Do you have a shopping bag to call your own?

I have to admit, I don't -- have a particular shopping bag for my groceries from the store (or anywhere). And I say, shame on me. What am I waiting for? A personal invitation from a tree or some polluted lake?

Publix (the grocery store where I shop) is selling a bag for $25.00. There was a time that there was some confusion with Publix people who were bringing their own bags. (I know. It's so hard to believe something like that, but it's true.)

I don't need to buy one, I have plenty of bags around here I could use, but I'm thinking --"Why aren't I doing this? Why aren't I taking a bag with me when I go out?"

Possible Answer: It's not what I'm used, too, is about the only thing I can come up with aside from forgetting, which gets me back to not what I am used to.

And, I usually buy so many things at one time -- but, I'm seriously thinking about changing my lifestyle about this situation.

The store is close to me, so why can't I shop more often and take in my own bag? Or, I could just reuse all the freakin' Publix bags that I currently use for trash bags. One always ends up with too many of these brown plastic crinkle things.

Anyway, I might be late getting on the train, but I’m buying a World Pass and I'm going to make this lifestyle change. I'll put my own shopping bags in the car, and then they will be there when I need them. (Then, after I bring them in, I'll forget them again -- no, scratch that -- that's negative thinking -- erase, erase, erase!)

I want to make some lifestyle changes anyway. I don't see anything wrong with helping the environment as much as I can because I am after all, using it for my workstation.

The Battle of the Ants

...is not a new movie. It's a battle that's been raging in my home. I live in Florida. I know there are bugs, but these dear, dear little ants -- too many to make friends with -- are just everywhere to be found. I realize they need a place to go, and I realize that I have plants around my house and they like that, but ...

We were losing.
So.
We called in a Professional.

Yes, we bit the bullet and got prices and choose the best price, and the new bug man came to put down some stuff that will take care of our problem.

And is that all that happened?
No. Not quite.

I have mentioned from time to time, shelves -- shelves are very important in a small and tiny home. I love my shelves.

In the closet that has the attic opening, there are shelves on both sides, and across the back. Holding lots and lots of books and other memorabilia.
So.
The new bugman has to go up in the attic to fog the attic. It's to be done one time, and that is supposed to take care of that -- for at least a year, I guess.
So.
On the way down from the ladder (a three step ladder), the bugman tries to 'steady' himself, on the shelves in the closet.
When they came down, it was the loudest noise I've ever heard in a house. And, no, he was not hurt. One strip of the shelving was ripped out of the wall, three shelves come away from the wall.

He quickly told me that the shelves were not installed properly (didn't know that shelves in a closet were required to meet a code that held 200 + pound human beans), that they should not have been 'held up by just a nail' (good grief, like that was even a little bit true!), and, oh yeah, he said he was 'sorry about that."

(I have to admit, I stood there shocked at his reaction. The expression on my face was, expressionless. I have no expression for such an extreme lack of intelligence and common sense. After all, he did just cause a huge margin of damage in my house...I mean, somewhere, termites are laughing.)

Lots of books on my futon right now.

Looks like, the ants are (still) winning.

So.
I'm leaving this note on my door --

Dear Ants,

Please accept our sincerest and most heartfelt apologies. We regret calling in the likes of Human Beans to act as a mediator betwixt us and thee. Can you forgive us?

We wish only to live in peace. Perhaps we could make a peace offering to you. Perhaps we could deposit bread crumbs and/or dried cakes on the boundaries of our property for you to feast on. We could leave raisins, also. Rumor has it that ants love raisins, yes?

Please let us know if you accept our terms before the humans of the world do more damage to our home than you ever could.

And, just so you know, we are firing the humans. (They are rude and careless things that we sometimes find so annoying...)

Respectfully yours,

Your humble neighbors of the planet.

Can you indentify the source?

There are so many phrases that we use daily – have you given a thought to where they might have come from:

Do you know who would be credit for any of these:

1. X marks the spot
2. Shiver me timbers
3. Three sheets to the wind
4. As cold as any stone
5. Rhyme nor reason
6. In the twinkling of an eye
7. Hoist your own petard
8. It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
9. Noise proves nothing.
10. No great artist ever sees things as they really are, if he did he would cease to be an artist
11. As you sow so shall you reap.
12. Let not the sun go down on your wrath.

Give yourself a little quiz. Share it around the blog boards, if you wish. Add a few as it goes round, if you wish. This is a unique little way to refresh your memory and redirect our focus should we find our mind needs a wee bit of a refresh.
Good day --
have a sunny one!

~~Miss Roxie

I lost my chocolates.....

not just once, but twice.

One of my marvelous sister in laws (I have two - and they are both the personification of the uniqueness of the mysteries of the differences in the world - they are absolutely marvelous. )

anyway,
Kim gave me a box of chocolates. For all the wonderful things I do, she said.

And these are chocolates from a very wonderful place - Hoffmans. Oh, my gosh, they are (not) to die(t) for! So, I wanted to eat these chocolates - without sharing. Now, we all know, deep down inside, that not to share is a sin.

But, I decided not to share, so I hide my chocolates after I had but one, and when I wanted another (I was really trying to pace myself), it was then I realized I couldn't find them! Much to my chargrin.

So, now, I became panicky, especially after a couple of days, and so it was that I confessed to my family that I had hid the chocolates from Hoffmans. I listened to all the outrage that was't bestoned upon me for the Chocolate Crime I had committed-- and then they helped me look for the chocolates, thinking, of course, there would be a reward in it for them when we found them, but....

We didn't find the chocolates.

Two days after that, I found them.
I was alone when I found them.
I ate one.
I still didn't want to share.
So,
I hid them again!

And, now, today, again, I cannot find them!!

I shall keep you posted on the Lost Chocolate Mystery. In the meantime, I shall keep the house temperature at 70 degrees, so as not to melt the missing chocolates!

All Out Of Love

...no, not me, Romeo.

Romeo, Romeo,
what was his whereart?
This he knew not.
He doth did love, but love for what?
He wearried foes and friends alike
with the fascinations
his love didth spike.

Everyone knows about Romeo. The Teenage Romeo in love with thirteen year old Juliet from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was "out" he said. And Benvolio asked, "of love?"

And which then, Madam Blueberry and I both sang the song by Air Supply, "I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you, I know you were right, believing for so long...." and then we laughed.

Madam B is very irritated with Romeo's carrying ons. She feels he is so immature, and just in love with love, or what he even thinks love might be, and the physical aspects of love, and takes no time to get to know someone. I think she might want to smack him upside the head to prevent his troubles to come!

But, least anyway, I was just thinking that, yet, again, another Shakespearian phrase - Out of Love - made it to the airways with the song by Air Supply.

And then I realized Air Supply sang other songs using "love" and "out" -- "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" -- which, when I thought about it, that is what Romeo is doing. He's making love out of nothing at all! Well, maybe angst - Maybe he's making love out of the angst of not knowing what to do with himself.

Poor Romeo. Of course, it's too late to warn him.

"Why would Shakespeare write such a play?" I asked to no one in particular. This gives me pause. To think that I would, or even could, answer a question concerning why Shakespeare would do something. I am no scholar. I merely guess at the answers to mine own questions and musings. And we have only read to Act 2. There is much to understand here, no doubt.

But, if I had to make a quick stab at it, it would be to say that those young people who don't learn early to curb their implusive tendencies may quickly find themselves in a position to lose everything faster than they could breathe a heavy sigh or call for mommy.

Young people who come into families with much excess baggage and then didn't bother to exercise their own minds and thoughts and ideas about things, could swiftly find themselves drawing their sword against and possibly killing someone they are hardly accquainted with because ....because...he was unaware of his Observer. (Although, most young people these days don't carry swords, so it's probably not as much as a problem.)

And he
Was not thinking. Was not listening.
Poor Romeo. A slave to the emotion of wanting love, of wanting to be a man, and thinking his way of loving was the answer, just got all caught up in the moment! -- Thank you, William Shakespeare, for this Romeo who serves as a horrible warning of the question, Why did it all have to go and get so complicated?


More to come on Romeo and Juliet ~~

Where now?

It's not that I don't have anything to say. It's just that I haven't been saying it. It's like I turned 60 -- and I decided to get quiet. I have 16 posts in 'save for draft' ... I just can't bring myself to come out of the place I'm in right now.

I have so many things on my mind. And so many things to do. My 'to do' list is about 3 pages long and incomplete at that. Maybe everyone has one of those. Maybe they call it everyday life.

Right now, I'm calling it 'Overwhelmed' ~ which for me seems to be a constant state.

"Unless I accept my virtues, I most certainly will be overwhelmed by my faults."
~ Robert Coleman

(I have been counseling someone on this very issue)

"How embarrassing to be human." ~ Kurt Vonnegut

(I hear the news and read the paper and think, "what is _wrong_ with people? when will we stop hurting each other so foolishly and cruelly?)

"Have a heart that never hardens and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."
~~Charles Dickens

(I like that quote. I want to be just like that when I grow up.)

"Always behave like a duck, keep calm and unruffled on the surface, but paddle like the devil beneath. ~ Lord Barbidan

(That is what I am doing, paddling as fast as I can and taking notes.)

The Mom Song

LOL!! Everyone should write a few verses of their own!!

I think I'll do that later.

Today I am 60

Wow. I never thought about being 60 until I was 50.
I never thought about being 50 until I was 49.
I never thought about being 49 until I was 48.
I never thought about being 48.
I do remember being 45. That's probably one of my last age memories.
All my children were born later than was normal for women who had babies - 29, 39, and 42. That probably made me wiser and more tired-er. And, at that time, part of the 'high risk' generation. Seems that changed. More women are having babies later and not being afraid of it. I wasn't afraid of it at any time. That's just when I happened to have my children.

I'm thinking - what's different today than yesterday? Maybe there are some things that are different than 10 years ago -- I'm not even sure about that. My kids are sure big.

I opted out of a big party. Just not my thing. I worked in my garden today. It was great. All I wanted was more dirt and more plants!

If there is any new wisdom for me this day, it might dawn on me tomorrow morning.

What I did this morning was call my mother. I asked her if she remembered her labor? "What?" she said.
"Your labor," I said, "don't you remember what you were doing 60 years ago today?"
"Well," it wasn't this early," she said!
Then she described the ambulance ride and how she had to go alone to the hospital because my grandmother couldn't drive, and my grandfather was at work, and my father was in the Air Force stationed in the Panama Canal Zone, so there she was 17 and off to the hospital all by herself!
My great grandmother got there before anyone else did and before I was born. Curly blonde hair and Blue-eyes which are both gone now. Blonde gave over to brownish reddish and blue gave over to hazel.

Actually, many things have given over to many things, but I guess when they come on slowly, you just don't notice them all that much. That could be good and and that could be bad. I suppose I've experienced a bit of both.

Well, I'm invited to have some sushi and wine with friends, so I'm off to do that. We'll play a little guitar and sing some songs.

I'll check in with myself tomorrow and see how different I am being 60. But somehow inside, I think I will always be 24.

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

William Shakespeare

Okay- well, I've got a few winkles...

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.

Abraham Sutzkever

I think that is what I'm doing! And it's really fun.

Old age: A great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold, you may have escaped, not from one master but from many. ~ Plato

Okay, well, I can agree with that, too....

The Door in the Dark and Tuesday

The Door in the Dark
~~Robert Frost

In going from room to room in the dark,
I reached out blindly to save my face,
But neglected, however lightly, to lace
My fingers and close my arms in an arc.
A slim door got in past my guard,
And hit me a blow in the head so hard
I had my native simile jarred.
So, people and things don't pair any more
With what they used to pair with before.

I had not realized that Robert Frost had a sense of humor so similar to mine. And, I didn't realize, like myself, he walked around in the dark straight away into things that could cause bodily harm.

My thing was a wall. My husband had moved a dresser in from the wall
about 6 inches.
And in the dark, that changes everything.
The wall, because it was not where it was before,
but there, right there in front of my face
now was a place,
a place that I,
gave no thought to protecting with my fingers and my arc --
me as well, encountered, a blow so hard my head bounced, and
I saw the stars that I'd seen last week while outside walking.
Methinks there were no comments regarding a flattering look for the new day.
Just - smash- and there was a road less traveled that had been discovered.
So what's new?
Me and Robert Frost on less traveled roads or more?
Maybe he knows a good story about the

Loads less washed?

Two loads in two baskets merged, tan and yellow could
Time to go was now you see, and I could not wash them both
But being one laundress, long I stood,
And looked through the piles of one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth
(as someone was gardening before morning toast!)

Umm, then there, look the other, just as fair
It may have shown the better claim
Because those grassy stains -
umm, were they wash and wear?
The wearer had brung in some flowers,
now there placed in a vase
to see in their splendor beauty,
Hardly to be ignored
so they each deserved the same reward.

And both that time did equally have
consideration for mud and stains
which one would I choose this day?
But knowing how laundry does not go away
To not come back another day?

I shall be telling this with a sense
that laundry stays and cares not hence
Makes not a difference to diverge and I --
Put the loads together since
Together, in the long run, it makes no difference.

And I so, now, apologize to those for whom this makes no sense,
and whom my be, a greater fan of Robert Frost
than me.