Gratified

Several years ago, I was depressed. I was studying environmental science, and surrounded by people who spent half an hour washing dishes with the water running the entire time; even walking away from it to collect pots and pans throughout the kitchen. The utter thoughtlessness of it horrified me.

Commercials were getting under my skin too. A distant cousin to the Stepford Wives was appearing on my screen. Back in the 50's, it was all plastic and space age looking appliances. The new push for "homemade cookies" you take out of the freezer and plop on a tray thereby making you a good mom, or the snack sized over packaged everything saddened me. What kind of a world are we creating?

Thankfully, the book I wanted to write is being blogged all over the place. I've stumbled on a wealth of blogs calling women to the life I've dreamed about. This life touts the merits of not only homemade cookies, but homemade bread as well. It used to be that your shiniest newest gadget and scads of Tupperware was the simpler life. Now days, it's producing your own food in a garden, baking and all the opposite things that have been heralded to simplify ones life.

I am so gratified to these people who are reinventing the world we live in. They are taking back what Madison Ave tried to steal, and it is good.

The Pope, condoms and Africa

I still haven't figured out where I want to go with this blog; but something struck me so today, I just have to write about it.

On a trip in Africa, Pope Benedict XVI says condoms are not the answer to HIV and AIDS. Please tell that to the countless orphans who have lost both their parents due to AIDS.

Why is it so easy to solve a problem in theory, but not in actuality. AIDS is not the result of people not abstaining from sex, as the Pope recommends. AIDS is the result of sexual actions that occur for a variety of reasons by which merely applying the platitude to practice abstinence is not going to stop the problem. I apologize for calling abstinance trite. Abstinace can be an amazing thing, a calling in fact.

Therein lies the problem; if someone has not heard the calling to practice abstinance, why then will that resolve the problem? We all know that there is a risk of being killed while driving in our cars, but because we need to get from a to b, we take that risk. Why is the Pope not addressing "a to b"? As I mentioned earlier, people engage in sexual acts for many reasons. Why not make it a practice of first meeting people right where they are? Just as we buckle up to make our journey in our cars a little more safe, why not encourage people to be just a little safer as they travel from a to b, and from that point encourage them to maybe drive from a to c...and maybe eventually they will start walking or riding a bike.

Transformation takes time. It is easy for some to lay down the law, and traffic in black and white ideas. It is another thing all together to recognize we cannot ask people to take action based on ideas they are not surrenered to.

As I deal with people on a day to day basis, I hope I can give them grace as they use the tools they are familiar with to get from a to b. And perhaps offer them new tools along the way.

loved by many

Sunday was a very sad day here. I had to part with a sweet little companion named Twiggy.

I wish the photo showed her beautiful blue eyes, which were crossed, which so endeared her to me.

I inherited her at the ranch. She belonged to Suzanne who passed away when Twiggy was just a baby girl herself. Over the years, there's been many cats who have come and gone, but Chief Wiggums, as Caroline called her out lived them all. She was the most tenacious cat ever. A little slip of a thing, all the bigger manlier cats cowered in her presence.

She was a little bit like a dog, in that she greeted me when I came home with Siamese meows. It was a very sad day when she and I didn't communicate very well, and when I thought she'd gotten out of the way, and she thought I stopped, I ran over her with my car. We raced to the vet, and that girl lived on. One would never have known, except her right hip jutted out a little more than her left after that. I kept her in the house, carefully supervised for 2 months after that. Before the accident, there were times I couldn't get her out of the house. After her 2 months of confinement, she was so mad. The first thing she did when I finally let her outside was to run up to the big house and climb up to the roof. I think she wanted to be good and sure everyone knew she was fine, and nothing was going to hold her back.

I did discover through that visit to the vet that she was in the beginning stages of kidney failure, and they didn't think she would live that much longer regardless of the accident. She lived over a year more. Long enough for Caroline to return from Scotland and spend a little more time with her.

She charmed nearly everyone who came around. Some people couldn't help but just laugh at her crossed eyes. She had that curious cat habit of finding the least cat friendly person in the room and jumping on their lap. She was convinced that she belonged there, and somehow, she did. One scratch under the chin, and her motor was running. Everyone has a pet that is the sweetest best most wonderful pet; but she really was a special girl, and has a big fan club to prove it.

She was such a part of the fabric of my life. It's odd to come home, and not be greeted. I was very blessed to have her. I think she's somewhere happy now, eating as many cat treats as she wants, catching mice and generally charming the heavenly host.