Expectation Versus Reality – Page 2 – Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings

“We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.” ~ Tom Robbins, from Still Life with Woodpecker

Published on January 18, 2020January 19, 2020 by Poietes2 Comments

Saturday snippets . . .

Saturday afternoon, rainy and cold, 46 degrees.

Well, here is what’s been happening in the ongoing saga of non-functioning laptop. On Sunday last, I decided to bite the bullet and completely reset my laptop in an attempt to fix the script errors and all of the other stuff that’s been making posting well nigh impossible without pulling out my hair. I’ve spent the days since reloading the stuff that was deleted in the reset, finishing updates, etc. At first, it looked promising that things had been fixed, and then not so much.

I’m still trying to work out the bugs, and that New Year’s post that I began over two weeks ago (really? that long?) is still unfinished. I decided to post the following quote by Tom Robbins just to let you know that yes, I’m still here, but no, I haven’t fixed my laptop or my internal dysfunctions to allow for regular posting.

I’m trying. Truly I am.

How can one person be more real than any other? Well, some people do hide and others seek. Maybe those who are in hiding—escaping encounters, avoiding surprises, protecting their property, ignoring their fantasies, restricting their feelings, sitting out the pan pipe hootchy-kootch of experience—maybe those people, people who won’t talk to rednecks, or if they’re rednecks won’t talk to intellectuals, people who’re afraid to get their shoes muddy or their noses wet, afraid to eat what they crave, afraid to drink Mexican water, afraid to bet a long shot to win, afraid to hitchhike, jaywalk, honky-tonk, cogitate, osculate, levitate, rock it, bop it, sock it, or bark at the moon, maybe such people are simply inauthentic, and maybe the jacklet humanist who says differently is due to have his tongue fried on the hot slabs of Liar’s Hell. Some folks hide, and some folk’s seek, and seeking, when it’s mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous can be a form of hiding. But there are folks who want to know and aren’t afraid to look and won’t turn tail should they find it—and if they never do, they’ll have a good time anyway because nothing, neither the terrible truth nor the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of Earth’s sweet gas.

~ Tom Robbins, from Still Life with Woodpecker

Music by Flora Cash, “You’re Somebody Else”

“What we don’t say | eats in.” ~ Chana Bloch, from “A Future”

Published on December 19, 2019December 20, 2019 by Poietes2 Comments

Christmas at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg (FCC)

“I am lost; I am looking for you
……….who can help me walk this thin line between the breathing
…………………………………..and the dead.
You are the curled serpent in the pottery of nightmares.
You are the dreaming animal who paces back and forth in my head.” ~ Joy Harjo, from “We Must Call a Meeting”

Thursday afternoon, sunny and not quite as cold, 41 degrees.

Hello. Long time no write. I don’t want to include what I’m about to write with the CNN videos that I posted earlier as the two entries are completely unrelated, and I had wanted to attempt to update you as to the reasons why I’ve been absent from this forum.

So very much has been going on in the last few weeks, so everything has just kind of gotten away from me, so much so that before I knew it, writing my posts became a thing of the recent past. I’ve decided that I’ll try to update you on the basics of what’s been happening, and then perhaps that will lead to a breaking down of the dam that is holding everything back, and I’ll be able to write once more.

First, I was having major computer problems again, with weird scripts and extremely slow processing, and then just like last time, the problems seemed to self-heal, which I don’t understand, but hey, I’ll definitely just say a quick thanks to the universe and move on. Second, I’ve had major writer’s block; actually, it’s more like a major brain block brought about by a major depressive episode—I can’t focus, can’t sleep, and can’t find any kind of motivation to accomplish even the smallest thing.

Oh, and then there’s the wonderful news that Corey’s truck has well and truly died—probably the transmission again—leaving us without our primary farm transportation (a bale of hay won’t fit in the back of the Murano) and little hope of remedying this any time soon. As much as Corey loves his truck, it’s turned into a huge money pit. Add to this that our very old dryer keeps dying. And then, too, there is the other ongoing issue that I’ve been debating over whether or I should even mention and which has seriously exacerbated the insomnia and severe stress that I’m feeling: puppies.

I know. That’s normally a word that should generate instant delight, except that we have way too many. Three of our female dogs (Maddy, Tink, and Sarah) went into heat within weeks of one another. We had hoped to have those girls who hadn’t been fixed yet spayed at one of the community health fairs (the one that included veterinary services), but the spots filled up faster than we could grab one, so we were trying to find a place that we could afford to take all three.

Look. We are both firm believers in being responsible pet owners, and you have no idea over how very pained I am about all of this. I used to give Dallas so much grief for allowing his dogs to become impregnated all of the time, and now I have to eat my words. I won’t even get into how many puppies are currently living in our house, but it’s a lot, and it’s contributing to my insomnia, what with worrying, fretting and dealing with more guilt than I usually have (over being irresponsible, regardless of intentions).

Thankfully there is an organization in the area called Brother Wolf, which helps to place dogs and cats in no-kill shelters and with foster families until they can be placed in permanent homes. I’ll be contacting them soon to see about help with placing all of the pups. Even I, as much as I love animals in general, have no desire to keep all of these babies. But for the immediate future, my days and my nights are filled to overflowing with more stressors than what is normally the backdrop of my days.

My friend Kathleen and I used to have a saying for when nothing seemed to be going right: “I’m fat and ugly and my mother dresses me funny.” Yep. That.

Christmas is six days away: No decorations up yet. No packages wrapped. House is dirty. HO HO HO………………………………….

Music by London Grammar, “Bittersweet Symphony” (great cover of classic Verve song)

A Future

A sharp wind
pries at the doorjamp, riddles
the wet sash. What we don’t say
eats in.

Was it last week?
We sat at the fireplace, the four of us,
reading Huck Finn. I did the Duke,
you the Dauphin, the kids
tossed pillows in the air.
We owned that life.

There’s a future loose in my body and I
am its servant:
carrying wood, featching water.

You spread a hand on my stomach
to the feel the dark
dividing.
The hand listens hard.

And the children are practicing
pain: one finger, quick!
Through the candle flame.

~ Chana Bloch (found on Poetry Foundation)

If it’s Friday, it must mean leftovers . . .

Published on November 22, 2019November 24, 2019 by PoietesLeave a comment

“For we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.” ~ George Eliot, from Middlemarch

Friday afternoon, drizzle, 48 degrees.

Another week without much production on my part. I’ve spent over a week trying to coordinate the delivery of my next Aimovig shot, and the entire process has been unnecessarily tedious and difficult, talking with different reps each day, being told different things each day, being told delivery was scheduled only to find that it has not been scheduled.

As I’m getting this medication free, I probably should not complain, but what bothers me the most is that I have been unable to introduce this medicine into my system uninterrupted; it’s one of those things that needs consistency to work best, so because of the hiccup in delivery, I’m starting over.

Things like this tend to consume my attention, which means that everything else falls by the wayside, which, most especially, means posting (or not posting, as it were) with any regularity. Add to this the stress resulting from the omnipresent impeachment hearings, and my daily allotment of brain cells burns up far too quickly.

I know. I could not pay attention to the politics, and I could ignore the incompetence of the people giving me incorrect information, but you and I both know that I won’t.

Oh well . . . . . . Have some leftovers . . . . . . . . .