Time

to write something more entertaining when a video beats my best article in "statistics." For those of you who blog, you know what I mean.

For the rest of you it just means I'll be trying harder to entertain. I'm low on Girl Scout cookies, but my connection is gonna hook me up tomorrow. Addiction is a terrible thing.

I am addicted to: the love of my cats and any dog wandering by, my brother's sense of humor, cigarettes (already rolled), coffee, liquor, fudge, pearls. But my friends are my biggest addiction. It's hard to explain it to them sometime. People are a big addiction.

I was handing out posters, looking for my puppy the other day, when this elderly gentleman, parked in front of Food Lion, rolled his window down to ask me if I wanted a free paper. Egypt is Free was the cover...either he was so happy he couldn't wait to share the news or so depressed he didn't want to read it. I didn't ask.

This time of revolution is another peak in the wave that hit France, England and America in the 1700's, so let's not blame too quickly.

"River", his real name, is a revolution in Roanoke, VA. Born in Kent, he works for the city government. At a local restaurant the other night, he was participating in a "date auction" and decided he wasn't getting the right response when he didn't get any bids. So he stripped down to a hard hat---symbolizing the reconstruction of the market building going on right now. For those children out there reading this blog, it was tastefully and strategically placed.

This is Roanoke. People either didn't care, were scrounging for food that night, or booze, or were shocked, as they were supposed to be. Either way, it titillated. It didn't call for stoning, like the Hollins woman who painted themselves red and strolled out on campus. She is now an avant guarde choreographer, who owns a pit bull she adopted in Roanoke. 

This is all beside the point. The point is that something about Roanoke makes people want to get naked. Why? Is is our air of sophistication? Hell, no. But there are several undercurrents running here; the avant guarde in Roanoke itself (!) which means the faction that wants Roanoke to be avant guarde so it will make money. And the native feeling that nudity should be allowed and encouraged...which stems from the fact that Franklin County, directly adjacent to Roanoke, is the Moonshine Capitol of the World. (Moonshine is homemade booze)

It also gets very hot here, due to global warming. Perhaps River, being from a colder country, felt the need for some air.

Still Water Runs Black

No, not doom and gloom today, although Blackberry is no where in sight. When I pulled out his bed and jingle bells last night, the day of empty searching rushed in and I cried, as I should. Probably some student at Radford has him, not know how very big he is going to get. I think they will take him to a shelter sooner, rather than later. He chews everything, and isn't housebroken yet. I am going to alert apartment managers on Monday.

Now that Mubarak is gone, it's too bad Naguib Mahfouz is gone. He would make an excellent leader...Nobel in literature.  Or Khalil Gibran...even if he was Lebanese...what a state Egypt would be then! Leaders worthy of Egypt's past and future.

As for my own small world, it is windy and cool today/night. Spring is coming/here! And I have never been happier to see it come. I hope I am in Scotland when it's spring there...about 4 more months. I'm passing on exposure this time. Marc's not planning to go to Orkney again, but I am. Although it's more boring without him. I'm hoping Megan can come this time. She has a new rash of chickens, but is less interested in them. Being a child is such a fleeting, temporary thing.

I am fostering another dog...haven't named him yet. Lab/Pit mix, looks like. Loves to cuddle. Looks like a black pit bull. I was thinking about naming him Dog Blue. All votes counted and suggestions considered. Come on, folks. Help us out here.

Roll 1 4 Me

Was a friend's car license plate a long time ago. Right now I am in the phase of rolling my own cigarettes. I know, I was supposed to have quit, like Obama. Actually, I hope he does smoke. Smokers need more positive role models. I get tired of hearing about how the original "Marlboro Man" died of lung cancer. Mubarak probably smokes...that's the kind of street cred we have.

Of course, those of you overseas are wondering, "Why wouldn't anyone want to smoke?" And "What's street cred?" Street credibility is how bad, totally cool, brilliant, viking someone is. Those with a lotta street cred are: U2's Bono, Sting, Severus Snape, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Harrison Ford, Luke Skywalker, or the late Jimi Hendrix, Timothy Leary and Janis Joplin...someone so hip they can't get their pants on*...

They all smoked, until the health thingy started to hit the planet. Now we know smoking is bad for us...and our culture looks at smokers as criminals. Right on up there with child molesting and torturing baby weasels. Or people who pick their noses in conversations. Rare, fragile, freaky birds are we in the U.S. I still remember when you were allowed to smoke OUTSIDE, which one can't in some places now.

While at the same time our per capita consumption of sugar has gone through the roof, even overseas. People get fatter and fatter. A musical group called 'The Waitresses' once had a song that touted smoking and drinking black coffee as a way to cut down on world hunger. I think it's time we reevaluated that one. Cause it looks like it's true.

*Douglas Adams 

Crushed

Bruised, bothered and bewildered. No hits today, which is a crushing blow. Usually I just sit and stare at my statistics and the nice littleworld map that comes with it. Never mind the figures are wrong usually. It's an illusion that works for me; that people read my stuff.

I know some of you do because you write me on FB about it...FaceBook. But today? Laura's computer is down, my brother is one-handed and everyone else is watching Mubarak. But, as I have stated many times, fantasy is so much more important than reality. Look at my posts that are part real. They are much more funny than the real stuff I write about.

This world is idiotic and scary. Not funny. Voltaire wrote: "God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." I used to think the quote was funny. Now it has overtones of creepy; that we are hostages to God's sense of humor...which I don't think Voltaire meant at all. Voldemort means that...not Voltaire.

And I don't think God does either. Humans just like looking a gift horse in the mouth until it drops of starvation.

Add What?

Ok, folks. I have now gone commercial. Keep yer pants on. JK Rowling is commercial, Timothy Leary, Dave Barry...don't guilt me. Vincent Van Gogh wasn't commercial and looked what happened to him. Tim Leary was the anti-commercial commercialist...that's my ideal.

What all this means is that some advertiser will put something on the bottom of my posts. If you click to see it, I get paid. I need it, so click away. How do you think most writers make money? Sorry, that's just my bitterness kicking in. AdSense is supposed to pick up on key words in the article and post an ad similar to it's theme. You know it's computer generated because there is an ad for a big juicy burger coupon right below my article on stinkbugs.

This could be fun.

All revenue will go toward keeping food in the mouths of my three rescued cats, who as we all remember live on unicorn meat, just like Lord Voldemort. And to retrieve my favorite retriever, Blackberry, who is being held by a stupid person who doesn't know how much I need him. They just want him cause he's cute. I need him to stop the nightmares. Big difference.

But now that I have something ridiculous like AdSense to examine...I will never be short of writing material again. It's a gift from God.

Nature Imitates Art

---Oscar Wilde.

I love Oscar, but I would have to disagree. My morning search for stinkbugs continues. For those of you fortunate enough not to have met these little gems yet, a word of explanation is forthcoming. Nasty, odoriferous, Chinese imports, these beauties can die in water, and then revive when taken out. Yes, Jesus bugs. Their smell is so toxic, it can make one vomit. Now imagine getting one in food...If you squish one, the smell is impossible to get out of your skin, even if you use a shoe. Now, that, is toxic.

The little buggers hitched a ride into Pennsylvania from China. They cannot be killed except by professional insecticidy people. Stinky bedbugs is what we have here. They like warm rooms, like kitchens, and food, like in kitchens and they contaminate everything they touch. If your chickens eat them, their meat will taste like stinkbug. So much for free food for your flock. If you catch one to flush down the loo, they will emit their scent onto your hands through the tissue, where it is impossible to remove, even with dish liquid and a brillo pad. I am not joking.

These little beasties are so hateful, that if they ever make it to my beloved Scotland, I would turn around and come home. And for some reason, they are attracted to English Ivy, which figures. It's only a matter of time. 

Still haven't found my puppy in the Radford, VA area. Small, black, male, baby lab with green collar. Please return him. He is irreplaceable to me.

Serendipity

basic meaning: running into something great while looking for something else. Like the invention of Tang while trying to put humans on the Moon. While that may sound like sarcasm, Tang was quite a hit for a long time. Just the whole idea of drinking the "drink of Astronauts" was enough to make any child wet his pants for a glass of the stuff. It tasted like orange Dixie sticks, didn't it? I'm sure that somewhere in the world, someone is still making it. I am surprised that it's not widely, and wildly, available in the South (U.S.) We like putting our children on a diet of sugary drinks until they explode, so we can give them pills for it.

And there was a recipe for Russian Tea that utilized Tang instead of a dozen oranges. I have dim memories of blue haired ladies cooking substantial vats of the stuff for Christmas. It was cheap, and a powder, so they could even combine it with instant tea and pass it out as gifts.

Of course, the last time I looked at kid's drinks, I was one, so maybe there is Tang still out there. (A kid, I mean! That's the problem with English, no gendered, possessive articles.) I have bought some cute, astronaut-pouch juice drinks for my niece, but she is so hard core at 12, she sneaks Daddy's Mountain Dew (diet.) You can tell she is a Stewart---we grab the nearest bottle of jet fuel and go. Along with a tendency to fart, even from drinking a glass of water, it's a real gift. And a curse.

Those of you out there who know my brother can empathize.


No Blackberry yet. But as far as serendipity is concerned, I have re-met some of my loveliest friends, and met new ones. Dog people, and cat people, are the basis for the origin of the word, mensch.

From Wiki: "According to Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, mensch is "someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being 'a real mensch' is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous."

I have met a few on this journey and glad I am in a position to see it. Mazel tov! to life!  

I'm Happy

to see Australia still exists. It must be a relief for them, too. Insane numbers of animals dying off and the biggest storms in centuries. And now my puppy is missing.

I haven't hit depression out of the ordinary yet. For which I am intensely grateful. I wrecked and totaled my car looking for Blackberry in Radford. No car and the house is like a tomb. Neat, clean, inactive, like its' owner. I have probably spent 20 hours on the computer trying to track my dog.


I was visiting a friend in Radford and  let him out to pee in a fenced in yard. One squirmy puppy and a hole in the fence later, and he is gone. I wander around the house on my short breaks of trying to find him. The house is too quiet, and devoid of toys and toilet paper he has strewn around.

He is 3 months old, black lab with a white star on his chest and a green collar. A Reward is offered. Please help me. The nightmares are coming back.

Yours truly

Missing in Radford

3 month old black lab, male puppy. Green collar with white on chest. Last seen in Bird Street area near Radford University. We need him very badly.

Blackberry is My Name

Fostering is going well. Although Blackberry has ripped a pajamas top and several rolls of toilet paper. And is currently working on my feet. My trainer got a look at him last night and remains noncommittal. You really just can't tell at this age what kind of service dog he might turn out to be. He is amiable, and sociable. More important, he has learned to leave the cats alone. It's really saved his bacon.

I reread my post on MI, or mental illness. I am not sure I want that out there. I have to think of getting employment somehow, sometime. But I have also been trained as an advocate for the voiceless and poverty stricken. I love that job. It's too bad that the stigma of MI limits us in the present. It didn't do that in the past for the following:

Abraham Lincoln, Virginia Woolf, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, and Ernest Hemingway. None of whom had a resume, but most of whom ended painfully.

And if I can make life better with someone else with MI, then I will leave that post up. It's a selfish decision. It will be to my benefit to be met with understanding when I talk about my Psychiatric Service Dog. And there is another reason.

I was friends with a veteran from the first Gulf War, Desert Storm. He passed at the age of 26 recklessly fighting himself and his memories. It pains me to think that something like a service animal could have saved him, when millions of animals are put to death across the U.S. every year. It's spitting on the gift that the Universe gave us,  to watch him and those animals die and not speak up.

What will we do when our current soldiers come home? The cost the American public pays as a result of it's wars has been carefully hidden since Korea, in the 1950's.

I am suing the Veterans Administration for reasonable accommodation for my service animal. The case comes to trial February 23, 2011, at the Poff Federal Building in Roanoke, Virginia, USA. It's the same building I was forcibly removed from with my service dog, Eddie, over 3 years ago. Since then, the VA has consistently tried to make the case around my disabilities. It says I am unstable; that my disabilities aren't "real" since they are invisible. It says that my service animal wasn't "real" because my disabilities are not located below the neck. It denies that any animal can help me.

The VA is the only government agency to endorse this view...a truly frightening prospect. Veterans have been arrested for walking on base or to a doctor appointment accompanied by their service animal. This is on federal property, folks. Service animals are protected under the ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act. It's a key piece of legislation based on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act. The VA is acting as Mubarak in this case. It says that I have rights, but not on federal property, doing a federal job.

Those with MI are targets for the barely human I call sociopaths: the M.D. that raped and stalked me targets women who are mentally ill. He is still practicing. I was fired by a small company in Eagle Rock, VA who lied about my conduct and stability, simply because of their fear of my diagnosis, and what it might have meant to the bottom line. It's not that I wanted their disability benefits, but why take that chance in a State that only pays lip service to workers' rights? That is: Virginia, USA.

That the government endorses this attitude makes me feel quite ill. My disabilities are linked with creativity and art in the brain's pathways. They are linked to thinking outside the box. They are not illnesses in other cultures, but signs of a Universe that likes to bestow gifts.

Standing, knee deep in grass,
I turn to see you.
The fire is coming...