CHARGE! (oops, I mean) RETREAT!!!

Which is where I am going this weekend with twenty-plus of the Friendship Spinners. This summer we are going to St. Meinrad Abbey, west of Louisville. No cooking, cleaning or bunny duty until Sunday evening. That is sometimes the best part.

And I want you all to know that I made clothes yesterday! Cut, sewed and then dye painted.




Boys Are Quick to Master No-Dish Meals

Kid #1: ... So then I took a waffle and I filled it with eggs and grits and syrup, and I folded the whole thing up and ate it like a taco...
Kid #2: What? You're going to catch diabetes that way!
Kid #3: What are grits, anyway? What do grits taste like?
Kid #1: Syrup. They taste like syrup.

via Overheard in New York, Jun 14, 2007

One last thing. Here is Sweetie and Sheila.

Scenic View

Took the Scenic View home from grocery shopping at the Kroger in Brandenburg, KY, which is actually closer to me than any store in Indiana, save our General Store.



One can see the Ohio River from here.



Also, the chemical plant in Kentucky. Nice.




I'm always amazed that huge bits of livestock stay behind little bits of wire. (Or wahr, if you're from here. As in Bob Wahr.)



When I take the back roads route, I remember why I like living here so much. (Sometimes all I can think about is how much I hate living in this hateful, close minded, close knit yet inbred part of the earth.) My camera skills cannot capture what my heart and brain sees - but I have tried. I am a sylvan person, not a water person. I love the trees and green fields and gently rolling hills and the big sky.

By the way, I DO try to practice gentle loving kindness. Really I do. Sometimes it is hard. Especially when certain ass wipes around here make it their personal mission to mess with me, follow me, and all around generally harass me. Not so much anymore since one of them pled guilty to assault last year and had a no contact ruling from the court, but the hostility is still so thick from them I can feel it. Just from them, though, as almost everyone else is nice and pleasant. (Unless it is their nature to be a dick. In that case, it isn't personal.) This shit, though, was personal. As an aside, I have just now weaned myself off of the Effexor, much as I love the medz. I mean, I have been taking various strengths of this aunty depressant/aunty anxiety drug for, what, four years (more?) (How long ago did the shit from those guys start?) I felt it was time to recapture some of my anger, piss and vinegar. It's time to wake up and be creative and driven. The only medz that I am taking now is the Preventafit for my menopause heat. I am hoping that soon I can be rid of that, too.

Yes, I have wanted to move. Desperately at times. But unfortunately, there are ass wipes everywhere and I do like the scenery here. Also, the house is paid for.

Just Not in Any Recent Incarnation

Clerk: What's that symbol on your shirt?
Chick: It says 'Nepal.'
Clerk: What's Nepal?
Chick: It's where the Dalai Lama lives.
Clerk: What's the Dalai Lama? Is that an animal?
Chick: Yeah, it's like a Yeti.
Clerk: Oh.

via Overheard in New York, Jun 12, 2007

Knitty.com

So. It's not just me. The folks at KNITTY also love bunnies. Plus, past writers express their Bunny Love.

a joke

How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb?

Three. One to change the bulb, one to call the media and publicize it, and one to blame the electric bill on the Democrats.

AVATARS R US

These Portrait Illustrations are courtesy of these people. Fun!

A History of ....

I have been trying to mentally compose this blog entry, but I keep going back in my mind, the back story to set the context, to explain the why for I was there at that particular time. And back and back and back. So, fuckit, let the stream of consciencelessness begin...

One of the most intensely spiritual and formative events that ever happened to me, happened when I was sixteen. Nineteen seventy three. Free love. Hashish. Bell bottoms. Thai sticks. Long hair.

And there I was....

...in Athens, Georgia. 1973. Home of the University of Georgia and a burgeoning music scene that would later produce REM and the B 52's. Free concerts were a part of campus life. Expected. What one paid student fees to provide. Drugs were freely available. For free.

I was sixteen and into self mutilation with cigarettes and other things. A cup of depression, anyone?

However, I do not wish to diminish the experience. Second Oldest Brother had surfaced there from his hitchhiking trek, maybe the year before. (Please excuse me if exactitude of dates is your obsession. It was a long time ago.) That summer, Mom and I drove from Northern Indiana to visit Brother. Lean on Me was everywhere on the radio. I did and do now love that song. I ended up staying in Athens for a few weeks, supposedly with Brother; mom drove back home, I guess.
Brother must have had his own plans, however, because I was quickly pawned off onto his friend, Alex. Alex was the manager of a motel and I lived with him there on Lumpkin Street for the better part of a week. He was way cute, with the requisite long hair and the plus of a having job and a pad! (I was so completely cool with that, but on how many levels was this wrong?)

Brother left me with 3 little green tablets which he said were LSD. HOTDAMNDOG!! "Don't do them all at once" was the sage advise - as he left me with a 23 year old crazy motel manager whilst he frolicked with the TWINS. (Hi, Brother!) I think I waited for about twelve minutes after his departure to take the first hit. This was the initial time I had dropped acid. "Take me there, Baby! Wherever THERE is!!!!!" (I took all three hits in four days.) It was pretty cool. The radio hallucinated at me. I about wore out a ball point pen making spirals on a notebook page. I was exceedingly alert and then I slept.

The next day, though, I had the Experience. Tripping out of my gourd on the second hit, I was in the motel pool when the rain began. I saw Every. Single. Rain. Drop. I saw the relationship. We are one. The ocean accepts all rivers. My mind was literally expanded that day. That night, Tom took nude group photos of me and Alex and three other people that I do not remember. Sixteen and trippin' and drinking Coor's brought from Over the Mississippi AND gettin' our picture took. (Tom, where are those negatives???) And how would these folks be prosecuted today?

It is a hard thing to explain, how that experience changed me. It was a pivot point in my creation. The why of the me of today.

To see the connectedness of all things, instead of the separateness of US from THEM that the Baptists taught. I am no Alan Watts. I can't describe it, but I lived it and try to live it still.

I think the last time I did LSD was at the premier of Star Wars thirty years ago. The Pyg (aka Pygmalion, the first husband) and I saw the second showing of the much anticipated movie at Loew's Tara in Atlanta. GoodGodAlmighty! I was twenty. Ushers were actually selling cups and frisbees and stuff to the people in line, as souvenirs. It was like two in the afternoon on a Friday. And hot. We were much too broke to buy such crap. Dope - that shit, was affordable. Always. The movie, of course, as time has told, was great! So exhilarating! After having sat in about the third row of seats in the middle of the theatre, and seeing the best western movie EVER MADE - I annihilated a lot of the enemy out the car window on the way home. Not so much a spiritual adventure, except for maybe killing a lot of the enemy. I'm a good shot.