It's Been More than two weeks!

Happy Halloween GIRLS!

Got to tell you, for someone with no job, prospects or friends here in the north country, my life's STILL pretty exciting!

Way back here, in this isolated spot where I live, I've made a ghostly friend. He, she, it, them (or all of the above) come up on my front porch around quarter to ten at night and start ringing my doorbell. My friend (s) left after 11 p.m. when I called the police. But it's been dark for awhile now and I'm guessing I won't be alone too much longer.

Everyone wants to be noticed and I feel SO much better knowing I'm being watched and having attention paid! As Charlie Brown always said "Good Grief"! I've really tried to make friends here and by God, now I've got one!!

Here's hoping it's Obama and in HIS economy I can finally get the hell out of Dodge and back to civilization in the years I still have going for me. Rarely are our mistakes as GLARING as moving here has become. There aren't any kids within miles of this place. This isn't a Halloween prank. John hopes it's a short in the doorbell and it simply "rings". I'd be far more inclined to buy that one if it rang during the daylight and not way after dark, over and over, after waiting 15 minutes to an hour to start again. Are electrical shorts photo sensitive? I'm not an expert here. I've never been skiddish...don't sleep with lights on, inside or out. But this isn't fun.

Oh well. Any thoughts? NEVER think that things can't get worse. At least not out loud.

Love to all, Ma

Word from the "boobs"

Sorry to tell you, little one, I wasn't as impressed with Barry Avedon's work as he seemed to be! Unless this is a DIFFERENT Avedon?

I was tethered to the TV tonight and am still attached to CNN...I'm gonna miss this event when it's over. How could ANYONE truly listen and not hear the dodges avoiding answering direct questions?

Just four years ago I'd have voted for John McCain. Maybe it was out of respect for his POW and family staus. I feel like I know him better now and I'm simply not as impressed as I'd hoped I'd be.

As for the boobs...seems as though the phrase "much ado about nothing" applies to the poor bumps. Shouldn't you at least be able to celebrate the true WONDER of preserved items? Oh well. For something so damned insignificant, that silly Cancer sure becomes the great levelor, doesn't it? I think having you here Jess would be GREAT impetus for driving into TC...that would be somewhere around October 8, 2009. And too, that would be the 15 year anniversary....?

Love you lots guys, Ma

Good news!

Who's cancer free for another year??? Who's that? JUDY!!!!

Yay to those nasty little white blood cells who are no longer attacking the rest of your blood cells!! Yay to the hospital who managed to get you good news faster than predicted!!

And what is the lesson we learned for next year? Traverse City? Yeah? Or maybe you just come back down here so we can get a better look at Avedon's work? heh heh heh.

That's (not really mine, but what the hell) the good news for today....

I love you all, especially my mom's healthy boobs.

The kid.

Lori and I THANK YOU CUCCA

Providing a "vent space" was a GREAT idea Jess. Obviously you know us all well. And, too, we're anxious to hear from our 'Founder'.

R Vs W will get me going too, Lori. Just the very thought of losing that inroad terrifies the life out of me. I'd suggest moving north but there's truly NO assurance you'll ever meet kindred spirits here (unless you move in with John and me).

Three weeks from election. Gosh. Gee whiz. Where DOES she buy her glasses frames??? I DO feel better knowing there's a firm base beneath the chosen followers though. Or is that above them? Obviously there's a base at SOME location.

SEAN? LORI? We've ALL given you so many thoughts on the name of that car...how can she still be traveling through the neighborhood without a handle? Next blog around I totally insist that you've settled on her designation. Tommy drives Buck; Jess is in Joe Junior and I trust my Gypsy. Even Jas has a vanity plate announcing the departure (assuming you're reading the plate) MNY PIT. Think that's it, but you get the point.

Jess, Janie is coming over for wine and cheese and maybe a pajama party, depending on how much of the former, tomorrow. Tom Marshall defaulted on the kitties in his house in a most apalling way and the dinner we shared at the Cabbage Shed Saturday night found Janie unable to even speak to him. Generations of kitties have departed the Marshall home and he is now down to only one, courtesy of the cat door to the outside. Something about traffic AND coyotes. Multiple troubles for kitties in the north. IF there's a cat door. Doesn't it make you wish you could electrically shock your kitties into staying in your yard? Sorry. I told Janie I wouldn't tell you because you had already formed an opinion when Tom wouldn't accept Jean and Janie's offers (and your own) to spay and neuter those kitties for free. As evil as Aggie is I'd never in my life wish the kind of neglect that's available out there on her. She's never bitten me and I sure don't plan to bite her.

I'm totally in the market for some wonderful news. Not just sure where I'm going to find it but I plan to dredge some great information up from whatever depths they're bury'd.

I love all of you guys. Please, keep in contact. Ma

Thanks!

Thanks to the both of you Mama Judy and Sister Jess.  I guess I feel that the "cool kids" feel they have some kind of cool club and anyone can join.  You just need to hang your own beliefs, thoughts, ideas and individualism on the coat rack at the door. Never again to think independently. I sent y'all an email I received on Sarah Palin, I'm not pressing my election thoughts, just like debating. The first person to respond was......Stacey.  Jess, you remember Stacey don't you? Alan's wife. Sigh. The perfect example of the phrase, "Having a battle of the wits with an unarmed person"  She copied and pasted this whole page on abortion, describing each part of the process, describing the different types, stories from abortion survivors and then about 1/2 dozen bible verses. Nowhere in her response were there any thoughts of her own about Palin. She is focusing her vote soly on abortion issues. Screw the economy, health care or bail outs. Palin is against abortion, Obama is pro choice. Her decision is made. People like this terrify the shit out of me. When has a personal opinion on abortion come up in the White House with Regan, Bush, Clinton or Dubya? Did I miss a news conference one day where major decisions were based on this belief? 

I'm glad I don't go to church. I have my beliefs, some I think are fear based. Don't renounce anything, you never know. I really do hate that, almost seems hypocritical which is one thing I absolutely abhor with religious pious people. 

Well, that's about all with my sermon on the mount! 

I love you all and thank you for letting me vent and think out loud. Hope all is well with everyone.  

The as yet still unnamed old lady car is out and somewhat driving.  We took it around the block as mosquito patrol. Needs a new ball joint and the juices flushed. We'll see what else after that. Sounds really cool!!

Have a great week everyone!

View from the hill

That's a VERY tiny take off on the Sermon on the Mount...I doubt I created much confusion.

Note to Lori: I agree completely with everything Jess had to say to you. Hopefully that point made it through my convoluted blog a while back.

Note to Jess: Thank you for listening all those years. Hopefully watching reinforced a little too. You are the most amazing legacy I could have hoped to create. It's fascinating to me that Lori and Tommy were raised in a 'church' environment and took away from that the same lessons Jess and Jas were given in a completely non-congregational setting. It's always seemed far more affirmative for me to try to live by the golden rule because it is the right thing and because I selected it as the 'right thing.' I didn't need a group of same thinking people around me for encouragement.

I sort of think that maybe what you guys took away from your parents may well have been a sense of human morality and the knowledge that you had the personal freedom to choose. I've always known, Lori, that your Mom and Dad had a need for and enjoyed being a part of the congregation, and too, what the "group" had to say. But they've NEVER been preachy with John and I. And I sure don't see your Mom as any sort of unopinionated shrinking violet. I get a sense from her that she values the ability to choose (at least in SOME things).

I know she wasn't too thrilled about cohabitating without the proper ID and I may have mentioned something to the effect that "you never really KNOW someone until you've lived with them first." So we obviously disagree on some things but I think we may have more similarities than even Elaine knows. Lori you make your own decisions and they're always based on kindness, morality, and total willingness to step up to the plate for the needs of others. Somehow you managed to leave a home steeped in organized religion with the most important and true tenets of "religion." And Jess, you totally GOT IT too, without the organization. Maybe we shouldn't ignore the very real fact that BOTH of you girls choose to be caregivers because it's your very nature to be that. None of your parents taught you those attributes. You guys came out of the chute already preformed with your own sense of morality.

Tabula rasa is a GREAT theory but you girls are the exceptions that prove the theory wrong. Teaching by words and example may be reinforcing, but for those born without a heart, there's nothing to reinforce. And walking your own path sure isn't always as much fun as filling a football field with a few of your closest friends all shouting the same slogans.

OK. That's the view from the hill. Not sure I'm getting a lot of support from above though. Just heard some thunder joining the downpour.

And I'm not ignoring the recipe exchange. I'm just a little technically challenged.

Love you guys, Ma

Child of heathens

Lori.... how I love you. I think you and Sean are two of the most decent, hard working, honest people I know. To me, that is more "god like" than the vast majority of the church goers I know. In my world, the way you live your life, the things you do in this life, prove who you are and where you belong in the afterlife, if there is one. I may not have been raised to believe in a higher power, but I was raised with morals and a knowledge that you were to treat people as you expected to be treated yourself. There are a ton of things that the bible tells us that should be meant for all people, not just those who go to church on holidays and pray for forgiveness instead of actually doing something to make this world a better place. Every day you go to work you are making a difference in many people's lives just with your spirit and dedication. You don't have to work where you're working, you chose to work there. And it is in that choice that you prove that you are indeed a better person and that you have respect for human suffering. You do your part to make those people's lives better, not only the people you meet at work, but everyone around you. To me, that is living to a higher standard and there is no need for prayer or reflection.... you're living by god's rules. You and Sean give much more than you often have to give.... isn't that an example of how the bible asks us how to live? I don't know.... prayer and being saved aren't my thing and I know you and Tom were raised to live by those rules. It's something that has always made me feel like I was a bad influence on Tom. I can only hope that my own behavior, minus that horrible potty mouth I seem to have acquired over the last few years, is good enough to make the Van clan feel comfortable that I'm not a heathen myself. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have read just about every religious text there is to read in my own search for "what it all means" and they all say the same thing. Be good, do good and always be honest with yourself and others. Don't need to believe in god, krishna, mohammad or the buddah to do those things. Just do em! That's you my friend. It's who you are and you did that yourself. Enough from this corner of the world, may I not be struck down by lightning now.

Love to all, Jess