You Can’t Go Home Again

I’m horseless. 

The five hour drive to Hermiston took seven hours (fog), with a stop for dinner, and the rest of the journey with Little Boy Darling sounding like Donkey in the movie Shrek.  “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

This trip was a birthday present from my daughter. In years past we had such fun at the Hermiston Horse auction that we decided we ought to do it again. This time we had a child to take, Little Boy Darling, her son, now six, a child that had never heard the cadence of an auctioneer ringing in his ears. 

And we drove through my old home town of The Dalles, Oregon.

I remember The Dalles as a 50’s “Happy Days” sort of town with a Catholic Church in the center—its steeple being a high point, and serving as a navigation set point. There was a café in the middle of Main Street with jute boxes at the tables, where, while sipping a cherry Coke we could flip through the music selections, drop in a dime and hear Elvis, The Great Contenders, The Everly Brothers, or any number of others.  The town had a Penny’s store where people of moderate means shopped, and Williams Store where the high-rollers shopped, and in high school the girl’s sweaters told the difference.

The Granada Theater was grand, it showed a new movie most every weekend, and on Saturdays Ready Kilowatt, presented a free show for the kids. From the open door of the saddle shop the scent of leather drifted out into the street, and the inside sent me into peels of longing, for in those days I was an avid horse person. We cruised the gut in whatever vehicle we could get our hands on, and a “Hand out” on the east end of the main street was a meeting place where we could get “grinders” and fortify ourselves for another cruise through town.  My mother once worked for a couple of “rich” people in town so we had access to some grand homes, and a school mate's parents were doctors who used more than one fork with each meal, and served split pea soup for lunch to two third-graders, and harped at my friend about practicing the piano so much I decided that was not for me.

In the spring The Dalles and surrounding areas popped alive with fragrant blossoms as fruit trees pushed forth pink or white flowers in such abundance the hillsides virtually vibrated. The scent of harvest--of cherries, peaches and apricots, lingers in my nostrils still.

The town was once called Fort The Dalles, where barges floated lazily up and down the Columbia River, and great flotillas of logs followed tug boats to the mills. Celilo Falls, a tumultuous portion of the Great Columbia River, was situated a stone-throw away, where, it is said, that at one time you could walk across the river on the backs of the salmon fishes. Yes, I have written of this before, but I want people to remember what the river once was. The government had signed a treaty with the Native Americans stating that they could fish there forever. That didn't happen. The Corp of Engineers built a dam in front of Celilo Falls, flooded out “The Narrows” which gave “The Dalles” its name, flooded out the fishing grounds, put the Native Americans on government care, and was virtually death to the salmon.

Before 

After 

  

Now a drive through this once quaint town of The Dalles looks like many others, first comes a Walmart, then The Home Depot, then Staples, and the freeway bypasses the town, so you can miss it altogether.

A drive down the Columbia River gorge, though, continues to be, for me, the most beautiful drive in the world.  And I consider The Dalles to be the “jumping off place,” for beyond it the topography of Oregon drops its trees, and replaces them with rolling hills and sagebrush. The highway through pays homage to the ingenuity of the human being, built in a basalt gorge, constructed after much use of dynamite, and much hauling of stone, was built where there was no land before, virtually in the river.  A trip from The Dalles to Portland used to be a day's trip, winding through mountains. Now it takes one hour. The highway is straight, fast, and with few cars.

The Columbia River Gorge

The Native Americans have some revenge from their washed out fishing grounds. Their Casinos rake in great amounts of money mostly from white people. 

And regarding the horses we went to Hermiston to see, the sale ground was switched to the Fair grounds, it didn't have the quaint atmosphere it once had, and the horses had not the character or the variety.  We did find one horse we liked. It was short, white, and speckled with black spots as through black paint was blown from a pea shooter. He was a Gypsy Vanner/Arabian across.  I figured that while he had the look of a Gypsy, with that Arabian blood he was probably smart. Arabians are known for their brains and stamina. Their blood flows through the veins of most all breeds--even Thoroughbreds.  The bidding went up to $1800, but the young girl rider, held up her hand. “No sale.” She wouldn’t take less than $3,000.

When we left the horse was still for sale. There was no fog on the highway, we got home in five hours, The Columbia River Gorge was still beautiful and little Boy Darling played video games never asking if we were there yet.

Truth in Marketing

This is the way I feel today.

The other day, coming out of Fred Meyer’s grocery store, I looked across the street to an Office Max. The store was closing. Rats, I liked that store.

There in huge red letters about two feet high was a sign: “50% off Entire Store.”

Check it out, I thought, so I did, and wandering through the store, I chose a package of particular pens I like, some colored marking pens, some tabs, not much, but something. When the check-out clerk rang me up the discount was 20% and 30%. “I though the entire store was 50% off,” I said.

 “Oh,” she said, “it’s a marketing ploy. It’s ‘up to’ 50% off.” Sure enough, there in small letters about two inches high were the words, “up to.” I had missed it.

 I left feeling taken.

It’s true I didn’t read the small print, but I wondered, “Do you have to trick people to get them to buy something?” I don’t want to do that. And then I realized I had done the very thing I was railing against.  I mentioned in the last blog that I sent a query to an agent stating that the manuscript was 90,000 words in length. (I had only written 35,000 words, but in my arrogance, I thought I could bring it up to 90,000.) 

They want a further look-see—first 3 chapters and a synopsis, and they will take a 75,000 count.  

So while I’m scrambling to write another 40,000 words for the manuscript; I'm having trouble paring the synopsis down to the required 5 pages. 

This is a Laurel and Hardy movie.

Now here is real truth is advertising:

“Wanted, young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”

--1860 Pony Express

(These fellows could deliver mail in 10 days while covering 1900 miles and using 75 horses. Imagine.)

How to Get Your Husband to Buy You a Horse, and more...

 Couldn't resist--just for fun...

And now I'm going to get serious--dammit.

On the last blog I mentioned my novel Song of Africa, and that I had 35,000 words to go--still have almost. I don't think I can do it. I’m too cryptic; to afraid I will bore people, too much to the point. I've been discouraged all week, and here I am wanting to spread good-will and a happy life. (Don’t count on me.)

Yesterday I looked up the Gambia online--one editor told me to never use google in your research for people will laugh at you, yeah, like everyone googles everything. I just wanted it to spark something in me. When I began this novel I had no pictures same the Encyclopedia, and talk about cryptic, but there are pictures online. Don't know if I want my romanticized view of Africa clouded with facts, but I looked up The Gambia, a river in West Africa. To ride that river is my character’s dream. She heard it looks like the Hollywood stereotype of an African river—and so that was her choice, her river. (Now it is called The Sara Rose by her lover.) The adventure begin at the river.  Well, no, it began on the first page where the postmistress tells Patrice and her mother that her grandparents are dead—lost on what the world calls the Dark Continent. Strange to call Africa dark when the sun shines for nine months of the year, but isn’t the light level that has motivated the word, “dark,” it is the mystery.

I got to thinking about my characters. The book ends in 1996. That means Patrice, the young 15-year- old girl in Africa would be 34 years old now. And Sara, my heroine was 77 in 1998. I have fallen in love with my characters, which is the way it ought to be with a novel, but I’m feeling sad about them, for with them, like with me, and those around me, time marches on. I wonder what they have been doing for the last 19 years. 

The Gambia River flows through Senegal West Africa.

Bird by Bird*

“It is no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.” –Mark Twain

If a gun appears on the wall in act I, it must be fired by act III.

It’s a fiction rule, like the one shoe dropping. We hear the man upstairs undressing, one shoe drops, and we wait. No fair if the guy upstairs quietly sets down his second shoe.

Suspense is created by foreshadowing.  The gun on the wall, a palmist gasps when she examines the hero’s hand, you see a torn letter stuffed into a mail box and knows it has significance, but what?

I’m contemplating my novel Song of Africa, one that has been on my shelf, in my drawer, in the computer, traveled from California, to Oregon to Hawaii to Oregon—it’s still in my computer, added to, written over, and finally an ending found. It’s a miracle.

 The problem? I have written 40,000 words and I need 75,000 by the end of the month. I read about foreshadowing, structure, plot, beginnings, middles, endings, style, technique, suspense, all of which is overwhelming. Like Real Estate study, you throw too much at a person and they become catatonic.

“Take it bird by bird,” Anne Lamont’s father told her brother. He was collecting bird names for a school project, and felt there were too many birds, he couldn’t do it. “Just take it bird by bird.” Anne uses that advice in her writing and *Bird by Bird is the title of one of her books.

Right now, after attending a concert and wondering about art, and the artist, and realizing that while they (those authority figures) tell us to “Give our gift.” “To do what you love.” “Built it and they will come.” You know the drift. “Do what you love and money will follow.”That sort of thing. I wonder, though, there is a fine line between entertaining and self-indulgence.  

  

What Have You Done in Your Life?

Well on Saturday I wrote six pages. On Sunday I deleted them all.
 All in all it was a pretty good weekend.

And this week I spun about as a Real Estate Agent.

I would never have known lis pendens from an appendix had I not taken a Real Estate course. Daughter number two said lis pendens sounded like a body part. (It means "suit pending" the most common is the notice served beginning a foreclosure procedure.)

My Real Estate license is now parked with the state--that is I am not associated with any agency and thus I have lost my lofty title REALTOR. I read a quote by Billy Crystal, "I learned over the years that if you're not happy doing what you're doing, then you shouldn't be doing it." that pretty much sums up my relationship in being an agent. I have not, however, given up on houses...

Here is an example of the feeling a person gets when doing what they love. Daughter number one's counselor asked her what she was doing for herself--that was on top of working plus caring for her son, husband and house. "Oh," she said, "taking walks, soaking in the tub, but afterword I feel just just as exhausted as before." The counselor said, "What about your art?" 

Daughter awakened the next morning raring to sculpt. Thus this carved avocado pit. And it put a smile on her face too.

 http://foodlifeeverything.wordpress.com

Dragoncado

I don't know how she held that slippery pit. I know she peeled off the pit's brown thin film revealing a white pit beneath. The white turns this coppery color after being exposed to air.

If we were to talk about juxtapositions Daughter number one and I would be a great example. While she is into preparing food--and photographing it, I get out of cooking every chance I can.


Finally before I sail off into the blue, I am offering, for a limited time,  a FREE ebook, Mother's Letters...and mine. This book is not for everybody, but it will be for somebody. Are you one of those bodies? To determine if you are check out:

 free-ebookletters.blogspot.com

If you are sure you want it click on this email. 

grattisebook@gmail.com 

(Just copy and paste, I hate it when the computer asks for tons of information. It's just an email address for heavens sake..)

The eBook will come as a Pdf file on your computer. 
Many thanks,
Joyce

Wishing You “The Luck of the Irish”

Is this St Pat’s day? I think it is. Normally I don’t keep track of such things—I have to be reminded of Thanksgiving Day and such, but I wrote the date for this blog, and saw that it was time to go out for a green beer.

St. Patrick was born around 387 C.E. in Scotland, and turned to God once he was kidnapped by slave traders and brought to Ireland to be a shepherd.  He is accredited to bringing Christianity to Ireland and he used the shamrock, a three leafed plant, to explain the trinity to the people.

According to Catholic Online. St Patrick said, "I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain."

For decades following the Great Famine in the mid-nineteenth century, the shamrock was popular among the Irish as an icon promoting, at least for a day, the rejection of British rule in Ireland. And because the church lifted the ban on drinking on the Sabbath on that day, everyone went out for a beer.

But, I wondered, why has the four leaf clover become associated with St Patrick?

Apparently it was a mix-up. The luck of the Irish, the green, the shamrock, and the four leaf clover which is a good luck charm. This is the stuff of myths, and symbolism, and since we love celebrations, that too. My grandson would call this a “mixel.”

During the gold rush in America, the most famous and successful miners were Irish or of Irish American birth. Over time this association with mining fortunes led to the expression, “The Luck of the Irish.” Of course it could have been that it was not so much luck as brains.

Fascinating, that some of the most down-trodden people have risen above adversary to become great. And these once thought to be less-than people are now celebrated.

Ha ha. To life! the ancestors must be laughing.

Picture of Cinderella's Castle, Disneyland Paris France, green for St. Pat's day.

I am Woman

My morning read—I stumbled upon it, didn’t mean to go there, but here it is:

“The reality is that girls make up almost a quarter of the world’s population yet still face the greatest discrimination of any group in the world.” (Movie I am A Girl.)

Anyone in their right mind ought to be outraged.

Why or why would anyone treat their mother less-than, their sister, their aunt, their girlfriend? Someday these individuals might get their sorry asses saved by a woman doctor, or kept out of prison by a woman lawyer, or their despicable childhood healed by a lady psychologist—you got it. Although it took millennium for women to be allowed into those professions.

When I attended the University of Oklahoma that also sported a Veterinary program, I considered applying for their Vet school, but I was only a sophomore, and we moved away that year, but I remember the Vet professor saying that women were seldom admitted. They didn’t want to waste their time on someone who would get married, have babies and not practice.

Now, ha ha professor, the majority of Veterinarian graduates are women.  I was married then, and I did have children later, still I could have practiced for 50 years—that would match any man. No regrets, just the facts.

Remember the Trojan Women denied sex to their men until they stopped warring. That worked. Yet when a girl loses her virginity at twelve years of age that sets her up for a lifetime of submissiveness—not power.

Monty Roberts, a horse trainer, and you have heard me say many times “It’s all about horse training,” spent a summer observing wild mustangs. One day Roberts watched the schooling of a terrorist foal by a nun mare. While Roberts watched a colt—he figured it was between one and two years old—the colt took a run at a filly and give her a good kick. The filly hobbled off.

Then the colt committed another attack. A little foal approached him moving his mouth in a sucking motion, which in young horses indicates that they are no threat. “I’m a baby. I eat grass, not animals.” 

The colt lunged at the baby and took a bite out of his backside. Immediately after the attack the colt pretended that nothing had happened.

The dun mare was watching this activity. She was the wise one, the matriarch of the herd, and the alpha mare in charge of the day to day living. Each time the colt behaved badly she inched closer to him, showing no sign of interest, until she made her move. She pinned her ear back, ran at him, and knocked him off his feet into the dirt. As he struggled to his feet, she knocked him down again.  Then she drove the colt some three hundred yards from the herd and left him there, alone, and took vigil to keep him there. Clearly she was freezing him out.

It terrified the colt to be left alone. For a flight animal this was equivalent to a death sentence. The colt attempted to sneak back into the herd, but again the mare drove him out. He started the licking and chewing motion of a contrite young foal.

By morning Roberts saw a surprising event. The dun mare was grooming the colt. She was giving him little scrapes on his neck and hindquarters. She had let him back in and now she was giving him lots of attention. She massaged the root of his tail, his hips. Hell was behind, this was heaven.

As time went on Roberts observed that, like a child, the colt would test the disciplinary system, and each time the mare disciplined him. By the third time he sinned, he practically exiled himself, grumbling but accepting his fate.

Finally the colt’s teenage rebellion stopped, and be became so sweet he was a positive nuisance. He would wander around when the horses wanted to graze asking, “Do you need any grooming.”

Amen

P.S. From a reader. This is fascinating. Today is Pi Day  (π)
The date is 3.34.(Pi)
Later today the entire Pi number (well a large amount of it--it goes on forever) will come up with the date and time. This will not come again until 2115.

www.vox.com/215/3/13/8205807/piday


See below: "Coming In For a Landing"--my new landing page title.

This will be a place to park my books when they appear, and they (you know the publishing gurus) say that I need a "Landing Page" in case anyone googles my name, or books or whatever. 

http://www.joyceslandingpg.blogspot.com

Today Its Gold Bug Eyes

It wasn’t an epiphany. It wasn’t even the first time I had heard of it, or the first time I thought of it, but it was nice to see it in action.

I was in a coin shop where I casually told the clerk my husband had been in a few days earlier to purchase a tiny square of gold to electroplate a bug. She laughed, “Why?”

“To take its picture with an electron microscope.”  She loved microscopy she said. She used the imagery in her potting, and she showed me a coffee mug of her own design. Pure pleasure showed on her face, excitement in her voice. People love talking about what they love.

Next at the bank the teller sported a beautiful vintage engagement ring. Her face lighted when I asked her when she was getting married. “Soon,” she said. Her fiance’ was raised in Hawaii, he was flying his family to Eugene. He was Samoan, and he was taking her to Samoa so she could see his culture, and how he was raised. She was in for an adventure, and excitement reigned supreme.

Remember the movie You Can’t Take it With You (1938 Oscar winner for Best picture) where the patriarch, the Grandfather played by Lionel Barrymore collected an odd assortment of dreamers, misfits, eccentrics, and they lived together in his house where they did pretty much whatever they wanted. Someone had left behind a typewriter, and Barrymore’s  daughter, and mother of the Jean Arthur character engaged to Jimmy Stewart, picked it up and began writing a screenplay. She had written herself into a monastery and couldn’t find a way out. All through the movie she asked whoever showed up to help her get out of the monetary.  That’s a stock phrase at our house. “How can I get out of the monastery?”

Once the Barrymore character was doing business with a lack-luster accountant. He asked the man what he really wanted to do. From beneath his desk the man pulled out a bunny, a mechanical toy he had made. His face lighted. This is what he wanted to do, make mechanical toys.

Of course Grandfather convinced the accountant to come live at their house where other husbands and grandfathers made fireworks in the basement.

I look around and see few people loving what they are doing. So much of life is doing the 9 to 5.

So, what’s the secret?

How do we break out, and live the life we dreamed of when we were kids, when we thought the world had our best interests at heart and believed the world was our oyster? (Whatever that means.)

You know the story of the oyster who like a cookie under his sheet, finds a grain of sand in his shell. Without hands to pull it out, he begins to coat it with a smooth shiny substance, coating it and coating it so it no longer pokes him when he tries to sleep.  Thus the pearl is born.

I think there are two lessons here. Take your pick.

Blame it on the Reptile*

*Not the one from the Garden of Eden. I mean the old brain stem, the Reptilian Brain.

A home buyer noticed construction close by the home he was considering purchasing, and asked his agent what it was.

“I don’t know,’ the agent answered, “a shopping center I think.” (He had heard that one was going in somewhere in the vicinity.)

Later, after buying the house, the client found that it was not a shopping center, but a bottling plant, and he turned the agent over to the Grievance committee, where they faulted the agent.

Here you can worry about casual remarks, plain old conversation, and corporate stupidity.

An elderly man and his wife were about to board a cruise ship. Before boarding they were asked to fill out a form . One of the questions was : ”Have you been sick within the last week?”

The man checked the yes box, then quickly realized his mistake. He had not been sick, so he scratched out the YES box and checked the NO.

Do you think he got to board?

No.

First they had medical personnel come from the ship and take the man’s temperature, then, although his temperature was normal, he was denied boarding.

Whoa,  and we don’t know the planning that went into that vacation, where he traveled from, how much his plane fare cost, or long he had looked forward to it.

Stupidity abounds. Or is it fear?

Are we so afraid of getting something wrong that we have become stupid?

Blame it on the reptile.

You know that old reptilian brain, the primitive brain stem that lies under our higher “Thinking brain?” This reptilian brain controls our vital organs, our heart, our lungs, that is the autonomic system, so we don’t have to think about such things as digesting our food.

It also looks out for our physical well-being. Using this brain we can jump out of the way of a careening bus without thinking about it. We might fight off an attacker, or lift a car off a loved one if need be. The Reptilian brain has our best interests at heart…

HOWEVER, it is always looking for trouble.

It knows nothing of SPIRIT. It knows nothing of the higher working of the brain. It doesn’t know that guidance, intuition or well being exists.

So, if someone wants to get the human animal, or any animal for that matter, into a state of discontent, of confusion or turmoil, go after the reptilian brain. Let it believe it is in danger.

When some animals are faced with danger they run, that’s a prey animal.  If they fail, they get eaten—end of animal. If the human animal, the predator, fails or gets it wrong, they fear being humiliated, or ostracized, or unloved. Being ostracized is so serious that ancient cultures used it as punishment, and often, without their tribe, that ostracized person died. It was essentially a death sentence.

But, if you are a good horse trainer (and it’s all about horse training) you will want the animal to want to be with you. In that case you will provide comfort, safety, food, and fun.

Horse meditation

What if we used that training on the old reptilian brain? Calmed the savage beast so to speak.

There is an old Native American tale: Two dogs were fighting. One Native asked the dog’s owner which dog would win. Replied the owner, “The one I feed.”

Stop Me Before I Buy a Horse Again

Or encourage me depending on where you stand.

Daughter, grandson and I are leaving tonight to attend the Hermiston Horse Auction—the trip is my Christmas present from my Darling Daughter.  We haven’t attended the auction for over 6 years, but now we are back in Oregon, and the Hermiston Horse Extravaganza that happens three times a year, is an event to be taken in.  This time Little Boy Darling will have his first exposure to an auctioneer who sounds like a horse's hooves at dead run.  LBD can take in the chaos of the ring, and see horses of all shapes, sizes and conditions.

We are going just to look.

What if, though, I wonder, I see a horse I can’t resist. We have no place for a horse. I don’t need a horse. Horses are expensive…

But what if I love him?

What if he needs me?

My husband would kill me.

One year at the auction a girl was wearing a tee-shirt with the inscription, “My husband didn’t ask if I bought a horse, he asked, “How many?”

About twelve years ago I bought my horse Velvet at the Hermiston Horse Auction as a six month-old filly-the prettiest little foal on the premises. As she was being led down one of the corridors, she turned her head to look at me—that will get me every time. I said “She looks like Velvet,” and thus I called her, and thus I decided she was my horse.  Having never bid on anything before I was filled with adrenalin, so I would nod to daughter who would then hold up the bidding sign. Someone was bidding against me, but that was MY HORSE. We weren’t very subtle with our bidding…I went over my limit, twice over my limit. The bidding was heavy, and when I won, the arena burst into applause. A cowboy came up to us later and said, “Watching you two buy a horse was more fun than buying one myself.”

Velvet

Another time two Norwegian Fjord horses were placed for sale—a very distinctive horse, cream in color, round in body, and distinguished by a white mane with a black stripe down its center. There were two horses in the sales ring and three cowboys fighting for them like playing musical chairs. One cowboy would pull another off his horse and climb aboard (they are rather short horses) then race around the arena trying not to be caught. One man’s jacket was ripped to shreds. The audience loved it, and I am sure the horses sold for more than they would have without the show. Daughter would have bought one except she felt the price went too high.

I have to stop reminiscing, but I did sell a horse there a couple of times, once for myself—a horse that bucked with Darling Daughter (DD), and another for DD. DD decided perhaps she could make money on horse trading, so she bought a horse in Eugene, a sweet horse named Sweetie whose owner didn’t take care of her feet and she will probably suffer for it the rest of her life. I had my Ferrier tend to her feet, I rode her a couple of times just around the yard and found she was very gentle, then  DD and I hauled her to the auction where she sold to a very nice lady.

 A few months later Sweetie’s owner called DD. “Who was your horse bred to?” she asked. “We just had a baby.”

P.S. That Kickstarter project I placed at the bottom of the page began yesterday and they met their quota in one day. Congratulations Dale.

We have met the enemy...

Cartoonist Walt Kelly's most famous quote.

Have you ever had a thought rattling around in the back of your mind, an idea that is hard to articulate, but it seems to be something you ought to grab a hold of?

That’s happening to me right now. I’ve been reading a book titled Choosing Easy World by Julia Rogers Hamrick. At first the book seemed so simplistic, I pushed it aside. Then it called me back. When Hamrick began talking about “Difficult World,” I perked up.

There appears to be a Difficult Dictator that yammers in our heads, that feeds on difficulty, that tells us we aren’t good enough, we will never make it, others do, of course, but not us, that we are too old, too stupid, too disconnected to be successful in our endeavors.  Why old Difficult Dictator does that I don’t know, he appears to feed on worry, stress, and making things hard. Most of us have had times when can we decide to choose the easy way and this old dictator grabs us by the throat. Some call him the Ego. Why though does the ego want difficulty for us?

It could be conditioning. It could be that working, striving, pushing against have been drummed into us for so long it has penetrated our beings.

Now, this is not to say that a challenge is not rewarding. Think of music, the arts, athletics, solving a mathematical proof, a law proof, when we arise triumphant it is a giant hit. What I am saying is that there is a pervasive difficulty regarding life that is not necessary, is not healthy, and does not support the magnificent beings that we are.

And this is where that rattling thought in the back of my mind comes in. We hear about how the media is conditioning us, about the “Shadow” government, the government behind the government that pulls the strings.  We hear that the “Grays” control us, the “aliens,” are out to get us, and the Illuminati have been lurking in the shadows controlling world affairs for millennia.  And I wondered, could be as Pogo said long ago. We have met the enemy, and it is us?’

Perhaps, it is not “out there.  It is in here.”

I am touching my chest.

A heartfelt thanks to you wonderful people who have followed me. Words cannot express my gratitude...a picture maybe?

Mount of Refuge

Our (used to be) "Green Trail of Bliss" that was our driveway. And there is good ole Bear lying in the middle of it.

On January 1, 2015 Railroad Road, also known as Puua Kapoho Road, where our house sat at the end of the road, was made into a through-a-fare. Well maybe I exaggerate about the through-a-fare, but giant bulldozers have opened that road as an escape route for the people of Pahoa, Hawaii. So our house (now someone else’s) is no longer at the end of the road.

Barry, the caretaker who lived on our property before us, called our place, "The most beautiful spot on earth," and the name given to it by its owner was Pu'u Honoa, meaning  "Mount of Refuge."

Perhaps it will be that for the people who travel Railroad Road.

And now I wonder if while widening Railroad Road the caterpillar crew found our cement cow.

Oh, you don’t know about the cement cow? Guess you will have to read the book. The Island.


P.S.  Hawaii Lava update.

For the past few months lava oozed its way through the jungle, burning a swath aiming for the town of Pahoa. The prediction was that it would go straight through the market place, thus the grocery store, Malala Market, closed, and other stores in that complex closed as well, the tire shop, the hardware store, the propane supply store, Island Crazy, the Urgent Care facility and FED X where we Faxed so many documents we became friends with the beautiful clerk. The Subway Sandwich shop is there, and the bakery where they made the best butter mocha’s in the world.

Scientists predict that if the lava will eventually cross the highway and cut off the route to the rest of the island, Hilo. Kona, Volcano, Black Sand’s Beach, all that and more. The front stalled 550 yards before reaching the market place and has widened out and changed directions threatening they say the Police and Fire Station. 

Hey, what about those other buildings sitting in the path?

The Great Chicken Mystery

This post also appears on my book site http://www.joycedavisbooks.blogspot.com

No sense going there, it is just a landing site for anyone who searches for my name and my book. Do you think I landed in the wrong place?

And now onto the mystery...It began on the Day after Thanksgiving. 

Both my wonderful pet hens mysteriously died. Same day. They were alive in the morning, dead in the evening. What are the chances of that unless it was something they ate? My tame hens, one would sit on my lap, the other was more stand-off-ish. Both laid the most delicious, beautiful eggs, egg yolks orange as a six-year-old's sun drawing. Gone. Rats.

I had given the chickens vegetable scraps the day before. Being Thanksgiving I thought I was giving them a treat. After finding them dead, I researched and found that potato skins can be toxic to chickens. Only the green-skinned potatoes they said.  My potato skins weren’t green, but the chickens were dead, and I suspected the potatoes were the culprits. How many people had fed potato peelings to chickens? Tons I bet. Still mine were dead.

Three months later:

This pertains really: On Jan 26 I decided to query an agent. I found Elizabeth Krach of Kimberly Cameron and Associates who said “I wish I had my own Jon Krakauer.”

Who in the heck is Jon Krakauer?

Oh, he was the author of Into the Wild, the story about Chris McCandless, who gave away his money, burned his wallet and went to the wilds of Alaska where he lived off the land and journaled his findings, including the food he ate. On July 30, 1992 he wrote, “Extremely weak. Fault of potato seed. Much trouble just to stand up. Starving. Great jeopardy.”

Before this entry, there's nothing to suggest he was in trouble. After that, there were other signs in his journal that he was in big trouble. And then a little over three weeks later, on August 18, he crawled in the back of the bus and died."

Krahauer, wanted to know if the ending of his book was accurate. Was it in fact the wild potato seeds that did in McCandless? He took wild potato seeds to a chemist.

"These are not poisonous," said the chemist.

Hum. What now? 

Enter a reader:

After reading Into the Wild, Rod Hamilton had an Ah Ha moment. He knew that Jews in concentration camps were fed the seed of the chick pea, eaten for centuries, but known to contain a substance called ODAP which under certain conditions, is toxic. 

Wild potato seeds also contain ODAP.  In a mal-nourished body the seeds containing ODAP cause paralysis and death. My chickens were molting and thin, obviously struggling to keep fit as winter was coming on.

The fault, I believe, lies in the potato skins...and skinny chickens. (I kept their feeder full.) No chicken of mine will ever be fed potato skins, and now I wonder about anyone eating them.

Rail, Sea, or Land

You guys have to watch this—no you don’t have to--it just knocked my socks off.

I know this isn’t giving you information.

It isn’t giving advice.

It isn’t about a contribution to society—but then maybe it is…

This story hit me between the eyes, or rather in the heart.

It is about love and caring, concern and even skill, and it comes from a monkey. It’s on YouTube. I stumbled upon it. I know, you can do your own stumbling, but I couldn’t resist.

A monkey was electrocuted at a subway station and was lying completely unconscious in the center corridor between two train tracks.

You can watch it here:  

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/dec/22/monkey-saves-dying-friend-train-station-india-video

Don't read the next paragraph is you want to watch the You tube. It's the Reader's digest Version.

Another monkey came up to the unconscious monkey, grabbed it, shook it, turned it over, worked on resuscitating it, dumped it in water that was puddling over the edge of a rail. The electrocuted monkey was like a rag doll, showing no sign of life. The rescuing monkey kept working on him. FOR TWENTY MINUTES. Finally the electrocuted monkey did rally, and at first was like a drunken sailor, then recovered somewhat. The video ended with the rescuing monkey patting the electrocuted one on the back. Probably humans probably would have pronounced him dead long before twenty minutes.

Success!

MOB (Man Over Board);

Have you heard this one? A passenger tumbled off a balcony of a Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship. No bells or whistles went off, no one saw him. He floated in the ocean for about five hours…and a Disney Cruise Ship came along that same corridor, a passenger spotted a man in the water, (imagine) and the Disney crew saved him.

Long live Disney!

P.S. Disney Cruise lines have a detection device that is an automatic man overboard detection technology. It uses radar and sensors to establish a perimeter around a ship. The Royal Caribbean Cruise line does not.

Success!

On Land:

My chiropractor told me I wouldn’t have any back problems if I lived on the moon. Well, I have recently become a Real Estate Agent, but I don’t believe I will investigate any property on the moon. Good ole planet earth. I’ll take my chances here.

Remember us if you ever decide to sell your house or want to buy one. No hard sale tactics, just good old win/win. You want to buy, someone wants to sell, Bingo. You want to sell, someone wants to buy. Ditto.

We are The Pink Flamingo Real Estate Team, at your service. 1 814-9613 ext 124

Coming soon to a yard near you: 

 http://pink-flamingo.wix.com/real-estate

How about joining me for the 90 Day Millionaire Challenge? http://www.the90daymillionairechallenge.blogspot.com 

I began it once, going at it again, just posted  "If we keep on believing that money doesn’t matter…" sign up to be a part of the process 

jewellshappytrails@gmail.com 
Say $, or millionaire, or something that will identify you.

Don't Grow Up

Remember when you were a kid and you believed that anything was possible?

One week you were going to grow up and ride a rocket ship to the moon. Another and this was my dream, that I would own a horse ranch and hire handsome men to run it.

One of my daughters couldn’t wait to grow up. The trouble was, she found when grown up that it wasn’t much fun.

How do we get the fun back? How do we pull back those dreams that sustained us on long winter nights?

I learned this from a horse trainer—let’s call him a horse gentler, for that is what he preferred. He said after he got a macho-etocomy, he realized that a dance partner doesn’t want to be pulled to their feet and forced around the dance floor--or slapped, or pulled by ropes. A horse, he said, will respond to pressure no stronger than you can put on your eyeball.  (Did you know that a horse’s hide is seven times more sensitive than a human’s?) The point of this that whatever the rank and file are doing, chances are you ought to do the opposite. (Stroke a horse, don’t slap it.)

I’m trying. (Yoda said, “Don’t try, do.) Yet we know when we are standing on the brink of an abyss we quiver a bit, we become immobilized, our brain becomes oatmeal.

You great readers who have been with me for a while know that I studied to become a Real Estate Agent.  I passed those horrible exams, I had my background checked, and all my little fingers finger-printed. I paid my dues. I backed off, I tested the water. Well now I have signed with a Brokerage, I’m on the brink, I don’t know what to do next.  I know that some of the old ways of operating do not work as efficiently as they once did. I don’t want to become establishment.

What is the opposite?

P.S.

Daughter and I are The Pink Flamingo Real Estate Team. Now doesn’t having a For Sale sign in your yard with a pink flamingo on it sound outrageous enough to garner attention?

 “Next time I’m really going to put my foot down.”

Thank you for following me all you wonderful people.