eyes and really tried to come up with something... um... cloudy? Nope. Only thing that was cloudy was my brain. I made coffee.
Of course, I didn’t give up on the idea of capturing some inspiration right away. I stubbornly kept that notebook and pencil by my bed and I actually wrote things in it a few more times. But the results were pretty much the same, only instead of “clouds” it was something equally enlightening, like “waves” or “bare trees” or “tickertape joking.” (No kidding... apparently I wrote a prize-winning joke on tickertape in my sleep. I woke up actually laughing.) But all I’ve ever managed to come up with in the morning is the possibility that sometimes I have really fascinating dreams. Too bad I so seldom remember them.

Regroup, Review, Refresh, Re-Center

Sometimes I lose focus of the fact that it's ok to do things just for me. I mean, I work hard and take care of my responsibilities, so I should have time for self-amusement, right? I have also spent a lot of my life looking after others, so I don't really owe anyone anything. Heh. And yet I so often feel as if I have to be "helping" somebody. Not enough Karma in the bank?

I have to convince myself that it's ok if I do some stuff just for me. In fact, the world can get along very well without my attention, a fact that is both liberating and a little depressing for someone with the "help" gene. Ah, but balance in all things.

It is at this time of year that I tend to feel as if I'm swimming in oatmeal no matter what I do. I don't know why. The days are growing longer and there is the promise of Spring, if not yet any indication that it's actually out there somewhere. Delayed reaction to not enough light? SAD. I don't know. Could be. Or perhaps just the knowledge that promises can be broken and doodoo happens? Especially in this time of weather anomolies. Is spring something I can really count on? I guess I won't know for sure until the patches of snow are getting hard to find and that unmistakable odour of thawing dog poo assails my nostrils on an otherwise refreshing, warm Spring breeze. Only then will I know that Spring is truly at hand.

In the meantime, I'm a person who makes things and I think I should be doing some of that. I'm supposed to making jam right now. I have the fruit right here. I forgot to buy sugar. Again. *sigh* Can't make jam without sugar... at least, not this kind. This is the second time I've forgotten to buy sugar when I knew I'd be needing to make jam. Brain!! Why do you abandon me??!!

It seems to be preoccupied with pointless ponderings. My brain that is. Doesn't matter what I think anyway. Not really. So why don't I turn off the ponderings and try to remember why I left the house when I go shopping?

"Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?" — Diogenes of Sinope

An internet friend put this on his status today. Of what use is a philosopher at all? Nevermind one that wounds. A chronic ponderer fares no better. So hey, time to regroup, review, refresh, re-center, re-everything, I think. May also be time to start a new blog. I mean, let's be realistic: a few thoughtful, depressing poems will take care of these dark feelings, right? And nobody reads poetry anymore either. The poetry book is over on that unused shelf next to the book of philosophy. So it's purely a carthartic exercise. Then I should move on... to SOMETHING I LIKE TO DO. No, I'm not threatening to blog the dark oatmeal pondering poems. Yes. I am thinking of starting a new blog on things I like to do. :) Stay tuned. ;o)

I did it. Yes I did. :) http://quillingartandmore.blogspot.com/

Let’s Talk Quality

It’s winter. It’s been snowing. The weather has been cold, mild, cold, thawed out, frozen over again, wet snow, dry snow, winter. The roads are a mess. By the time the plow/sanders come by the snow on the road is already packed down by traffic till it’s ice. This makes for treacherous driving. Of course, there was a time when putting snow tires on the car helped the wheels grip the road some better, but apparently those days are gone.
We have four snow tires on the car. Used to be four all season radials was good enough. Then putting snow tires on the front (front wheel drive) was an ample safety measure. Now there’s four snow tires on there .... and you wouldn’t know it. Geez, hit an icy patch on the right and the tire slides right off instead of going over it. But of course, when there’s an oncoming car, you have to move over and make room, because the sander has only sanded the middle of the road. (Remember when they did both sides?) Sure, everyone wants to drive on the sand, but when you’re passing an oncoming car, it’s move over or crash. One wheel on the sand has to do.

So I steer the car with the snow tires on up onto the icy track, and it slides off. That won’t do, so up onto the ice I steer again. It slides off, or tries to as I stubbornly wrestle the car back up onto the icy track, at least till the other car safely passes. But geez, up, slide, up, slide ~ the hood of the car is bobbing up and down like the bow of a boat in a three-foot swell. A person could get sea sick just driving to town.

Where did these snow tires come from? Where were they made? More to the point, what are they made with? Because I’m sure the same material used to make those treads is also used to coat the bottoms of toboggans to make them slip and slide better and faster.

Let’s face it, it isn’t just happening with tires. Does anybody else remember when our mechanics could turn the brake rotors at least once to make them last longer? No more. Score the thin rotors available now and they’re done. Sure, they’re cheaper, but what isn’t? Especially in the quality meaning of the word.

Crap. It’s all crap. Used to be it was odd to encounter a mistake with a product, now we can take for granted that something will be wrong. Cheap labour. Cheap production. Cheap product. Even if you try to find and pay for good quality, it just isn’t there. Just kind of isn’t worth buying stuff anymore. Oh well. I guess that’ll save money, won’t it? Problem is, what’ll I do when I need to replace something I really need, like these snow tires? Hmmm... maybe I could have a local craftsman carve me some out of wood. Won’t be any slipperier than the ones on there now, I’m sure.

The Ying and Yang of Computer Technology

Computers: very much a mixed blessing. I mean, I love the idea, because it allows me to research and reach out into the world to learn new things and talk to all kinds of people. The computer allowed me to find out what was wrong with me in a society where doctors are either unavailable or content to tell patients it’s all in their head. Gluten. Simple. Don’t eat it. Thank you computer!

My old computer wouldn’t do all these things for me. I mean, I guess computer years are a lot like dog years. It was over ten years old. Not just old, but decrepit. It wouldn’t do Facebook or Twitter, wouldn’t even stay online for very long. I’d be going along, looking for things, and the computer would just.... I dunno... burp? And I’d suddenly be offline. Like an old man... when the burps and farts start, and the waistline starts to creep toward the armpits, it can no longer do the things it used to.

So I went out and got one of these newfangled laptops. Heh. Ok, I learned to type on an old Olivetti-Underwood manual typewriter. The school didn’t ever have to worry about the business equipment disappearing because even the captain of the football team couldn’t run off with one of those things. The keyboard has evolved over the years till it’s marginally different from the one I learned to type about 75 wpm on. Not only is it terribly flat, there are all kinds of keys I just don’t understand. I’m typing away, as I am now, and suddenly I’ll apparently tag a key I didn’t mean to. A little box will appear asking me if I really want to leave the page. I don’t, and this should be my chance to reverse the boo-boo, right? But no. It doesn’t wait for me to cancel. It’s gone. I’ve had the whole browser close on me. I have no idea what button I hit to do this. There’s all kinds of extraneous little buttons and symbols on this thing. And they do strange things. It took me months to discover how to turn off the É thing and get the ? back. I used to have to turn the whole thing off and start fresh. Came across it by accident. In fact “accident” seems to define my relationship with this newfangled thang.

I have to use a mouse, even though this came with one of the those built-in little finger pad thingies. I can’t use it, any more than I can wear a watch. I have a some sort of bizarre electrical field around me that makes things like that go wonky. Even just passing my hands over it has Twitter dancin', down, then up, then ZING, all around ~ dosie doe! So the bottom right hand corner of my newfangled ‘puter is already worn in spots from the mouse. I guess I should count myself lucky there was a place to plug it in. I had to go to lengths to get this thing to do dial-up. Hey, it’s not my fault there’s no better hook-up here. Primitive describes my living conditions a few different ways.

So, I have no problem with the concept of smaller, better computers. I mean, innovation is great and more compact works for me. But what are cookies and why are there some in my computer? Aren’t the crumbs bad for it? Why do I have to delete or enable them? And how do I do that? And Twitter.... oh Twitter. I thought that was something only birds could do. But my daughter showed me how and it was fine until some techy type who didn’t have enough to do decided it needed to be improved. The new Twitter is not the better Twitter. It’s slow... ponderously slow. I have to switch back to old Twitter to hold a conversation. It doesn’t tell me who retweeted my tweet so I can thank them. (The old Twitter does.) I can’t even check out new followers on the new one. Won’t even load. Simplicity was the very beauty of old Twitter, but they’ve “improved” it. {sigh}

The idea of Twitter was already a bit of a love/hate thing. I mean, I get it. Let’s keep our comments brief and to the point. It’s a mental exercise in brevity for sure, especially for someone who comes from the age of “why use 20 words to express a thought when 40 will do just as well.” Some people are really good at expressing both hilarity and profundity in 140 characters or less. I admire them. I’m still a little intimidated by this limitation, but I’m getting there. But please, make the new Twitter more like the old Twitter. Or here's a thought... call it an interesting experiment and forget it? Pull....eeeeze!

So yeah, I always say it, there are pros and cons to everything. Ying and Yang.. and computers. And one frustrated ol’ lady at the controls who's wondering what the heck will be next. Beware.

Extremism is Bad - Empathy, Good

Yesterday I tweeted “extremism is bad,” along with the words, “take the middle road.” It’s pretty unusual for me to tweet sweeping generalizations, but I felt pretty safe here, because of course, I had extremism such as Al Qaida and other religious and political extremism in mind. And I was advocating that we try harder to understand and empathize with one another, rather than taking extreme views that tend to drive us apart and even breed resentment, hate and violence. But of course, who could know that?

First I got a tweet from a young musician saying that extremism is fun. Ok. In this age of extreme sports and wild living, I can see what she means. I was young once. I remember that. Then I got a tweet from a SAHM who is homeschooling an autistic child, who may have misunderstood my intent and the exchange, and who also thinks her life is pretty extreme. Ok. Being a sometimes working, sometimes SAHM (stay at home mom) to an aspie whom I homeschooled, I can certainly understand where she is coming from too. Been there; done that.

Hmmm.... ok, how about All Generalizations are Bad? (This, of course, is satire. Think about it.) So ok, this is where the empathy comes in. I don’t think the young musician needs to change her response, even if it seems insensitive to some, because she’ll get there. Life has a knack of taking care of that youthful exuberance and light-hearted way of seeing all things. I'm for letting her enjoy it while she's young. The mom? Well, I fully understand the intense pressure cooker she’s living in, so I’ll cut her some slack too. This is called empathy. Something many of us could all use more of.

When I was a young woman, I had my fun and adventure too. I hitchhiked much of the way across Canada to see some of my country. I wanted to see how the other half lived, but I wasn’t attracted by the world’s richness, such as the Taj Mahal, castles, cathedrals or even Graceland. No, to learn more about the half that interested me, I travelled north on the Muskeg Express, a very old train with oil lamps on the walls between the windows, which opened, and the tracks visible when you raised the toilet seat. I visited several Metis settlements to take pictures and learn something about life and people. And I did, all of this and then some. I was right there with the residents when that crate of fruit came in on the train. Oh, it wasn’t the fruit we were anxious for... it was those little paper wrappers on it. Everyone wanted a share of those for the outhouse. Soft. I spent an evening in a smoke filled log cabin with an old man who's only defense against the bugs was a smudge fire. I listened, I photographed, I laughed and I learned. I wanted a photo of the train coming into the station, and I wanted it straight on. So there I was on the track as it pulled in, trying to focus my camera, when I suddenly realized I had a wide angle lens on there, and the train was much closer than it appeared through the viewfinder.

So yeah, I had my own extreme fun and adventure when I was young. When I think about it, I realize I'm probably lucky to even be here. Later, I became a mom to a beautiful baby girl who was eventually diagnosed with some challenges, so I’ve had those impossible days of extreme stress as a homeschooling mom too. Yeah, I know life can sometimes be extremely challenging.

Still, the kind of extremism I was referring to that’s so bad, that’s the hate and violence in our world. Perhaps the human age is unfolding as it must, but sometimes I just wish more people would learn compassion and empathy. But as I like to say, what good is a light without a dark to shine it on? And the middle road I spoke of? I guess in this instance, that's what empathy is.

You're Bringing What into the House? ~ The Christmas Tree

There were no written histories in the days where such customs as bringing tree boughs indoors began, so there’s a lot of speculation about the origin of the Christmas tree.

It is thought that early Pagans in the north brought evergreen boughs into their homes and decorated them at the Winter Solstice. Some tales suggest this was a superstitious thing... providing a home for the wood nymphs through the cold winter so they wouldn’t play tricks on them come summer and mess up hunting, growing, etc. Others say it was just part of the celebration acknowledging the seasons. The Yule log in the north and laurel wreaths in the south also came from this seasonal celebration. Also in the south (Rome), where Pagans celebrated Saturnalia, houses might be decorated with evergreen clippings.

Honestly, Pagans could be credited with inventing the concept of the wreath more than the Christmas tree. But some Pagans in the south of Europe did decorate living trees with bits of metal and replicas of their Pagan Gods. It was this practice that may have frightened some early Christians, so there was intense opposition to the Christmas tree, strangely, mostly in northern Europe, in centuries past. They were outlawed in England for some time. But Martin Luther, German founder of the Lutheran Church, found a way to make the Christmas tree a symbol of Christian celebration, and so Germans began to once again enjoy the smell of evergreen in their homes at the Yuletide... or Christ Mass, or Christmas.

Christian holidays tend to fall at the same times of the seasons as Pagan celebrations. Christmas fell at the same time as Saturnalia (Roman holiday) and is close to the Winter Solstice, for instance. Easter is named for the Pagan Goddess of Fertility, Eostre. She was the symbol of spring time, when the ewes were lambing, chickens and other birds were laying, rabbits multiplied with extra zeal, etc. It is these symbols that were carried over into Christian celebrations, which fall near the Spring Equinox. It is thought this was done to lure Pagans into Christian churches to hear the stories of Christ in an environment that wasn’t totally strange to them. Either that, or Christians were just copy-cats, eh?

Anyway, in Victorian times, Queen Vic married Prince Albert, a German, and Albert brought the Christmas tree to the English palace. Well, you can’t very well outlaw a custom in all the country when the head family is enjoying it, can you? So opposition to this Christmas custom slowly waned and Christmas trees enjoyed a resurgence in England as well. It was probably brought to North American by Hessiens (German soldiers) but there are many legends as to how the custom crossed the ocean and spread.

Segue to modern day: Christmas trees have seen many incarnations, from real trees, to plastic, to silvery foil and more. But the original custom of bringing an evergreen into the house for the holidays seems to remain a favourite. Occasionally some well-meaning environmental group, organization, publication... will object on environmental grounds. This is because, though they mean well, they haven’t informed themselves. There is no need to “save” real Christmas trees as if someone has schlepped into the boreal forest to cut them down. They haven’t. Christmas trees are grown on tree farms. They are an economically and environmentally viable, renewable crop resource that is actually good for the environment. I mean, fields upon fields of little evergreens can only be helping the Earth breathe.

Some people object to disposal methods when the holidays are over, but this is something that people need to address in their communities by being proactive in the political decisions being made in their community for waste management. There is NEVER any excuse to throw used Christmas trees in landfill. That’s just wrong. They are compostible, at the very least. If your community does not have a waste management strategy that deals responsibly with used Christmas trees... well, for one thing, you need to get more involved in your community and change that, but for another, you can ask a local farmer if they'll take trees to compost or you can compost your tree yourself, either by cutting or grinding it up and throwing it into your composter, or by putting it with your autumn leaves to compost. If you’re in a municipality that allows outdoor fires, just throw it into a corner of the yard till spring and there you go... fire wood. (Outdoors only... soft, sappy evergreen wood is not good for an indoor wood stove or chimney.) Or of course, if you're in a snowy region, you can always stand it up in a snow bank and hang orange peel in it for the birds until it falls apart of its own accord as Spring approaches. Then compost it. There are a number of responsible ways to deal with used Christmas trees.

Please, if you celebrate Solstice, Christmas or like holiday where an evergreen figures in, and unless you have allergies, buy a real tree ~ a better economic and environmental choice for a joyful holiday celebration.