Take Joy!

Easier Said Than Done . . .

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, interior animals;

Be kind anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;

Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, int he final analysis, it is between you and your God;

It was never between you and them anyway.”

— Mother Teresa

Thanksgiving

I have been trying to read
the script cut in these hills—
a language carved in the shimmer of stubble
and the solid lines of soil, spoken
in the thud of apples falling
and the rasp of corn stalks finally bare.
The pheasants shout it with a rusty creak
as they gather in the fallen grain,
the blackbirds sing it
over their shoulders in parting,
and gold leaf illuminates the manuscript
where it is written in the trees.
Transcribed onto my human tongue
I believe it might sound like a lullaby,
or the simplest grace at table.
Across the gathering stillness
simply this: “For all that we have received,
dear God, make us truly grateful.”

Lynn Ungar, Blessing the Bread

Busy (relatively)

Gratuitous Small Black Dog Photo (otherwise, Bella Helps Take Out Trash)

I've been working in the house since my muscle issues seem to be in abeyance (at least for now). In the past couple of weeks, I've vaccumed and swept, cleaned and re-littered the cat pans, resigned myself to my 'sewing room' becoming a storage room for the forseeable future, and moved furniture (as my lower back reminds me . . . ). My sewing area is now in the living room, simply because it's just too cold to sew in the back; the cat door is in that room and someone is continually going in and out. I moved the small bookcases from the living room into the dining room and the big table from the dining room to the living room. My rocking chair is now in the dining room also, and my reading lamp. It's a bit chilly, because there are two windows and the door to the basement in there, but I can watch the leaves out one window, and it's a cozy setup.

Today I bought a new battery for the car. It was below 20 degrees a couple of nights ago; the next morning I had to go for my monthly INR check and the car started, but it was sluggish. I went to Advance today where they checked it for me and installed a new one when the tester advised me that it was Time For A New One. I can't remember whether I bought a battery since I got the car (5 or so years ago), but I do remember buying one for my Saturn ten years or so ago—it was only $50-$60. The new one was $159! But it's warrantied for three years and supposed to be good for six (which means I need a new one in five, just to be safe).

Next week, tires. My current set won't pass inspection again, and I may as well get them before winter. I live on top of a hill, at the end of a dead-end road, and it's shady. No traffic, other than the occasional person turning around, so I am pretty much last on the plowing list if there's snow. Of course, if there's snow, I don't go anywhere (I have a Subaru with AWD, so I COULD . . . but it isn't the vehicle that has problems, it's the operator. I know my limitations, and in snow/ice, they are legion.) So sometime next week I shall hunt up the local tire store and see how much that will set me back.

Visited the fabric store this afternoon, too; I was looking for the batting for those microwave potato bags, but it was sold out and reordered. I'm planning to make a potato bag or two and a set of those hot bowl cozie things for Karolyn et al for Christmas, and they require cotton batting/fabric/thread or they can't go in the microwave. So instead of an $8.99 package of batting, I bought three spools of cotton thread (white, black, and ecru, which should cover most anything I'll use), 2 yards of fabric for a top next summer, a yard of diagonal red/white candy stripe just because, and half a yard of doll clothing stuff. Also material for a lap blanket—chicken blocks, a chickenwire print, and a green print, which the owner sold me for $7.99 a yard instead of the marked $11.99. How could I refuse? I'll excavate in The Stash to see what I have to make bowls from; I know I don't have any baked-potato-print, but I think I'll look for some online.

And I have unearthed the doll I'd begun after Daddy died, when we divvied up Mom's clothes. This will be a beanbag jester, made from Julie McCullough's old Jess pattern (modifications by me—hands with fingers and a more elaborate face), and the body is from one of Mom's old skirts. I'd gotten that sewn up, but the rest is waiting. Plus, I found (in an unlikely box in the basement) the ten yards of original PolySuede that I like to use for faces and hands. I bought it at Walmart in Concord after the manufacturer announced they wouldn't be selling it retail anymore (what is called PolySuede now isn't the same thing at all; thicker and less malleable). Apparently they were planning to sell to the trade for car headliners. I wonder how that worked?

Maybe I can finish it next week. It would be nice to actually accomplish something creative.

 . . . . . . .

Also, I saw a deer across the street this afternoon, just after I got back from shopping and was taking the groceries (mostly catfood, as usual) in. A lovely doe, grayish brown, browsing along the road's edge. I stood watching for a minute, but then the mailman came up and she spooked.

Armistice Day, 1918

What’s all this hubbub and yelling,
Commotion and scamper of feet,
With ear-splitting clatter of kettles and cans,
Wild laughter down Mafeking Street?

O, those are the kids whom we fought for
(You might think they’d been scoffing our rum)
With flags that they waved when we marched off to war
In the rapture of bugle and drum.

Now they’ll hang Kaiser Bill from a lamp-post,
Von Tirpitz they’ll hang from a tree….
We’ve been promised a ‘Land Fit for Heroes’—
What heroes we heroes must be!

And the guns that we took from the Fritzes,
That we paid for with rivers of blood,
Look, they’re hauling them down to Old Battersea Bridge
Where they’ll topple them, souse, in the mud!

But there’s old men and women in corners
With tears falling fast on their cheeks,
There’s the armless and legless and sightless—
It’s seldom that one of them speaks.

And there’s flappers gone drunk and indecent
Their skirts kilted up to the thigh,
The constables lifting no hand in reproof
And the chaplain averting his eye….

When the days of rejoicing are over,
When the flags are stowed safely away,
They will dream of another wild ‘War to End Wars’
And another wild Armistice day.

But the boys who were killed in the trenches,
Who fought with no rage and no rant,
We left them stretched out on their pallets of mud
Low down with the worm and the ant.

—Robert Graves