Addiction exposed

My computer had to go in for some work. I took it in on Sunday, the 21st, and did not get it back until Friday the 26th.

What did I DO for those days?

I read, I fretted, I tried to figure out what to do with myself without my adult, electronic -sitter.

How did I ever become so dependent on a machine?

I was lucky. I did not experience any symptoms of substance withdrawal. Perhaps that was because I knew that my drug of choice would soon be returned to me.

Or perhaps the fretting, the pacing, the wandering through rooms looking for SOMETHING to do WERE symptoms of withdrawal.

So, I must confess, I am a computer addict. Life without the internet is flat. The internet gives depth and texture to me.

YEACH!!!!!!

Plus que ca change, plus que c'est le meme chose

"The more things change, the more they stay the same"

Over dinner tonite, my friend and I were talking about some of the expectations we had regarding our retirements and moving to a new state.

I suddenly had a flash-back to something I had read in either junior high school or my first year of high school. I was reading a publication of the best writing of high school students of some time in the late 1960's.

There was one story that dealt with guys riding in box cars, looking for work, and telling some kid to jump off on a curve near a certain town. The curve was too fast for a person to jump off and not receive serious injury. The "old-timers" were setting a possible death sentence for the rookie.

Another story, which was recalled to my memory immediately, dealt with a young man moving from the south to the north. The man's race was never mentioned. The northern city was never mentioned. The theme was that the same term was addressed to the young man in both cities. He had move north, hoping for a better life, and found that he was still called by the same term.

My friend and I are hetro-sexual, anglo-saxons. We are NOT any type of minority, any type of 'oppressed' group. We both thougt life would be different here. Somehow, we both thought that HERE, there would be more people who thought before they spoke, who valued knowledge over degrees, who would ENCOURAGE independent thought rather than embracing sameness.

Tonight, we laughed over our naivite. No place is any different than any other. Walden II does not exist. People ARE people the world over. In China, in Antartica, we would find people who think they are better than we are (perhaps because they REFUSE to think) Some of them (probably the ones in Antartica) WOULD be better (or at least smarter) than us. Some of them would not be smarter or better, and some of them would be the same, yet different.

I need to embrace a world in which there are people I believe are absolute f**king morons. And I need to accept their right to exist in this world, even if I think they are wasting valuable atoms of oxygen.

Sad Thoughts

Normally, I love flowers. I usually buy them everytime I go to the grocery store. Sometimes I splurge and go to the local florest and buy myself something special.

Today, I did NOT like buying flowers.

I bought them for a friend's funeral.

Marcella, I wish I that THOUGHT and sent you flowers while you were alive.

You were a very special, a very dear friend. You weren't just my friend. Everyone who came into contact with you loved you.

Your smile, your laugh, they could light up an entire room.

You were down-to-earth, practical, sensible and funny. You had such a big heart. Perhaps it wore out early because you kept it so open to everyone.

Perhaps today, on some golf course in heaven, you are playing again with Bernie, Helen and the other ladies of the 9-hole association.

On the card with the flowers, it says "We miss you"

I miss you Marcella. You were someone I could always talk to, somone who put up with me regardless of how I acted.

Flowers are not enough. They would not have been enough when you were alive to let you know how much you meant to me.

Goodbye, Marcella. Many people miss you and we all wish we had told you more often that we loved you. Goodbye.

"Network" Revisited

The movie "Network" was released in 1976 or 1977. The best recalled line is the anchor screaming out into a thunderstorm "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" In the movie, the anchor goes insane and is eventually assassinated. He expresses outrage, he expresses confusion, he expressesa lot of FEELINGS, but he never DOES anything with those feelings other than to convince a lot of other people that they feel the same way too.

I thought about it today while reading an article about the Tea Party. The article explained that while on the grass-roots level the Tea Party is helping people articulate their anger/frustration/whatever at government in general, one of their weaknesses is that they have no platform, no program for dealing with the frustration. They do tell people to go out and vote, and at times impliadly, at times expressly tell them to vote out the incumbents.

However, when it comes to what the new members of the legislative bodies will do, are expected or anticipated to do or would please the Tea Party by doing, the silence is deafening.

The Tea Party, like the anchor in Network, is screaming "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" However, what they are going to do (and what is it they are not going to take) is never stated.

Unless they want to meet the modern-day equivalent of assassination (being forgotten and relegated to oblivion) the Tea Party needs to present CONCRETE objectives. They need to not merely express a desired result but to articulate definate steps to achieve those results.

They want less government? What do they think can be eliminated (and how much do they think such elimination would save?) Cut back the IRS? How will the government collect the tax monies to fund defense? Eliminate the Department of Education? With no National standards for math and science, how will the next generation compete in the jobs market? Eliminate the EPA? Who will force BP to clean up the next oil spill?

I am not saying that any of those aims are not achievable, or even not admirable. I just would like to know HOW they will be achieved.

Being mad as hell and not willing to take things might be a good starting point. However, without an idea of WHERE you want to end up, you are just running in circles.

Transitions

Just got back home from a week in San Diego (Spring Valley, to be precise) We moved my mother from independent living to assisted living.

We was myself, my two brothers, one sister-in-law, and one day; three cousins.

Mom has lived in this community since '02. She has been in independent living, with a two-bedroom, two bath apartment. Dad died in '04, and Mom has been on her own. She quit driving in '08, and gave her car to my niece.

We, (my brothers, my sister and I) had somewhat forbidden her from cooking for this last year. Three reasons: 1) her age, 2) here, she had an electric stove after 50+ years of gas; and 3) quite frankly, the stove was somewhat defective, as we determined when trying to cook things ourselves.

Cut down, cut down and delete! was the theme. Most of the furniture was already figured out. A few glitches occured. Her touch-turn lamps both failed during the move. We suspect that since they were roughly 30 years old, the only reason they were still functioning as designed was because they had not been moved in 8 years. She had sufficient other lamps.

My sister had done a crude layout for the furniture. She either over-estimated the space or under-estimated the size of the furniture. With four men present on Tuesday, we managed to re-configure.

We rented a storage space to store the pictures and decorative items my sister will arrive later this year to arrange. We rented a 5X5 space. It is not full. Because the stored items are mostly pictures and decorative items, they are mostly boxed, and my sister will have the delight of arranging them further.

We lucked out. We had called various charitable organizations about picking up un-needed items. They could not pick up while we were there. On Wednesday, I was running something between the old and new units. Saw a truck from the Rescue Mission picking up stuff. Asked them if they could stop by our place. They could, and took several large pices that we had worried about getting rid of.

Mom's next door neighbor (in independent living) has a daughter who has become a friend. Her church is having a rummage sale. She took a bunch of stuff for that.

I "scored" a tile-top table (mission style) that had belonged to Aunt Polly. In her will, I was to receive it. However, my mother got it from her before she died. Since it wasn't part of her estate, I didn't get it then. Steve and I have had a long-standing competition/joke about which of us took it. He let me have it. Steve got the silver service. I'm relieved. I don't have space to securely store it.

I got "the Rowe rock" This is a piece of black, only semi-crystaline tourmaline shot with granite that we picked up many, many years ago. I recall it as being on a truck-trail somewhere behind Lovelace damn. I could be wrong on the location. I do know that it was sometime in the early '60's, as I do remember it being loaded into the '57 Chevy wagon, which then hit bottom a couple of times on our way out of where ever we were. It is now in my front (xero-scaped) yard. As my husband noted, the New Mexico winds will NOT move it.

I took Mom's rain-guage, which is a frog with the rain-gauge tube in his mouth. It fits in my back-yard decor.

When we moved the folks out of the house in '02, it was very emotional. They had been ther for 50+ years. I was born after they moved there.

We knew that the house would be torn down, the orchard mostly razed, and four or five luxery homes built on the site. All four of us were there, and it was a major wrench.

This time, the wrench was cutting down on the memory items. I don't really mind the stuff I have bought since '02. It is the OLD stuff. I took several vases. Some of them were wedding presents in 1945. We stored the china that my grandmother painted.

Mom has moved from an apartment that was almost as big as the old house to a single room. Her memories have not shrunk. But her room for displaying them has.

Food for Thought

I wrote last week about the food bank. We get some of our food through local food drives. The majority, we obtain from RoadRunner Food Bank. RoadRunner is the central clearing house for food banks throughout New Mexico.

Commodities; generally produce, bread and frozen foods are at no charge. For the rest, we pay by the pound. Whether it is a pound of canned food (including the weight of the can) or a pound of food in a plastic bag, the cost is the same.

That means that some items can be effertively unit priced.

One such item is the packaged macaroni and cheese. Yes, the stuff you boil, add margarine and milk to, and stir. The unit price is around thirty cents per box when we buy it from RoadRunner.

Wednesday morning, in the local paper, the local grocery was selling their store brand of macaroni and cheese for twenty-five cents per box. Four for one dollar!! This definately undercuts the RoadRunner food bank cost.

Wednesday mornings, I play golf with several other ladies. We only play nine holes, we take no more than two hours to play, then we relax and chat after. IF (and it isn't often) we play for money, we each put in two dollars.

I'll admit to manipulating the situation Wednesday. After we came in, I managed to get the conversation to turn to the latest economic figures. I pulled out the add from the paper, and explained how the food bank is normally only able to get the mac and cheese at three for a dollar. ALL of the ladies present took out the two dollars we had not bet on the game and gave them to the lady who is the buyer for the local food bank. Twelve dollars will be 48 boxes of mac and cheese. Yes, that will only be enough for one day, but since we haven't had any for a while, it is a start.

What food is a "loss leader" (selling at below what it costs) at your local market. How much are you capable of buying without hurting your budget?

Take it to your local food bank.

Food, Glorious Food

Last night, a friend sent me an e-mail decrying the fact that the U.S. spends billions in foreign aide while people in this country go to bed hungry. His point was clearly political.

My response was chiding. I pointed out that I and another person he knows WORK at our local food bank. I capitalize the word work. It is no fun session. I basically challenged my friend to DO something. He is elderly and unwell. He would not be able to physically assist. BUT he most certainly has the resources to assist in a financial manner.

If 100 people each donated $5 per month to the food bank, we would be able to buy that much more food to help feed the hungry families of Valencia County.

What do we buy? Staples -- tuna, peanut butter, dried beans, rice, pasta, canned vegtables, canned fruit. The selection varies based on availablility. The Belen Area Food Pantry buys fod from RoadRunner Food Bank in Albuquerque. The food bank delivers. We also get bread, produce and frozen foods from Road Runner. Those are provided at no cost, they are part of the Government's commodities program. The catch? Availability.

Availability is the catch with most of the products. We have been unable to buy one or two pound bags of dried beans. The only way we can buy dried beans is in bulk - ONE TON bulk. In Belen, we have neither the storage facility nor the ability to package for distribution one ton of dried beans.

For the last two or three months, we have not had either dried beans or rice to distribute.

At times, the bread we have gotten has been infested with mold. We are unable to give it out. The produce is usually past it's prime, but as long as it is not actually decaying, we give it out.

Sometimes, there is no bread or no produce.

The Food Bank is not the only source of food for our clients. They qualify for food stamps. They come to the food bank before they do the rest of their food shopping so that they will have an idea of what they have, and what they will need.

Famlies may only obtain food from the food bank every other month. They do not receive ennough food to last two months. We don't have enough to give them that much.

I look at myself and know that I need to loose weight. How to do that? Eat less! Then I look for new, gourmet recipes to try. Great example, right?

At least I do give of my time.

But I challenge you - can YOU afford to give $5 per month to your local food bank? They say charity begins at home. Who do you help?