EARTH DAY SHOULD BE AN EVERY DAY OCCURANCE

Last Monday was Earth Day which I suppose was created to encourage attention to the environment.  That's fine except I believe we're missing the point. 

During my spiritual journey get-together last week, we were discussing the environment and how important it is not to just appreciate it but consider nature from a spiritual perspective. 
We are CONNECTED to nature.  We are not separate from it.  EVERYTHING is connected.   Everything is related and I mean that in a literal "family" way.  When you stop and think about the moon, the stars, the earth, the air, the water, the animals as part of your spiritual unity family, you begin to see all this in a different light and sense a deeper responsibility to care for it but more importantly, to love it. 

For millenia, man relied on nature to exist.  Now, we have stores with food and stores with clothes and stores with communication devices and no longer have respect or reverence for what we have or how it was obtained.  If you remember that everything in the universe is part of creation just as you are, you can sense the greater family ties of it all.

For example, a fish isn't just a fish, put here for me to consume.  It's a relative of mine.  I need to care for and nurture it.  The earth isn't just a planet I happen to call home.  It's a part of me.  When you remember that we and everything in the universe is created from the same cosmic STUFF (to quote Carl Sagan) you begin to know this is absolutely true.  Everything is connected; every one and every thing is RELATED. 

I love the custom of the American Indians who, after killing an animal for food or shelter, will thank its spirit for giving itself to help the whole.

It should be in our minds to protect the environment as fervently as we would protect our children. 

I suggest thinking of something you can do today on Earth Day to help protect that to which we are related.  How about Recycling?  That's an easy thing to do and makes an enormous amount of difference. 

 

 

 

FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST!

My first job was 48 years ago.  I was a dish washer at my father's restaurant.  I also bussed tables and hostessed from time to time and this was a gratis job.  I got no pay except for the tips the waitresses gave me for cleaning their tables fast and I enjoyed it. 

My first PAYING job was about the same time.  It was babysitting and I hated it.  Seriously, it was tortureous for me.  I didn't like kids, had never spent time around them and had no idea how to deal with them.   This is weird considering how much I adore my kids and my grandkids.  But at age 15, for me, it sucked.

I figure babysitting is probably where I first began to develop the concept that being poor is better than doing something you hate no matter how profitable.  I wonder how many times in my life I've absent-mindedly said, "There's not enough money in the world to get me to.....".    Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I said that......hahahahahahaha!  Unfortunately, I ended up sacrificing my principals worked A LOT of jobs I didn't like.  Some were worse than others but when you're the sole supporter of a family, you do what you gotta do.    

So here it is, 48 years later, age 62 and I'm retiring the end of May.  I don't have a lot of money saved up (BIG understatement there) but I'm doing it anyway.  And the funny thing is, I plan to spend most of my time hanging out with my grandkids.  Life is one big irony, huh?

Homage to Dad

Since Fathers Day is this weekend, I decided to give myself a present and spend some extra time reflecting on my dad. 

I know I've mentioned before that my relationship with mom was less than great. (It sucked, actually) But my dad is a different story.  He was a bigger than life person to me, not just in stature but in personality.  Dad was one of those people that everyone loved. Everyone wanted to be with him.  He played piano, guitar, sang, told the best jokes ever, inspired stimulating conversations and on and on.
I have 19 cousins and all of them loved to hang out with Uncle Dick, especially in Canada.  Always the life of the party, I recall one night around the campfire, listening to dad play his ukelele and making up a song about my cousin out in the boat making out with her boyfriend.  (If you've ever been around water, you know that sound carries and you can hear EVERYTHING that comes off the water, but they can't hear you.) hehehehehe

Dad was also just a big kid and would love to find a back country road with a big hill and get the speed up to about 80 and then put the car in neutral and see how far we could coast down the hill. 

A baker and cook by trade, I used to love to sit in the kitchen and watch him work his magic.  I miss that little whispered whistle he did while he worked and I now catch myself doing the same thing. 

We are partly of German descent and all my life dad's nickname for me was Hootz Footz (phonetic)    All my life I loved that he had a special name just for me.  Then one day when I was in my 30's, I finally asked him what it meant.  With a chuckle, he told me it meant Dogs Foot.  Really?????  That was the endearment he came up with for me?  Dogs foot??

Mom and dad lived in Florida and the summer before he died, he came up to Ohio (no doubt to get away from mom) and spent the summer with me and the kids.  Bob and I had just started dating and to quote a line from Forest Gump, the two of them were like peas and carrots.  I'll spare you the recalling of the farting contests.
Anyway, I would wake up in the morning and dad would have the coffee ready and he would sit at the kitchen table working on a crossword and would have a second newspaper there so I could work on it too.  At night I would come home from work and he would have dinner ready.  That's when it occurred to me what I really needed was a good wife!! 

One month before he died and a month before my wedding to Bob, dad wrote me a letter telling me how happy he was that I had found such a wonderful guy and that he felt he didn't have to worry about my any longer.  I think he knew his time was up. 

That was 22 years ago and I still miss him like hell.  When he got older, he just wanted to relax and enjoy a simple life but he never got to go to Australia like he wanted and he literally worked the day he died at age 73.  He got screwed out of a lot of pleasure he should have enjoyed.     

He died suddenly and I never got to say goodbye.  Probably better that way though cause the memory will always be of the bigger-than-life man and not some feeble, needy old man.  He would have hated that. 

So here's to dads that weren't just fathers but were dads.  There's a difference.  I love you Pop.

Ok, not my last political rant

It has always been my opinion that one of the most important freedoms in this country should be the right to have an opinion that differs with other people without experiencing persecution for it. 
I work in a predominantly republican/conservative environment and there are a few here that know I lean more toward non-traditional and less than conservative views.

This is the conversation I had this morning when I walked in the office carrying my extra-large $1.00 iced tea from Steak and Shake. 
Co-worker - "Won't be long before you won't be allowed to buy those big drinks, thanks to the liberal left wanting to control everything we do!".  (No, he didn't even say good morning first)
Other co-worker - "Yeah, thank you Miss Democrat!!"
Me - "Good morning, everyone. 
First of all, I'm not a democrat.  I'm an independent.  I've voted on both sides of the fence. 
Second, I agree that regulating the size of drinks is stupid. 
Third, how the hell is this my fault? 

These two people always lash out at me and ridicule me whenever ANY political conversation begins and I'm sick of it.  I usually bite my tongue but this morning, when one of them quoted one of the inane Fox News people, I couldn't hold back any longer and told them it's my opinion he's an idiot. 

Then I got control and just walked away. 

This is a very minor indication of how things have changed so much.  There are no polite discussions of differences of opinion anymore.  Everything is mean-spirited and angry and I'm sick of it. 

I mentioned once before that someone at work actually said to me, "How can you call yourself a Christian and still vote for Obama?"  Seriously???  How insulting is that?

People....can we just agree to disagree, be respectful and be nice to each other?  Please? 

My final political rant

I will affirm right off the bat that I'm voting for Obama.  I can't stomach any of the republican candidates this time around and frankly, I'm sick of hearing how ineffective Obama has been.  Yes, we still have a long way to go, but we have had 22 straight months of growth, Ohio's unemployment rate has dropped, Bin Laden is gone and I believe there would have been a lot more progress if the republicans in congress had cared more about helping the American people instead of hurting President Obama.  I do not intend to vote for any incumbent.  They don't deserve their jobs.  I believe what Obama says and I can't say that about any other candidate. 
Ok, I'm done.   Thanks for listening.

And then there's.....................

And then there's Newt Gingrich.  There are so many cliches that come to mind with this guy, but  
A LEGEND IN HIS OWN MIND is right there at the top.  I don't think I've ever seen a more egomaniacal person.  And, honesty is definitely not one of his character traits.  I've found http://www.politifact.com/ to be quite useful in distinguishing between truth and fiction with Newts comments.  Often, they earn the "pants on fire" rating.  And, he still refuses to admit his peers in Washington admonished him for unethical practices.  This guy is nothing more than a bully with a teflon hide.  I shutter to think how he would handle our foreign policies.  This one scares me the most.
Next up Obama.

More political rantings

And now, let's talk about Romney.  As clueless as Santorum is about the definition of separation of church and state, Romney is clueless about nearly everything else.  Everyone's heard the latest flubs about cars and sports, "My wife has two cadillacs." "I don't follow car-racing but I have close friends who own some of the Indy teams".   (For some refreshing and fun entertainment, I STRONGLY suggest you go to Hulu.com and watch the last few episodes of John Stewart's Daily Show.  There are several things that bother me about this guy, but I want to stress one very important point that's bugging the hell out of me.  Did you know that Romney is a Mormon? This will be no problem if he can keep his religious views out of the Oval Office, but after having a fascinating discussion over lunch with 3 Mormon women, I discovered Mormons (yep, men and women both) believe that women should only have positions of authority over other women?  Seriously???  I can't help but wonder how this religious point of view would affect his cabinet if he's elected and it amazes me that no one has asked him that yet.  If I had a corporation that needed a slick CFO, I might consider Romney but putting him in charge of this country and our relationships with the rest of the world, (many of them poor as hell) that's something else.  He is simply unable to relate to anyone but the elite and seems to have no sympathy for anyone or anything that would help those less fortunate.  Of course, there are those that abuse the system and take advantage.  There always has been and always will be until the right group of people re-vamp this broken system.  But let's not forget that in addition to those people who feel they have an automatic right to entitlements, there are also those who truly need help.  Again, we need a shift of mentality that realizes health care for all children, (hell, everyone) is a moral issue, not a political one.  I just haven't seen anything indicating Romney is interested in anything but furthering his own political career.  At least not from what I've heard so far.  Next up, Newt Gingrich.