The summer of my discontent

It has been a long time since I posted anything.  This has been a difficult summer for me.  I'm not exactly sure why.

I think the darkness started to fall on my Mom's 90th birthday.  It was really hard for me to accept that my Mom was turning 90 and it was a sad, not a happy day.  I have had numerous people I love reach ninety years of age, and always before it was an occasion of great celebration.  There was no point in celebration for Harriet, that much disruption would only upset her.  It seemed so terribly unfair to me that someone should live that long, only to spend so much time without cognizance.

This summer has also seen a friend lose a great-grandchild to cancer, a friend lose a wife to cancer, and a long-time work associate be stricken with Guillain-Barre syndrome.  Every time I feel like I am clawing my way out of the darkness, another wave has taken my feet out from under me.

Usually, I can pull myself up better than I have this summer.  It seems like my well of hope is dry.  There have been occasional bright spots.  My husband and I went on a short vacation with my daughter and son-in-law, and those were very good days.  A dear friend came into town and we had dinner, and that was a very good day.  Then the darkness comes back.

I usually process my way through the darkness by writing, but I couldn't seem to force myself to write either.  Even the laundry stopped bringing me joy.  (Laundry has long been the soother of my soul.  I love laundry.)

I have tried to make myself open this blog and write.  I have managed to compose a few pages in my novel, and to crochet a bit.  This week, my husband and I started staining boards to replace a dilapidated fence in the backyard.  Each effort, a tiny step towards pushing out of the darkness.

A few weeks ago, we had a visiting priest for Mass.  He spoke heavily accented English, and I had to work really hard to understand him during Mass, but especially during the sermon.  It was good for me to pay that close attention, because it allowed me to really process what he was saying.  One thing he said will stick with me forever.  He alleged that the greatest sin is to not use God's gifts to you to make the world a better place.  Wasting God's gifts is the worst sin according to this priest.

It made me think about what my gifts are.  I think I can write.  I think I can be nurturing.  I think I can help people to find peace, or inspiration or comfort.  Maybe I have been stuck in the darkness because I have not been using my gifts.

It took ten days from the day of that sermon until I had the discipline to try to write.  I will try harder each day to find words to put on paper.  They may not be as inspirational as I want them to be, but they will be honest.

Sometimes, the best way to inspire is to acknowledge your own struggle.  I have difficulty admitting when I am struggling.  I like to be the comforter, not the comforted.  But if I don't share my struggles, my darkness, then I am not allowing you to see the real me.

I miss the connection I feel when I see that people have read my postings.  I truly welcome comments, because some of my struggle this summer has been feeling purposeless.  I didn't post for more than three weeks, and no one asked where I was.  This left me feeling that I am pushing myself on people, rather than providing a bright spot.

I know I have to be my own cheerleader, and that I have to be my own driver and disciplinarian.  But truth be told, the approval junkie in me hasn't gotten a fix in a long time.  I need to learn to persevere without external support.  And I will.

This summer will not be remembered as one of my favorites.  But hopefully, I can turn this discontent into a renewed sense of purpose.  I want to use the gifts God gave me to make the world a better place.  And I simply can't do that when I let the darkness win.

Short story

Hi All -

I wrote a short story today, and I want to share it with you.  It is longer than my usual blog posts, and for that I apologize.  I hope you enjoy it.

The Guide

“Hi, I’m here to escort you to the other side.”

Samantha shook her head and rubbed her eyes.  “Who are you, and where am I?”  she asked.

“I’m Dennis, and you are in the transitional plane.  This is where you go when you die.  I’m a guide.  I’ll take you through to the other side.”

“I have a meeting this morning.  I need to make breakfast for my husband.  What are you talking about?”  Samantha was getting more and more upset as she talked.

This was Dennis’ least favorite kind of client.  It was so much easier with the ones who expected to die, or who died violently and remembered the last moments.  The clients that died in their sleep were always the most difficult to convince that they were really dead.

“Let’s sit down and have a cup of coffee, and I’ll explain everything to you.”  Suddenly, they were in a coffee shop setting, where minutes before, they had been in what looked like the lobby of a high end hotel.

“You had an aneurysm in your brain, and while you were sleeping last night, it ruptured.  At a point in the night, your husband woke up and discovered you were not breathing.  He called 911, and started CPR, but you were already dead.  Your Mom and Dad, and his Mom and Dad are with him.  Your siblings are headed into town.  This is the afterlife.  I’m a guide.  I greet people when they arrive, and take them across this plane, to the other side.”  Dennis offered Samantha a box of tissues, as she was crying.

“I’m twenty-eight.  I have my whole life ahead of me.  We didn’t even get to have children yet.  I can’t be dead.”

Dennis took Samantha’s hand.  “In a few minutes, you will calm down.  The energy of this place soothes all negative emotions.  The calm will last for a while, and then emotions will come back.  When you miss someone too much, there will be opportunities to see them, and to send them messages.  Not everyone in the first life is receptive to messages, but if your people are you will enjoy visiting their dreams, and leaving them keepsakes.  The transition is always hardest for people who don’t expect to die, and have no warning.  Just take deep breaths, it will all be okay.”

Samantha felt her emotions receding, and a peculiar calm was taking over.  While her rational mind was still working to process everything, her emotional mind seemed to be shut down.  “I must be dreaming.  Wait till I tell Mike about this when I wake up.  I’ve had some vivid dreams before, but this is a doozy.”

Dennis offered Samantha a cup of coffee, fixed exactly how she liked it.  So many of his clients thought their first consciousness in the transition plane was a dream, and he let them.  The first couple of times he had tried to reinforce the truth, but after a few clients, he realized they would come to the realization on their own as they made their way across the plane.  Samantha would be one of those clients.

“This coffee is perfect.  I don’t remember having a dream before where I ate and drank and experienced flavor.”  

“When we finish our coffee, we’ll start the journey to the other side.  Only guides stay in the transitional plane.  All others leave first life, spend as much time as they need to in the plane, and then pass on through to the other side.”

Samantha was still trying to figure out where this strange dream came from, but she was also intrigued by the story this Dennis guy was spinning.

“So, do you know how long I’ll be in the transitional plane?”  Dennis shook his head no.

“I get notified to meet a client at a location.  Then I get instructions one at a time.  After the coffee shop, I’m supposed to take you through the park, and stop at the farm.  The walk will take a little while, but we’ll go slow so you can adjust to the environment.”

Samantha hoped she would remember every detail of this dream to tell Mike in the morning.  Maybe she could even write it down.

As Dennis and Samantha left the coffee shop, Samantha looked around her.  They appeared to be on a Main Street with shops and cafes and hotels.  There were other people walking around, and everyone seemed to be with just one other person, but none of the people together looked like couples, more like two strangers, just like her and Dennis.  Wierd.  As they got to the end of the street, the businesses gave way to houses, and then the houses gave way to green space.  Samantha supposed this was the park that Dennis had mentioned.   The weather was perfect, warm but not hot, with a nice breeze.  The sun felt good, again, warm but not hot.  The flower gardens in this park were amazing.  Samantha was never one to enjoy silence so she tried to figure out a good way to start a conversation.

“The flowers are gorgeous.”  That felt like a good opening.  “Yes they are, and I never get tired of them.  The flowers change for each client, so that the newcomers always see an assortment that makes them feel good.”  Samantha was still trying to process that information when they arrived at a large gate with an intercom.

Dennis pushed a button and a voice responded.  “Dennis is here with Samantha Fremont.”  “Great, we’ve been expecting you.  We’ll see you in the Green House.”

“The have a greenhouse?  Is that where they cultivate the flowers?”  Dennis smiled, “Not a greenhouse, the Green House.  You’ll see in a minute.”

Inside the gate was a farm, with a couple of barns, and about seven houses.  Each house was painted in a solid color.  The houses were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, like a rainbow.

Samantha smiled back.  “I get it now, the Green House.  What are we here for?”  Dennis smiled.  “You’ll see in a minute, and I think you’ll like it.”

As Dennis opened the door of the Green House, Samantha noticed that it smelled like her Mom and Dad’s house.  Kind of a cinnamon and vanilla smell.  “It smells like my Mom and Dad’s.”  Then Samantha noticed that it also looked like the house she had grown up in.  The furniture was the same as when she was in grade school.  This dream was getting stranger and stranger.  Samantha was looking around the room and noticing how exactly replicated her childhood home was when she noticed the grey and white cat sitting in the window.

“Stardust!  What are you doing here?”  The cat turned at the sound of Samantha’s voice and jumped down from the window.  She ran over and started rubbing against Samantha’s legs, and meowing to be picked up.  Samantha picked the cat up, and the two rubbed noses, and then Stardust put her paws on Samantha’s shoulders and nuzzled her head into Samantha’s neck.

“Oh baby!  I’ve missed you so much for so long.  I don’t understand.”  Samantha was starting to get that this wasn’t a dream.

“Most of my clients find their first happiness on this side when they are reunited with their pets.  As a guide, I have been assigned to greet a pet and bring them to the farm.  Pets make the transition so much more readily than humans.  They are happy to wait, as long as they are fed and have a nice place to live and some affection.  I brought Stardust over.  She was a little shy at first, but she warmed right up.  She’s been waiting for you.”

“She’s younger than when she died.  And thinner.”  Samantha was surprised at how calmly she was processing information.  It was strange that being dead was starting to feel normal.

“Everyone returns to their best self in the transitional plane.  You were twenty-eight when you died, so you will probably stay twenty-eight.  Most people’s best self is somewhere between twenty-eight and forty-eight.  We have a few people who present on this side in the sixties and seventies, because they felt they were their best self at that age.  How someone presents isn’t up to the Guardian.  It is up to the person.  So, however you liked yourself best, that is how you present.  Children stay children, because children usually like themselves just fine.”

“You said you were taking me through the transitional plane to the other side, the afterlife.  What happens to people there?  How do they look and feel?”

“I don’t know, Samantha, I’ve never been there.”

“How come?  Why not?”

“I have never asked those questions.  When I died, I was met by Theo, a guide.  He told me that I had been chosen to be a guide, and I went into training here on the transitional plane.  I’ve been a guide ever since.”

“But don’t you wonder about what is on the other side?  About the afterlife?”

“Not really.  Other guides have left this plane and moved on, and I suppose if the Guardian wants me to move on I will.  No reason to wonder about it.  I am always comfortable.  There is always food to eat, a comfortable bed to sleep in, friends to visit with when I’m not working.  On earth, I was always worried about how I was going to pay my bills, and if I was going to lose my job.  Here, I worry about nothing.  I enjoy meeting new people and helping them transition.   It is a very nice existence.  I’m happier than I ever was on earth.”

Samantha took a minute to process that.

“What was your life on earth like?  Did you have family?”

“No family.  My mom was a drug addict.  Never knew who my dad was.  I was in foster care my whole life.  She died when I was eight, but by then, I was considered unadoptable.  I went in the army at eighteen, gave that twenty years.  Then I bounced around.  Bartending, tour guide (ironic, I know), waiter, anything to make a few bucks.  I liked being around people, but never made close friends.  I got diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia at forty-five, and was dead in less than two months.  Got all my medical care through the VA, lucky for me I was a veteran, otherwise, I’d have been out of luck.  They at least kept me comfortable until it was over.”

“Wow, Dennis.  I never knew anybody without family before.  I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Samantha.  The world is full of people like me.  Unattached and just getting by.  This afterlife is so much better.  No disease, no pain, no danger. You can eat all you like and stay a perfect weight.  You can drink all you like and never get drunk or feel hungover.  No sunburn or indigestion.  Nothing to make you ever feel bad.   And connections.  I have more friends on the transitional plane than I ever did on earth.  And I still get to be around people.”

Samantha was still petting Stardust, and feeling better about where she was.  “What’s next?”

“Next I’m supposed to take you to the Habitat.  I just got word that you are going to meet one of the guides there and both of you will go to the other side.  This is a new one for me.  I never had two clients at the same time, and I never escorted a guide.  Let’s go.”

“Do I have to leave Stardust?”

“No, you and she will be together forever now.  Don’t worry, you can carry her, or she can walk.  She won’t stray from you in the transitional plane.  That is just how it works.”

When Samantha and Dennis left the Green House, they headed right back out through the gate they entered, and headed back towards the park.   The day was still perfect, although the sun was lower in the sky.  Dennis answered Samantha before she asked.

“The sky mimics the sky on earth, to help people feel comfortable during transition.  Time is a little more fluid when you have been here a while, like I have.  Basically, I will experience daytime whenever I am with a client, and it is always evening when I finish.  I have fun with other guides until night, sleep and repeat.”

While Dennis had been talking they walked about halfway through the park before turning down a different road.  Along this road were more houses, like the ones that had been near the main street with the shops and cafes.  They came to a small well kept house with a big front porch.

“Here we are.  We call this the Habitat.  It is the control center for the guides.  This is where I came for my training when I arrived.  This is where we are meeting the other client.”  Dennis wondered which guide was going to be moving on.

There was a man on the far side of the room when they entered.  He turned when he heard the door open.  “Uncle Rick!”  Samantha ran across the room and embraced the man.

“Hey Sunshine!  Nice to meet you!  I’ve been watching you all these years, and you’re even prettier in person.”

Rick smiled at Dennis over Samantha’s head.  “Hey Dennis.  I guess you are the guide taking us both to the other side.  Samantha is my sister Denise’s girl.  I died while Denise was pregnant.”

“Uncle Rick, Mom always told me I would meet you someday in Heaven.  I guess she was right.”

“We’re not exactly in Heaven, sweetheart.  We’re in the transitional plane.  But I did visit your Mom in a dream last night, and tell her we are together.  So when Mike called her, I think she knew.  Maybe we can visit her again soon.”

Dennis recognized a fleeting sadness.  “I’ll miss you Eric.  You’ve been here since I got here.  We’ve had some good times together.”

“I’ll miss you too, Den.  Maybe I’ll see you some day on the other side. I just got back from a delivery.  A three year old boy.  He was excited about everything.  Never cried or was afraid.  I took him to the farm where we picked up a puppy, never saw anything cuter than that boy and that puppy together.  When I dropped them off at the gate to the afterlife, it looked like there was a big crowd to meet him.  I feel good that my last client was so happy to be here.”

Samantha looked puzzled.  “If I got Stardust back, where did the puppy come from?  Won’t someone else be looking for him?”

“Ah, Sam.  Some puppies are euthanized, or die naturally because there is no one to care for them.   The Guardian matches them up with the children that died wanting a puppy.  This little guy had been battling cancer for most of his life.  The guides don’t know much about the other side, but the one thing we do know is that when children go to the afterlife, they go to people who love children, and who either miss their own children, or never got the chance to have children.  The Guardian knew it would be too hard for the guides to drop children off not knowing that they would be well cared for.  As often as I have escorted children through the plane, I’ve always fallen a little in love with each one.”

“Me, too, Eric.  The children are both the easiest and the hardest clients.  I need to get you two moving.  We’re due at the gate.”

As Dennis, Rick and Samantha walked back through the park and past the farm on towards the gate, Samantha felt the last sense of strangeness leave her body and her mind.  The afterlife was waiting, and she felt excited to see what it held for her.  Maybe there would be a baby soon that needed her.  She thought of Mike, and how she wished she could say goodbye properly.

Dennis answered her as if she had spoken.   “The Guardian will let you say goodbye to Mike when the time is right.  I told you, you will get to visit, and leave impressions.  The more open he is to believing that you can still reach him, the more likely it is that he will know you have been in contact.  It is an imperfect system because the humans in first life have a hard time accepting.  It is part of the reason that children transition so naturally.  They are used to visiting with people in the afterlife, and to them coming here is just like visiting a favorite relative.”

Samantha thought about her Mom, and how often Mom had said she’d had a visit or a message from Rick.  “I know my Mom will be fine, because she never lost contact with Uncle Rick.  I hope she can convince Mike.  I don’t want him to be sad and hurting.”

“Unless Denise has changed an awful lot since I left earth, she’ll convince him.  She was like a terrier with a bone as a girl.”

Samantha laughed.  “She still is.  Thanks for reminding me, Uncle Rick.”

The had arrived at the gate.  Stardust pawed Samantha’s leg to be picked up.  Dennis shook hands with Rick, and then nodded to Samantha.  “Good luck in the afterlife.  It was an honor to be your guide.”  And with that, the gate swung open and shut, with Dennis on the transitional plane, and Samantha, Stardust and Eric in the afterlife.

Dennis made his way back to town, where he enjoyed a night of darts and camaraderie at the bar watching football.

“Hi, I’m here to escort you to the other side.”

“Dang, I was hoping to see Mary right away.  I’ve been waiting eighteen years.  Who are you?”

“I’m Dennis, and I’m your guide through the transitional plane.  Nice to meet you Henry.  I’ll get you to Mary as quickly as I can.”

The Lone Ranger

Like many of my age peers, I grew up watching reruns of The Lone Ranger on television.  I never thought about why he was the Lone Ranger, or how he and Tonto came to be a duo.

Last week, I had the opportunity to watch the movie that launched the Lone Ranger series.  It turns out the Lone Ranger was one of six Texas Rangers on the trail of a criminal gang.  They were ambushed.  The criminals thought they had killed all six rangers, but the Lone Ranger survived.  He managed to crawl to a spring in a cave, and that is where Tonto found him and nursed him back to health.

There is a back story with Tonto as well.  When Tonto was a boy, a rival tribe had raided his village, and he was the only survivor.  The Lone Ranger had nursed Tonto back to health, and Tonto had given his ring to the Lone Ranger.  Tonto saw that ring on a chain around the Lone Ranger's neck when he found him in the canyon.

As the movie progresses, the Lone Ranger saves a wild horse, nurses him back to health and names him Silver.  Tonto was already riding Scout when he found the Lone Ranger.

There were so many great messages in the movie.  In one scene, after the Lone Ranger tells Tonto that he is going to become a crime fighter with a secret identity.  Tonto asks will he kill the bad guys.  The Lone Ranger says no, that he will capture them and bring them in so that they can face a trial and a jury.  He is interested in justice, not in being a vigilante.

The Lone Ranger just happens to own a silver mine, so is easily able to self-finance his crime fighting career.  He also decides to use only silver bullets, because bullets can kill, and life is precious.  So using a precious metal for his bullets made sure he was always aware of how careful he should be with his shots.

The Lone Ranger sure was good at shooting the gun out of the bad guy's hand.

I know that it is really difficult to shoot a gun out of someone's hand, and I know that not shooting to kill could end up with the good guy getting shot by the bad guy.  Doesn't change the fact I wish I lived in a world with a moral code more like the one in the Lone Ranger movie than the world I actually live in.

I know I am somewhere between naive and bat-shit crazy on this, but I really believe that we need more messaging like the Lone Ranger.

What is wrong with having heroes who are good?  Why shouldn't ideas like justice be celebrated?  I understand that there was some terrible stereotyping in the Lone Ranger, and that making Tonto speak English poorly was very insulting to him and to the Native American community.

But, Tonto was super smart, and good, and talented.  He regularly got the best of the "white man" who treated him like he was a lesser being.  Tonto was always the winner in those contests; smarter, faster, braver and innately good.

I don't watch much television, and when I do watch, it is typically sports, HGTV, or old movies.  So I really don't know if there are shows on television today that celebrate dedication to making the world better the way the Lone Ranger did.

But just like written fiction can show us worlds we know nothing about, television and movie fiction can portray better worlds for us to aspire to.

There are still people who spend every day trying in their own way to make the world a better place.  Their fight might not make for good television.  The movie might put everyone to sleep.  But in my heart I know there are ways to tell stories of good people doing good things that are engaging and entertaining and would sell.

I hope my stories and books are like that.  The first step in making a better world is imagining one.  That is what fiction does for us.  And the Lone Ranger painted that better world very well indeed.

Things that go together in my mind

I have a feeling that this post is going to feel rambling to the reader, and for that I apologize.  It all feels very connected in my mind, and I hope I can help you see the connections I see by the end.

There was a great article / opinion piece in the Huffington Post this week titled "I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People".  The piece really struck a chord with me, but I didn't share it on Facebook because of the exact people the piece talks about.

I try to stay pretty benign on Facebook, because I don't believe social media is the appropriate platform for serious conversation or debate.  I am very old school in that I believe critical conversations on contentious subjects should be face-to-face, in the same room so that all of the nuances of communication can be used and observed.

But, every once in a while, I post something that touches me, and that I think is so benignly universal that no one will interject an opposing view point.  I'm usually wrong.  I posted one of those things on Facebook recently, that asked people to refrain from poor shaming.  It didn't go well.

There are people on this planet that have an opinion on everything, and have to share it.  They also have to have the last word, and they have to act as if they are listening to everyone, and no one else is.   They tend to use words in a way that is passively critical.  When you take the words out of context, they seem harmless, but when you read them in context, they are condemning.

So I would say to the author of the piece in the Huffington Post, you can't explain it to them because they already believe they care about other people.  They also believe that government is not the entity to demonstrate that caring (although I have yet to meet someone who has a better answer that can work than a government safety net).

I was basically scolded on Facebook for not considering someone else's perspective (because I fail to put aside emotion, I might add) after saying this:

 Facebook is not a platform for debate. Me and (named removed) come from the same place. I understand every system is subject to abuse, and will be taken advantage of by some. I still will choose love and compassion over judgment. I will help when and where I can. And I will always refrain from poor shaming. There but for the grace of God go I. For me, if I am not making the world better with my words or actions, I think about whether or not they are necessary. Poor shaming and judging people I don't know are never necessary, so I don't do it and think it is harmful to society. You won't change my mind, but if you want to discuss, set up a phone call.

The person did not set up a phone call.  I guess they don't want to have a conversation and defend why poor shaming is a good thing.   They did want to tell me that I would be more well rounded if I listened to their opinion.  The failure in communication here is that just because I listen to you, and understand where you come from and why you feel that way, I still don't agree.  And, I feel strongly that when I say on my Facebook wall that Facebook is not a platform for debate, if you are a respectful person, you don't shore up your argument, you either stop your commentary, or apologize for starting one in the first place.

Here is the talking point.  I think the person who did the scolding is as complex as the rest of us humans.  This person extends charity to people.  I would hazard a guess that if they did a self-evaluation, they would see themselves as compassionate, understanding and good.  Maybe they are.

But they are also angry and resentful that some people take advantage of programs that are designed to help the needy.  And they end up voting for people who say they are going to stop the abuse, and the people they voted for end up hurting everyone, and the abusers simply find a new con to run.

If I try to explain to them that they are not compassionate, they go off on a tangent about system abusers, and government waste, and crooked politicians.  All those things exist.  But for me, they do not negate the good that a government safety net provides.

If I had one gift that I could give to everyone, it would be the ability to really see if their own words and actions are making their own lives better or worse.

So many angry, resentful people are that way because they choose to focus on the bad things.  The people that take advantage, the crime, the injustice.

If you are not actively fighting for change to the bad things you are focusing on, you are just wasting your life on things that make you feel worse instead of better.

There is always a wrong to be righted.  Pick the one you are most passionate about.  Dedicate time and energy to fixing it.  Let the noise of all the other wrongs to be righted be silenced, so as to not dilute the energy you need to fix the things you can.

And never, ever forget the words of Emily Dickinson:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain. 

Resentment destroys, compassion builds.  Let's build a better world together.

My new endeavor

I have to confess, I use blogger, but I don't know much about how it works.  I started a new blog yesterday, and I'm not sure if my regular blog readers were all notified about it or not.

It started on a whim.  A friend of mine asked for supper ideas on Facebook.  So I gave her a couple, and she said I should write a cookbook.  Instead, I decided to set up a blog with my recipes.  If you are interested, it is here: Recipes for the lazy cook.

Not all the recipes are really for lazy people, but most can be thrown together fairly easily.  They use a lot of prepared foods, like canned meats and vegetables, and frozen vegetables.  I'm also a big fan of the cleaned and chopped bags of vegetables in the produce section.  We're not talking haute cuisine, we're talking finding how to put some variety in your after work meals.

I started by posting recipes that I had created in My Fitness Pal when I was trying to lose weight.  I was amazed to notice that I had created eight pages of recipes!  So just yesterday, I transferred fifteen of them.  Some of them I didn't bother to transfer, as I thought they were simply too basic, but maybe, just maybe some people don't even know how to do the basic stuff, so I'll probably add them all.

I've made up more recipes since I stopped being so diligent on my diet and logging all my food.  I'll start putting them on the blog after I get through all the My Fitness Pal recipes.  I need to decide if I will create them in My Fitness Pal first, as doing so creates nutritional information.  Creating recipes is something I have done my entire life.  I don't know exactly when it started, probably when I was poor and depended on the ability to make tasty meals out of whatever I had on hand.

One of the shortcomings of the My Fitness Pal recipes is that there are just ingredients, no instructions.  I'm having to go back and create the instructions, and the instructions are probably way too simple for the non-cook.  I hope if people like the looks of the recipe and don't understand how to execute it, they ask me for more detail.

As I was thinking about the whole idea of recipe creation, I realized that I depend on certain herbs and spices for certain cuisines.  For example, when I want to cook something that tastes Italian, I use onions, garlic, basil, oregano and parsley.  I may or may not use mushrooms, peppers and wine, but I almost always use what I would call the Italian five.  The exceptions would be dish specific, as with Chicken Marsala, where the wine is the star of the dish, so no basil or oregano, or Chicken Cacciatore, where oregano would overtake the more subtle flavors of the dish.

When I want to cook something that tastes Oriental, I depend on onion, garlic, soy, ginger and sesame.  There may or may not be wine or cashews or vinegar, but the Oriental five are a given.  Peppers, cabbage, chilies are variables as are bean sprouts and water chestnuts and baby corn and mushrooms.

Mexican would always have onion, garlic, cumin, cilantro and cayenne.  The Mexican five.  Then there may be jalepeno's or hatch chilies or peppers or wine or vinegar or mesa or corn or beans or avocados.

You've probably noticed that everything has onion and garlic.  It is a rare cooking event for me that doesn't involve onion and garlic.

So I'm kind of all excited about this new endeavor.  I've been looking for something to get me excited, to help me feel like I'm helping someone, and this new recipe blog may be just thing.

Again, if I inundated you with notifications yesterday, I'm sorry.  Today will be just as annoying as I clean up my backlog of recipes.  Once I catch up, the volume will be reduced to once in a while.

If you see a recipe you like, but find the instructions too vague to follow, let me know and I will work with you to make them more clear.

Life is good!  There is always a new adventure around the corner if you look for one!  Food is a great platform for finding our common ground.  Eat happy my friends!

Judgy McJudgerson

Thanks to my daughter for the title of this post.  I don't know if she coined this phrase, but she certainly introduced me to it.

Judgy McJudgerson.  We all know one, we all are one on occasion.  Judgy McJudgerson is that person who can't help themselves, they have to decide they know something about someone they don't know and judge them for it.

Why are we all Judgy McJudgerson at one moment or another?  What does judging other people do for us that we can't seem to help ourselves from indulging in the behavior?

Let's face it.  We all do stupid, thoughtless stuff.  We have all stopped short for no reason without thinking if someone is directly behind us.  We all have left an empty tissue box, or paper towel roller, or (God forbid) an empty toilet paper roller.  We have all finished the cereal, or the milk, or the cheese, or the bread, or the leftovers; without asking everyone impacted if they need that last little bit.  Or we have left a crumb or a drop to say we didn't finish something.  (That last one is kind of a deliberate jerky thing to do, but I doubt any child from a multi-child household didn't do that at least once.)

For those of us who drive, most of us have forgotten to turn our blinker on or off, changed lanes and cut someone off because we didn't see them in our blind spot, not realized that our lane was going to be a turn only lane and tried to get over at the last minute, or been driving too slow or too fast for the comfort of other drivers on the road.

Most of us have also been rude or unkind at one time or another.  We may have behaved that way because we were distracted, or tired, or ill, or in pain, or maybe our normal didn't see our behavior as rude or unkind but the normal of the recipient of our actions did see our behavior as rude or unkind.

My point is, humans make mistakes.  Yes, some humans participate in behavior with a cavalier disregard for others (humans, animals and the planet).  Yes, some humans actively try to hurt others.  Yes, some humans love to take advantage of others.

Judging won't change those people.  Judging just makes Judgy McJudgerson hard to hang around with, and it makes life harder for Judgy McJudgerson.

It is really hard to know someone well enough to know their motivation without asking them and having them tell you.  Sometimes, spouses or best friends or parents or children or siblings might have a clue about your motivation.  But since we are all capricious (even those of us who think we are steady) that motivation changes with our mood and our overall health and the burdens life has placed upon us at any particular moment in time.

Choosing to be Judgy McJudgerson cultivates resentment, and anger, and despair and all kinds of negative emotions.  Since mostly we can't know why someone took actions that are hurtful or greedy or dangerous, the best thing to do is make a note to self not to be that person, and if the person exhibits that pattern of harmful actions, to limit our exposure to that person.

The choice can be made to be Lovey McLoverson.  When you see something that would normally make you judge, you can wish for the universe to heal what ails that person, or for the universe to open that person's eyes to the harm that they do.  You still won't change them. But you can change you.

When you choose to be Lovey McLoverson, you will cultivate compassion, and acceptance and kindness and all kinds of positive emotions.  The more you choose positive emotions, the more the patterns in your brain will gravitate towards positive emotions.  The more positive emotions you generate, the happier you will be.

I know some people simply won't get how being Lovey McLoverson would be a good thing.  They have been Judgy McJudgerson for so long, and it is so comfortable.  Many Judgy McJudgerson's travel in packs where they have all exalted themselves into a cult of "Better than them".  They see Lovey McLoversons as gullible and naive and exploited.

We all live in the world we notice and cultivate.  Lovey McLoverson's live in a forgiving, nurturing world, where we get forgiveness when we make a mistake because we give forgiveness for other's mistakes.  We know some people don't want, need or deserve forgiveness, but we understand forgiveness is a balm for the wound of the injured, not a weapon to punish those who inflict pain.

Judgy McJudgerson or Lovey McLoverson?  We're all both sometimes, and somewhere on the continuum between the two most of the time.  But I honestly believe the more I practice being Lovey McLoverson, the happier I will be.

Contribution

There is a lot of turmoil in the world, and social media has enhanced many peoples awareness of that turmoil.  Where once upon a time if you didn't watch or listen to the news or read the papers, you didn't know, checking in to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram forces you to know.

Knowing that bad things are happening to people all over the world is sobering and saddening.  For the compassionate, a feeling of helplessness can occur, as we see all this pain that we can do nothing about.

And that got me to thinking about the people who make great change.  People like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X and John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy and Gloria Steinham and Susan B. Anthony.

Those people made incredible sacrifices to be the agents of great change.  Being the agent of great change has cost many people their lives.  There is an important thing to remember about the people who attempt to make great change.  One of the sacrifices they make is often the ability to make small change.

They simply can't foster an animal waiting for adoption, or make room for one more kitten or puppy in a multi-animal household.  They rarely get to be classroom helpers (we called them class Mom's in my day), or chaperone field trips or coach children's sport teams.  They often have a distance from their immediate families that is inevitable because of the time devoted to their cause.  Their significant others have to pick up the slack, and often the change makers entirely sacrifice having children of their own.

The small change makers are what make it possible for the large change makers to do their work.  Every homeless animal you foster or adopt, every child you nurture, every go fund me page you donate to, every artist you sponsor by buying their art, every kind word, every grocery order you cover when someone's card is declined, all these make a world worth fighting for.

Whenever you get discouraged that you are not doing enough, focus on what you are doing.  Please never discount the value of a hug, or a smile, or a donation, however small.

A dear friend shared this quote on Facebook this week:

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope."
~ Robert F. Kennedy

The tiny ripples of hope that you are sending out are important.  They are part of the fabric of the cosmos, weaving good into the bad, neutralizing anger with compassion, balancing hate with love.

We are all an important part of the tapestry of life.  Your goodness, your kindness, your compassion are as important as the acts of the leaders of great change.

Never forget that without you, and your many acts of kindness, love and compassion, there wouldn't be a world worth saving.

So please.  I know you get discouraged by all the negative things you see and hear.  I know you feel like you need to do more to create a better world.  I know that you are frustrated that you can't see the impact of the good that you do.

Believe me, the impact is there.  You may never see it large, but as much as you can, work on seeing it small.  See the animal safe, fed and content in your home.  See the heart on a Facebook post that warmed another's soul.  See the art on your wall or on your body that represents your support of an artist.  Listen to the music that you purchased to support an artist.  Read a book that you purchased to support an author.  See the love on the faces of your family and nurture that love with your time and energy.

The universe is large, and not all of us are meant to leave a blazing trail for many to know and remember.  That doesn't mean your trail is unimportant.  The hardest thing to do is to keep on keeping on when the results are hard to see.  That is life for most of us.

I want all reading this to know that everything you do that is good is necessary.  You are helping balance the hurt and harm in the universe.  And that is the most important work of all.