Life moves on with the seasons...

So, it goes, day by day. You find out someone has cancer and won't live to see the flowers bloom and so as you ride your horse through the woods, it is especially sweet and treasured, heightened. You live day by day...carpets get cleaned, dog walked, gardens tended, brush cleared, food cooked, elders looked after, sleep blessed when it comes uninterupted by worries. You wake to a cacophony of spring birdsong and are grateful for your dog's nuzzling, your horses' ways of knowing and teaching and lifelong friends and students whoare alive and come to stay with you now and again. And that's enough.

My fellow Americans: More than a FB soundbyte post

Ok, preface. I too have been sucked into the vortex and pass no judgment on anyone.

Americans have been conditioned to spend more than they have and to believe in consumerism and that money equals happiness. We are spoiled, arrogant, empirialist and feel we are entitled and have bought into some obscene idea of democracy that doesn't and hasn't existed for ages.

I watch as people spend waaay too much for Christmas, a holiday I used to love and not just cause of presents, but family and the smell of fresh pine and homemade gifts or none.

Then they stress. The new TV was grand and everybody was happy for a nanosecond. Maybe a new car will fix it...

And then comes tax season and insurance payments and all the bills.

And everybody flips out.

It has been this way for as long as I have been alive. I cannot remember when i last got money back. I am ok with paying to live in a country that used to be one I recognized as humane.

But really, seriously...it is the SAME every year. it is built in cultural. It is fish in water who cannot transition to a new way of being where everything isn't quite so easy....yet still more privileged than most.

Be grateful. Listen to the birds in the morning if they don't annoy you cause of a hangover or if you're not a morning person.

find something, anything, to be happy about.

Or  you are just plain missing all of it....everything that matters.
Pay your taxes and live and love and shut the hell up and be grateful.

Says me.

Rodeo Ridin

Beautiful spring day today. Rode both my horses and my big boy, Chance, behaved better than any prior spring season. Of course, he was full of spring and oats and wanted to pace and move out, so I let him. He pulls his head down and up and I let him till he gets it out of his system. He prances and dances and I laugh. He is a much better horse than he used to be. He still plays with his antics but he respects me and it's mutual, so we get on just fine. I don't have to "cowboy" him. I just have to let him be him and I'm no longer afraid of him and he knows it so we just have fun. I stop him and he stands there, looks backwards and sideways at me until I lean forward slightly and off he goes again. It so makes me laugh.

The funniest part was my mare. She is generally the most docile, slow moving horse ever. Duh, duh, duh, duh...down the trail. Usually being the keyword. Today she had to follow two paced Icelandics. They are gaited and move at a good clip, especially in spring. Their pace is Gracie's lope. She rodeod all the way down the trail. Never seen her do that before. Twist, buck, turn. ears back, head shaking back and forth. I was bareback but don't come unseated. I have my balance after all these years. It just makes me laugh. But it was a bit of a ride and I'll be a bit sore tomorrow, I figure. Good. Like moving my body. Love being outside. Love riding most of all, without being bundled up like a Muslim woman.

Grand day. Good ride with good friends.

And then raked the yard with my dog, Rodeo, out with me. She stayed out of the street even when another dog ran over and across. Good dog. Love her too. Love my animals. They are so much more fun than people sometimes....especially people who pop you in the mouth and give you a fat lip...hahaha. YOU know who you are!!!

ANNNNDDDD..tomorrow, it's spose to snow again. Ok then. That's ok. It's nearly over. My flower bulbs are showing above frozen ground. So, it's close...and I'm happy enough.

Kids, kites, bikes and life

So, I helped a 4 year old ride a two wheel bike for the first time and get up after he scraped his knees and ride again. Then we flew a kite. Then he fell asleep with one leg up and was snoring. Children are an elixir to me. They bring pure joy, truly. Maybe cause I don't have my own but I find them real magic and they cure my soul which breaks when I hear "oh yeah, btw, we're staying in Libya and Afghanistan". No shit? I want to shoot the tv. It won't help..but kids, horses, dog, kites and bikes and near spring offer some hope...some. I worry about the children. What have we done? How stupid can we be, really?

But happy is what this post is meant to be, mainly cause of this precious boy...

he was snoring when i took this picture. Toooo funny!

Spring, nearly...

Did you happen to see the SUPERMOON? It rose orange and red and I happened to be at the oceanside by happenstance. As big as a flying saucer, that moon. Stunning. Wow factor. Bigger even than in England when I saw the lunar eclipse out my window at the YMCA and stayed awake all night to stare at it past the trains which passed directly by my window and shook the bed. Pretty magical, sites like that.

Had a good visit with my father. Went to my first baseball game with him. Only boys went to baseball games when I was amall. What a cheat. We only went for one inning and it was St. Patrick's Day so they were playing the Pogues over the loud speakers. Bonus. And it was the LAST inning so we had the stadium nearly to ourselves and just watched the kids clamour to get their balls (baseballs) signed by the players and such. Nice moment with my dad.

Most memorable moment? I leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I got really lucky, Dad, to have you as a father. You made me life possible."

"Well, you've been a good daughter."

My mouth hung open. My eyes watered. My father had never said anything remotely like this to me.
And I will hang on it for the rest of my life.
He only has a 20 percent chance of recovery.
But he's still alive and well, I cherish every minute I have with him, despite our difficulties through the years.

I love him so.
It's spring, nearly. New birth this way comes....new buds, birds returning, air maybe warming some day soon, gardening and yes, riding, riding, riding.
I must rob my piggy bank. I only got 3/4ths a tank for $75 the other day. This is going to severely cut down my travels with my horses as when I'm hauling I only get 8 mpg.

But wander and wonder I will. It is who I am.

Ice, Ireland and Illness

Was off to Ireland on  Monday. Tickets purchased 6 months ago. The day finally arrived to fly away to my favorite place to see friends' new babies and grandbabies and to tap my toes to the Miko Russell music fest craic.  The morning was covered by three inches of ice. Airport closed. Couldn't get out for a week and well, had to be back before then. Got all my money back, or most of it, after haggling for nearly said week.

The day my trip was cancelled, I learned my father has a terminal kidney disease...at 10 that night. Strangely I had a dream the night before about being in a hospital, seeing cancer cells that were these strange black bugs eating away at cells under a microscope. So I knew...somehow. I always have these kinds of visions before these things happen. Wrote a poem about my brother's death a month before he died. First line, I wish it was someone I didn't know outside of a newspaper report. Last line: But it's my brother.

So, will be going to see my dad. I won't have much time with him because of well, better not even go there.

But I will be able to hug him and maybe play our favorite claw game where you try to pick up stuffed toys from a rigged machine. I have the top game, having picked up three toys in one lift once. it's just something my dad and I do. And we also play Backgammon and use the doubling cube and gamble. I taught him to play and even if he only has a million to one chance of winning, he will accept the cube. Thus, I usually win some big extra cash and get a lot of giggles out of it.  He calls me a lucky shit. I am. I have my dad still.

It's been a bit of a tough go. But I did get a DVD of He Died with a Felafel in his Hand and will watch it soon on my first 43 inch flatscreen TV purchased with saved money from canceled trip. And I will laugh, I am certain. It's a big flippin tv, I'll say that. Go big and then go home!

Anyways, i was a bit down about not getting to go to Ireland and then I was reminded about what really, really matters. The people you love most....

shoot the geek squad...

Ok, so there's a lot of folks who own computers but are clueless as to how to fix them or get free shareware and thus pay out the nose for such people as Best Buy's Geeker Squad who simply rob and steal from unknowing people. I hate that kind of lowlife corporate bottom feeding. And I need a t-shirt that says, "No, I will not fix your computer, nor save you from whatever plagues you in your life, or any of it." But I do.

My friend just got laid off her job of 25 years from Pfizer. Because she was so good at what she did, is a leader, had worked her way up, had streamlined processes and got herself too much pay and so, hurrah for America, canned. Not to mention she is raising her grandchildren toddlers now because her kid makes babies but is not man enough to care for them. Children having children. I'd like to cut some of their nuts or put a permanent condom on them, or worse than that.

Anyway, friend is trying like hell to get another job before financial crisis hits that looms quickly. Computer is only a year old and "geek squad" tells her she needs to spend $200 for this's and that's to fix it. Get real. She could nearly buy a new laptop for that. So I went and fixed it and installed free viralware and got her Office and Word open shareware and so on.

"How'd you do that?" Common question and it takes too long to show and explain. I used to be a teacher. I no longer have as much patience as I used to. It wasn't real high in the first place. I don't particularly like fixing computers but it gives me satisfaction to thwart the geeks who steal from unknowing innocents and also keeps me from going ballistic and opening fire in some corporate fkn store....

End rant...

Some days you just gotta laugh...

Really though, that should be everyday, but it doesn't always feel that way or happen so easily. Today I went and got paint for my kitchen cabinets. It's wicked cold and so, one does indoor projects. Seemed a fine idea. Old oak cabinets..add some color to the center panel..cheap makeover. Get home and start painting and it's bright mint green, like chocolate chip mint ice cream, instead of kelly green which would match the stained glass window. So, I just think, maybe when it dries? Nope. It's still mint. I can't help but laugh. I cannot even go down there without cringing. It could make me frustrated or mad. It just makes me laugh.

Then my pup ate another pair of my cowgirl boots. Yet another. She knows better. They were old but not a good thing. I cannot afford new boots which is why I have old boots. But they are just boots. Of course she found out quickly, again, that this is a very bad thing to do.

But I wasn't upset. Just a part of my day.

Some days I can roll with whatever comes.
Others it isn't so easy.
Not sure what defines that or makes it so.
But glad I could laugh today and will take that for what it is.

It's simple. No reason to get your shorts in a knot over everyday "stuff". I mean, really.

Books I Want to Write...

I've had a few books in my head for some time. One is a compilation of the teacher articles I wrote for Billings Gazette here on my blog in 2009. They are one page lesson plans which could last a day or a week or a month. They would be good grouped into sections with tear outs for subs or for teachers who needed a lesson plan that keeps kids' attention. They are fun and students respond well to them. I used them enough times to know.  Title: Teaching Ideas for a Dull or Rainy Day, perhaps.

Another I'm considering is a commentary on online communications, Facebook in particular. I think it could be a much better forum design. I notice and observe how people use it and communicate. And my PhD surrounded this topic so could draw some from that. Facebook, Smacebook. 

Another would be a novel based loosely on life events of mine. I flew on my own the first time at age 8. I traveled to Europe at 13. I attended military school and private girls' schools with kids like Christy Pabst of the Beer family, and Dorothy Lay of the potato chips, and The Cover Girl, who was fat.. I have been a wanderer and teacher and writer and adventurer for all my life. I was locked away in a ward in Chicago at 13..my own private version that closely parallels Girl Interrupted or Cuckoo's or a combination. I taught overseas. I ride horses and climb mountains and do just about anything adventurous. I just don't have the thread of it all in my head yet..how it unfolds. Life is messy. It's like trying to make a snowman out of snow that won't stick together.

I like to write. I write for myself right now. I would like to write and have a goal of making something from it.

I have also co-written poetic dramas with my students in the past and that was some of the most powerful writing. That's another possibility. Screenplay. I can visualize those...clearly.

So, of course, I'll continue to think on it some more and then one day, I will do it.
Or so I believe.

From Pillar to Post...

Some days in winter reflect and are a direct and natural extension of the endless grey and cold. One becomes inert, reads books, watches films, sleeps, doesn't want to get out of bed in the dark of dawn's brisk awakening. If on the next day the sun rises and the sky is clear ice blue, one propels forward, feeling pressed and guilty for the lackadaisical loss of the day before, or days.

Floors get cleaned of salt and water marks. Waxing on hands and knees, wiping away the slush of winter creeping in the doorways on pup's paws and snowy boots. Lots of shoveling until there becomes nowhere to put it anymore and the trash bin is in the street past the piles too high to see over. The dog disappears in it, bouncing and happy and I am just cold trying to keep her from running across the street or off into the woods herding deer. Also tire of being shut in by the oppression of the coldest winter since 1917 and this is only month 2 of 5.

I teach a 3 year old to build his first snowman. He comes in with visible breaths, drinks hot chocolate and falls asleep.

I fix mom's computer and another friend's on the way, which ends up taking 3 hours but hey, I get to visit and assist..and get homemade veggie soup..and I'm outta the house.

Get paint samples. Buy toys that are light, inexpensive, educational and fun for Irish kids I will meet and hug for the first time when I travel soon across the Big Pond. Ah Eire..I have missed you. And there will be a music fest and good craic and good times for all of us friends who have been apart too long. And the crashing sea...

So it goes.

I'd like it to be more level..less harried some days; less inert on others.

But attitude, happenstance, grey or blue skies, health of friends, family and self, dogs and doctors appointments disallow one to choose..and surprises are always thrown in, just for interest..of course.

It's a good ride.
Even if it's not always on my horses.