March is Roaring In. (We Hope.)

March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.
March comes in like a lamb, goes out like a lion.
Or so the saying goes.

As folk wisdom, it's pretty accurate. Especially if you don't insist on March's entry being 12:00m on March 1 of any given year.
The theory is the same as the groundhog seeing his shadow, just a month later.

Summer seems to come sooner and in a more orderly manner when Spring is a series of thaws and refreezes. When Springtime is a Battle for Supremacy against the forces of Old Man Winter.

So, we await one more winter storm, hoping it will be the last one. This one is possibly going to be the Worst of the Winter. A Last Blast.

I, for one, certainly, hope so.

The winter started early for me, with a death.
And there have been deaths all winter long. Few if any have been winter related, but that really doesn't matter. The winter of 2013-2014 has been the Deadly Winter to me. Even now I'm praying that it doesn't end with a (specific) death. I am afraid for my friend. (Any prayers or the equivalent that you offer I thank you for in friend's name.)

I hate this winter.
Hate it, hate it, hate it.

When March roars in, I will be standing on my porch (the one with the last storm's tree limb still thrown on  it) and I will be roaring right back.
"Good bye, good riddance you sorry old killer, you." I may even throw in a few bad words, if it won't shock anyone  too much. Or maybe even if it does.

Afterward, we can celebrate my daughter's birthday with no tornadoes and no blizzards, the way it usually happens.

Happy Birthday, Tammy.

Close the (Bathroom) Door, Already

Public restrooms.
Need I say more?

But of all the problems with public restrooms, amid the litter and the empty rolls and soaps, the most annoying thing I encounter is the doors that won't close and stay closed.

How hard can it be to make a door that latches? Pioneers did it with no (well, minimal) tools. A stick of wood, a slot for the stick, and a mechanism to lift the stick. Pretty basic, don't you think?

I guess that that is too simple in this modern mechanized age. Why make a simple latch when a complicated series of switches, tumblers, knobs, and dials will make us (public entities) look so much more avant-garde?

Never mind if they don't work properly -- or at all. We don't want people spending times in the bathrooms anyway, using up our toilet paper and running out our water. We don't have to provide restrooms anyway. We just do it as a courtesy. (And to avoid clean-ups in Aisle 13.)

Well, when I have the choice, I will choose a place that has a bathroom where the stall doors can be closed securely instead of a place careless of privacy.

The maintenance of the public restroom speaks clearly of how the business thinks of their customers. Are they worthy of work and time, or aren't they?

And do we, as consumers, need to know anything more?

Welcome Armaggedon

I think it is time.
The world should end.
For all of us.

The only reason I can't end my own world is because I can't inflict that pain on Hailey. I can't even wish for my world to end, because I can't inflict that pain on Hailey.

But if the world itself came to an end, Hailey would be there, too.
No pain for her, whatever there might be in the next world.

If there is such a thing.

She could see her Mammaw Candy
She could run and laugh and play with her Pappaw. She could hold his hand and they could walk to the park together.
Something she has wished for.

And Warren, he could get to know his Pappaw. The man he brought smiles to, the man who had him laughing. The man he called first "a-a" and then "yaya" while now, months later, none of us have names yet.
The man who lit up when the boy was put in his arms.
The light of love and the light of happiness.
Laughter is oh so much that same light.


For myself, I want NOTHING.
Rest and peace and nothing.

I am broken.
I have been broken for a very long time.
I have been broken so long that I doubt I can be fixed.

Those that would fix me can't; those that could fix me (maybe) won't.

And it really doesn't matter.

But if the world were to end, the whole world, we could all be NOT sorry, NOT guilty, NOT alone;abandoned;hurting.


But, for now, the world goes on.
There will be yet another endless tomorrow.
And another.

What Am I?

I wonder.

When I lost my Rex, it seems that I lost a large part of my identity.

This wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for the huge chunk of me that I lost when I lost my job and couldn't get another one.

Since then, life itself seems to be chipping away at the essential "me."

I got a job and couldn't do it.
I write but have no way to share.
Shared writing has become more difficult and less frequent.
When I do write by hand, my fingers and thumb go numb, and I have muscle spasms all the way up my arm.

I am no longer a wife.
I'm still a mother, but my children are grown. (One is something of a big baby, but she's becoming an adult at a greatly decelerated rate.)
I'm a grandmother, but I can rarely see or take care of the babies, due to economics  (I'm usually literally out of gas.)When I do have them, they frazzle me, and it's not so easy to just take them home. I don't really want to, anyway.

I'm a writer, but losing the physical ability to write.

I'm a friend, but I have little to offer or share with my friends, when I can even keep in touch with them.

So, I am wondering, what am I?

Too Many Good-byes

There are too many people dying.

Do more people die in January (or January and February)  than other months, or does it just seem that way because we don't have fair-weather distractions?

Phyllis Walls was killed in a head-on collision on what I think was a familiar road. New Year's Day. What a great start to the New Year for her family, and fore her friends, even the long-ago-and-far-away ones. How horrible it is to have someone just not be there anymore. How horrible and how hard,

There has been another death, too, in my husband's family. Kevin Mullins. The husband of Rex's niece Eva, has passed away, and the whole family mourns yet again. They brought in the New Year in the hospital, with this horrific outcome. There have been too many deaths in this family in the last three to six months, and there are always too many deaths in the world.

A writer friend is sitting in a hospital waiting for her father to die. He went for one thing, developed another, and it has gone downhill from there. 

People should at least die from what's wrong with them, if they must die. (As we all must.)

It always seems to be wrong people who are dying, too. 

I don't mean the drug addicts, or even mass murderers, because I can understand that they may need extra chances to get it right,

I mean people with horrid diseases, slowly dying from the inside out.

I mean people who will never have independent lives again, and if they were in their right minds, would they want to live the dependent lives they are being forced to?

I even include people who are quietly soul starving, who live futile, desperate lives. Who perhaps want to "go home" or maybe they would only like to rest, for a really really long time.

Why can't these people be taken with such suddenness? Why is it the people with busy full lives who just disappear from the day-to-day of their families, their friends, their loved ones?

Well, life and love are mysteries, or so they say. 

Unsolved Mysteries.

Unfair Mysteries.

And it is only the 9th of January. 

The Working World: adapted from Facebook post.

I hate the job.
I hate the hours.
I hate the work.
I have to see straight lines and color variations. I can do neither of those things under the best of circumstances. And they make me wear safety glasses over my glasses -- y'all can maybe guess how exactly helpful it is to have an extra lens over your lenses when already your vision cannot be corrected to 20/20.

Plus my feet hurt, and my back twists (not as part of the job) I have muscle spasms in my back, in my butt, in my fingers. Comfy shoes are against the rules. We must wear steel toed shoes. They aren't too uncomfortable, but 12 hours and concrete floors are hard, even if I were walking on air.
My hips feel as if they are going to just pop out of their sockets, and that scares me.
I spend my breaks in the bathroom so I can just take off my shoes.




I really wish I didn't have to wear the safety glasses. That extra lens has my vision all discombobulated. But they don't have the side pieces to slip onto glasses, and it's unacceptable to buy my own and wear them. I asked.

Of course, two days doesn't equal a fair chance, so I will be going back tomorrow as I'm scheduled to, but I have to tell you -- it's really really hard, and really really painful. I hope/wish they would find me another job. there's too much waiting on the next person or the last person on the job I am doing. It would be much easier if I could stay steady busy.

But I'll keep trying. Who will come and roll me to the car when mu legs won't support me as I roll out of bed one fine morning? I wish we were having the blizzard. But too much rest may be just as bad, so maybe I'll just roll out in the morning and roll on in

New

I have a job to report to Monday! Hooray!

You would not believe how difficult getting this job has been. It seems that everything on earth has been against it happening.

First, I lost my Internet, so there could be no instant email connection.
I lost my home phone at the same time, so there would be no phone calls there. I was prepared for that, using the cell phone  number, so that wasn't really a big deal.


The cell phone quit working -- sometimes. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. It would ring in a call, but the only sound when I answered would be the echoing emptiness of a bad cell connection -- that tunnel sound. Sometimes I would get calls with no numbers.
The most fun was when I would get voice mails -- multiple voice mails -- without ever getting a phone call.
This is where the calling thing would get crazy -- because one has to call the voice mail to collect the voice mail messages. One of which, I could make out, barely, was from the lady at MultiColor.

Thank God for managing capable sisters. Because Rita stepped in and made the call back and got everything communicated to me, and there was a hectic couple of days as I rushed about for drug screening and trying to get my phone straightened out.

They told me they would send me a replacement phone and I would be able to transfer my  minutes and my number. Wouldn't need to change my number. So I sent in an updated application with the same old number on it.

Well, that was wrong. For whatever reason, they couldn't transfer the number, when I did get the replacement phone. It wasn't compatible, or too old, or something. I didn't understand. They did transfer the minutes.

BUT -- you knew there was a but, didn't you? -- when I make a call on this replacement phone that does NOT have my old number, no one on the other end can hear me. I can hear them. They cannot hear me.

So, I am waiting again, for another replacement phone, while I am waiting to get word about this job. No Internet access, no way to call out without borrowing a phone and using up someone else's minutes, and the job had the wrong damn number -- in triplicate. Plus holidays in the way, libraries closed, or shortened hours.

I did finally get to a library and emailed the contact with the temp service that does the hiring for the factory. I explained briefly there are problems with the phone(s), and I offered two other numbers for them -- one was my sister's, that they already had and the other was the borrowed  minutes phone.

But I did finally get the call, and I am going back to work on Monday.

A new job leading to a new life is a very good way to start a new year.

Christmas is Coming, Full steam

This year Christmas will be a mess. It will be sad, because of Rex's absence. I'm already missing the shopping marathon -- the one day of the year he would go out and do some real shopping. How he enjoyed buying things! Although he admittedly never cared for the shopping part of it.
He never cared for a lot of the associated things. He liked watching the kids open presents. He liked buying presents. He liked when his other daughter would visit, and was often hurt that he was alone in that. He liked having a good buffet laid out. (He would have preferred a meal, but with no set time for visitors and visiting, he came to appreciate the cold cut tray and the veggie tray and the devilled eggs. He loved his devilled eggs. Even when they weren't so tasty.

Anyway, Christmas will be different this year for us.

The biggest difference will be the gifts not here for the kids. Well, for Hailey. Warren's never had a Christmas, so he won't miss anything. Hailey will miss it for him, though. She knows how it's supposed to be.
I do have some things put away for the kids, and will spend a little to get some things. I have one substantial gift for Babby, bought before the Bad Thing happened. I'm hoping to find something equal for Hailey-Girl.
Don't know when, don't know how, but I have faith in the magicks of the Season. I've seen it all fall into place too many times. (Or seen what looked like disaster turn into the highlight of the day.)
Yes, I have faith, and I will keep my eyes open. And, I hope, my heart.

Christmas is coming for me and for my girls, and for the babies, and for the whole wide world, even those who call it by other names.

For us, here, even the weather has been doing its job in making spirits bright.
Snow and ice, ice and snow.
Lights reflecting and a frosty glow.
It's cold, cold, cold

We will welcome it with all the love we have to give.

That is what matters

Is "Snow Emergency" Legally Valid?

We're in the grip of our first snow emergency of the 2013-2014 winter. Winter Storm Cleon. With Dion already following closely.

Now, this isn't about what makes a snow emergency in any specific place. Minnesota and North Dakota would probably laugh at what Cincinnati calls an emergency.Maybe even at what they would call a significant snowfall.

But, the fact is, Cincinnati communities are calling snow emergencies of various levels.

Big whooping deal. It means, for the most part, that communities can write tickets and write off damage to cars parked on the streets.

They say not to go out unless absolutely necessary.
But who decides what is necessary?

I can tell you who does NOT decide.
Service industry workers. They have to go to work or lose their jobs.
The owners of various businesses don't care much if the police say don't go out.
The police don't care much, either. If you are driving slowly and carefully, they aren't likely to chase you down and possibly cause an accident, as well as keeping you both out when you could be getting in somewhere.
But the gas stations HAVE to stay open.
McDonald's MUST stay open.
Facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes, by their very nature, need to stay open. But must they insist on workers coming in in a "snow emergency"?
(I don't know what they could do instead. They should work up snow emergency protocols. Reduced staff, maybe sleep-breaks for people who will remain instead of go out I believe some hospitals do do that.)

Not only do these businesses insist on insisting, they punish those who don't risk life and limb to serve coffee to idiots. (Road personnel excepted from this category.) They write them up(disciplinary action); they brand them as unreliable; they reduce their hours; they even fire them.
They do not pay the fines for tickets received.
They do not pay for damages caused by an accident when their employees should never have been on the road in the first place.
They do not compensate for extra gas burned in longer, slower drives.
They don't pay hospital bills for slip and slide crashes.
They do NOT pay for funerals.

It's not just the service industry. There are factories with this same mindset. Never mind that their product is nonessential -- they have quotas that must be met, come hell or high water. (Hell or high snowdrifts?) The work must be done.

No mere employee can protest any of these disciplinary actions by pleading a snow emergency. The designation has no standing in labor law.

So, a "Snow Emergency" is a money maker for the municipality.
A "Snow Emergency" is an out for insurance companies, who will not pay (easily) for an accident caused when the driver wasn't supposed to be driving.
A "Snow Emergency" is no reason to not go out; thus says American Industry.

So, I ask you, why bother.
Why bother?

Password

There's been a new spate of articles about unsafe or insecure passwords and how people use things they can remember as passwords. Probably to go along with the big shopping season the world indulges in every year.

There's validity to it of course. If you are giving out banking or credit card information, as is necessary when shopping, you want -- or should want -- your password to be as secure as humanly possible. (Please note the word humanly.)

The articles are baffling, though. You aren't supposed to make a password that you can easily remember, but you are also not supposed to write it down and keep  it anywhere remotely around your computer or on your person.
I guess that leaves the sock drawer out.

The articles go on and on and on about how people do this or do that silliness for their passwords PASSWORD is an easy frequently-used example. Or abc123. The writer talks about how obvious this can be and how it can let people into your accounts.

What the article doesn't say is what accounts. If you are on the Internet much, you need passwords for just about everything. Newspapers. Videos. Inspirational email clubs. Prayer chains. Comic strips.

I don't know about you, but if someone wants to know what I'm reading in the newspaper (with no paper involved) that badly, I don't mind making it easy for them. Since I'll probably share the articles on Facebook or other social media, they don't even really have to hack.

Same with videos.
There is a pointless need for password after password after password. It's hardly the fault of the user to make them easy when they are unimportant. Maybe not to the page owners, but to the user, who only wants to read Dear Abby or The Far Side, the secret code to do so is unimportant.

In fact, it is a major pain in the brain.
I mean, who cares?

I would be more impressed with password safety articles that addressed specific sites and/or behaviors. My banking password is more secure than my newspaper password. And, yes, I have the same password for a few different newspapers. Although it's simpler to read the free pages that can be searched for and found.

If an article wants my attention, be specific. My Amazon account has a different password. My bills each have their own password, which is not, when possible, the account number. Address those points and passwords, content writer. Explain to the uninitiated why abc123 isn't good to access your Swiss bank account. If they don't already know that, I'm not sure how effective your writing will be. They already seem to be lacking a bit of computer savvy.

But writing for the computer experienced with no new information and with a hodge podge of heaped together statistics isn't winning you any fans, either.

Tell me something new.