Never Hide Your Light

I just posted on Facebook tonight......Never hide your light. I suppose I was speaking in general, as it applies to us all. Never hide your light. Never hide your gifts. Be appreciative of your gifts. We all have so much to offer the world....and on a smaller scale...each other...yet we miss so many opportunities to do just that, out of fear or doubt, or even out of the simple act of letting your disappointing day get to you, and your eyes are full of your own issues, and you might fail to see a perfect change for reaching out to someone else with your gifts.

You are armed with them....these gifts you were bestowed at birth. We all have different gifts, yet for various reasons we may choose not to use them....in others words...to hide our light. In my opinion, because I was so unaware of my own light for so long...I think it's the greatest crime you can commit! I say I was unaware, and not hiding my gifts because that was the way of it for many years. I was told I had none, and sadly, I believed it for a very long time. I listened to one negative voice and let it dictate my own feelings on my own gifts. I let that voice become my God...allowing it more power over me than anyone elses. Yet, that voice was wrong. My resonsibility in all that was that I let that voice live longer than it should have. I will NEVER do that again, and I won't allow my friends do that to themselves, not if I can help it. It is a great injustice....and deprives the world of beauty and a chance at becoming a better place. We each play a crucial role in the development of the future world that our children and grandchildren will inhabit. The web is intricate, and we have a very precise place in that....we may not see the whole picture, yet we are a huge part of that plan. Therefore, to do any less than let our light shine is an injustice, a crime against the future!

Leave your fears behind. Life is too short...time flies too quickly and we have no time for fear. Live. Live like there is no tomorrow.......shine like the brightest star and do your part. Show the world what you are made of. No one can DO YOU better than YOU. You were given the part of you in this great performance of life because it was decided that no one could do it better than you.

Don't hide your light and give a shabby performance. Do your best....break a leg!

Karma

It's called KARMA....and it can bite you in the ass.

Give the world a shit sandwich, and you'll be eating crap yourself soon enough. You reap what you sow. It's pretty simple. If you want a karmic slap in the head, then keep doing as you please, steam rolling over the world without a care. You'll pay. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But....you'll pay.

Enjoy yourself for now. The view is always lovely from the top....but remember that what goes up, must come down. Strap yourself in. It should be interesting.

Fear

Fear. Everyone experiences it. Everyone fears it. Yea, I fear fear. I don't have a problem with that. I fear being afraid. It makes my blood pound, my pulse slam in my head, my breathing alters. I hate being afraid. Who doesn't? Fear is one of the main reasons we fight, fear is one of the main reasons people need therapy! We're afraid of the past, afraid of the unknown, afraid of being alone, afraid of seeing ourselves for who we really are. Fear is a motivating factor in many decisions made in our lives. Fear is everywhere.

Next time you feel fear creeping up on you, turn around, look it right in the eye and shame it into submission. Fear should be ashamed of how it treats you! You have done nothing to deserve the panic and anxiety it produces. Send it on it's way! Let it know it has no power over you! You have survived great loss, change, advancing age...you are a force to be feared yourself! Look at you....you survived high school! You had a root canal! You have worked with the co-worker from hell for ump-teen years and you are still here, better than before! What have YOU to fear? I say...NOTHING.

Next time fear tries to make you piss your pants, give it a kick in the balls and come out swinging. You can do it. I know you can!

Worries

I'm worried about the price of gas. I'm worried about keeping my house clean. I'm worried about being able to afford Christmas presents for everyone on my list. I'm worried about my daughter and her apparent inability to learn to read....is she not trying? Is she really having trouble decoding or is she just not paying attention? A mother worries, as do most people, but having children magnifies that a hundredfold. You worry about your own ability to parent, your children's' health and their friends and their homework and their attitude and their sleep patterns....oh, the list goes on and on. It doesn't really even stop when they are older, nor should it, really. Of course they must grow up and go out on their own, but you never cease to be concerned for their well being. As a parent you should never emotionally detach yourself from your children, no matter how independent they may be. A child always needs to know that their parent is there for them, emotionally and otherwise, forever. Parenting isn't an 18 year assignment...it's a lifetime commitment, like any marriage or friendship would be. You don't get a reprieve for good behavior after your child graduates from high school. I wish more parents shared this philosophy. I know so many adults who have felt abandoned by their parents. They appreciate their parents need for their own life, yet feel as if they are no longer an important component in their parents' lives. How sad is that?

I know I will always worry about my kids, and I don't mind that. It is a price I am willing to pay to be their mother. I couldn't imagine a world without them in it. My life is better for having them in it, and I won't ever make them feel like I'm unavailable. I've seen what that sort of parenting does to a person. It demeans and lowers self esteem. It rips that child in you apart. That isn't the sort of trip I signed up for. I'm in it for the long haul, through Dr. Seuss, the teen years and beyond.

You're stuck with me kids! Get over it!

Changes...yet again

There are changes afoot, and as far as changes go, it's not earth shattering, yet I can't help but feel unsettled. New management leadership can lead to changes, and after 27 years I've certainly seen my share of reassignments and alterations. It's nothing new, yet it never ceases to distress us. This year I shall meet an even bigger challenge...the loss of a beloved co-worker. Sherry is leaving us, retiring, which is great for her and I'm honestly happy for her, yet I wonder how I will fill that hole she will leave behind. She is a unique friend, one who understands me, who speaks to my heart, one who knows me and likes me despite it all! I shall miss her, and have no idea how I will adjust to this major change in our work place dynamics.

I don't know what to think about rumors that are flying about. I hope I'm not being overly pessimistic. I can only hope for the best. Change has never been easy for me...and this time is really no different. After all this time, you would think I'd be better equipped to deal with it. I hope I am stronger. I hope that no matter what, the transition is a smooth one.

I can hope.

25 things about ME

A friend of mine was passing around this 25 Things about Me on Facebook, and I decided that rather than put it there...so that everyone could see it....I would post it here and the folks I want to see it will see it, and the general public will continue to NOT know 25 things about me...their loss I suppose!

Ok...here goes....

1. I don't have a belly button.

2. If no one sees me eat something, then I didn't eat it. I wipe it from my memory.

3. I adore being served attitude along with my morning coffee. It makes it taste better.

4. I have seen a ghost. Really.

5. I believe the thing I do best is being a mother.

6. If I could have, I would have had 20 kids, just like Mrs. Duggar.

7. I need to read.

8. I love getting up early to hear the first sounds of the day.

9. I can't be friends with anyone I can't respect.

10. My first kiss was amazing.

11. I don't like confrontation.

12. Insincerity makes me sad.

13. I love, love, love to write!

14. My first love was a dog. He was soooo cute.

15. My eyes are so bad I can't read the phone book anymore.

16. I believe I knew my gynocologist in a past life.

17. I was married to one of my best friends in a past life.

18. My favorite time of day is bedtime!

19. I hate math.

20. I have three friends who are like sisters to me. I am very blessed.

21. I was adopted...and I don't have any hard feelings for my birth mother, nor do I need to know who she is.

22. I believe I am often misunderstood.

23. I have anxiety attacks more often than I would like.

24. I live in the town I always dreamed of living in .

25. I am very, very blessed. I try to be conscious of that everyday.

All Shall Be Well

It's a philosophy of mine....that ALL SHALL BE WELL. Things don't always go our way. Life can be difficult and challenging at times, we all can say we have experienced a myriad of ups and downs throughout our lifetime, but behind it all, no matter what, there is a voice inside me that says, ALL SHALL BE WELL. In the end, through it all, everything will be alright. Is that naive? Is that childish of me? I don't think so. It's called faith. It's called hope. We have words for these things in our language because these things exist. They are possible to have and hold on to. Faith and hope are what keep people getting up every morning in the face of adversity. When we're sick, sad, unemployed, feeling lost...we keep getting up. We keep trying over and over, because we have faith. We have faith that no matter how bad things may get, it can't last forever...that things will change and improve. Even beyond that knowledge that all shall be well, is the knowledge that whatever happens occurs for a reason. Perhaps we can't see the reason...maybe it seems like there couldn't be one. We ponder and contemplate on and on and see no reason, but believe there is one. Every road leads us somewhere else...somewhere we were meant to be, even if it's not a place we considered for ourselves.

It's all part of our journey, this up and down roller coaster ride. There is a rhythm to life, a cycle that cannot be circumvented. It is what it is, and we are a part of it, we are one with it. We are a part of the rhythm, we are one with everything, the air, the wind, the water. We should not shy away from what life is...we should embrace it, and acknowledge our part in the greater picture. We should have hope and faith that no matter what, we are doing what we were meant to do in the way we were meant to do it.

Have faith.

Have hope, for all shall be well.

Simply Heaven!

We've moved. It's simply heaven!

It's been so long since I've had a chance to blog. I've been so busy packing, sorting, thinking and rethinking our plan. It was scary, but I now think it was the best move we ever made!

I was bored one day, and I heard of an open house that sounded like it would be a good idea to check out. The price was right. The area was ideal. What did I have to lose? I recall that open house now....the first time I walked into my new home...and remember feeling like when other people came in while we were still looking around, that THEY were invading on MY personal space! I knew from the start this place was special. I was right.

There is a warmth here that I haven't felt anywhere else, really. I know I didn't feel it in the house I grew up in. I guess I've only felt it twice...at my first apartment where my son was born and at my grandparents house on Lansing Street. Both of those places were special to me. Not that the house on Emerson isn't special in it's way, but it wasn't "home." We always wanted something else and hesitated to do any work that we didn't absolutely have to...because it just wasn't where we wanted to be.

The only thing that makes this move difficult in anyway is that my son isn't here with us anymore. He is 23 now, and I can't balk at his wanting to have his own place...to have his own life apart from us, but I miss him all the same. He is still at our old home on Emerson, and lives with two friends. They seem happy enough and I hope they do well together. It's not always easy to share living space. I miss him, but not desperately so. I know he's ok. I am not obsessed with manipulating him into visiting. I don't feel the need to slather on the guilt. I just want him to be happy and to feel like he's still a part of our family, because he will always be. I want him to know he can come here anytime...that he doesn't need to be invited. Time will tell how comfortable he is with our new arrangement. So far, all seems fine.

Sometimes we say it feels like we're on vacation...like we're at camp! Having more land, and lots of trees surrounding you can lend to that illusion. It's so beautiful at dusk...and so beautiful in the morning when the traffic is slower and the sun is just coming up. Every morning I take out some dog food and peanuts for the animals. I have met a new family of crows and they are quite vocal, yet not attached to me as the old ones were. I miss them so much and haven't seen much of them. I carry peanuts in my car just in case there is a sighting! I don't want to let them down. I already feel like I have, moving away is a form of abandonment. Ken is taking good care of them...but I truly feel we had a special bond and I miss them watching me. I miss feeling them around, hearing their voices, watching them eat. It's a whole new journey....starting over. I miss some things, but it's still simply heaven. I will not complain no matter what because we are so blessed to have made our personal dream come true.

This home feels good, it's a good fit for us. It feels glorious, as I imagine a life of eternal bliss would feel like.

I could get used to this.

Frustrations

I have been away from my blog for a bit and I must apologize to no one in particular, as I think I am one of the few folks who actually read this blather...but I must apologize because it seems the right thing to do. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to get on my blog at work. I enjoy taking my 15 minute breaks and writing...it helps clear my head sometimes...and there are other times when I don't feel like going out for lunch when I feel like going on and on about something, but now I can't. They have BLOCKED MY BLOG! What could it be about my blog that would make the powers that be at work deem it block-worthy? I just can't imagine. I don't think I've ever been vulgar in my blog...I try to use good language and proper grammar!!! I could be failing in the grammar department, but certainly NOT in the vulgar language. I would remember if I said anything offensive. I did say IMISSMYDOOR, but I KNOW that's not swearing! It may be a word filled with feeling and passion...but it's nothing near offensive.

I've been pondering why my access to the Google blogs was blocked, and again, I can't imagine. I think it's one of those flukey things like when my news website was blocked for about a month and then it came back on. I'm hoping that eventually they will see the error they have made and they will restore my access to my therapy! That's really what blogging is...it's therapy for me. It helps it all get sorted out in my head and even when I write about nothing in particular, it still does something to help me come down to a comfortable place in my head. I don't want to have to say IMISSMYBLOG like IMISSMYDOOR! Don't let it come to that!!! PAAHHHLLEEEEEZZEE!

Initiations

My daughter, who is brave and beautiful and precocious decided on Monday that she was ready to see her first corpse. We had to go to our friends wake, and were trying to find a babysitter for her and she said, "Why can't I come too?" Well, I gave it some thought and figured she might be a little young for it yet. Yes, my son had been to wakes from when he was very young, but at that time, I had no one to watch him for me. I have more readily available babysitters than I used to. With more options I thought that I'd leave her home to avoid her questions and fears, but she said she was ready and it's my experience, if a child thinks they are ready, maybe they are. So I told her she could go to the waiting room and we'd see how it went.

She waited in the waiting area with my husband while I went first. When I came back, she said, "When am I going to see?" I stuttered and stammered and sighed and decided to let her take a peek and see how she felt. We stood by the doorway together and she said she was ready to go in. The face she made was one of curiosity and slight distaste. She said, "Are you SURE that's Stanley?" I said, "Yes." She scrunched her brow and tilted her head and just wasn't sure about my answer. She said it didn't look like him. Well, it did and it didn't. I tried to explain that a body in death doesn't always look just like the person did when they were alive. She said, "So why do they do that? Why do we see the body at all?" Good question. I told her that sometimes we just need to say goodbye, and this is a way to do that. She came over to the family with me and as I talked and they tried to converse with her, she kept peeking around and looking at Stanley...still with the scrunched brow, I might add. I don't think she knew quite what to make of it. Hey, I'm 46 years old and still don't know quite what to make of it!

She never mentioned it again that whole night. I thought for sure she might wake up frightened or have bad dreams...but that never happened. Last night at bedtime she was laying there and she said, "You know that was so weird." I had no idea what she was talking about. She told me she was talking about the dead body. "It made me feel strange." Well, she's right on the money...wakes make me feel strange sometimes too. They aren't easy to attend, that's for sure, and this initiation into the world of life and death had to happen eventually for her. I was putting it off for some reason, even though I thought she would handle it just fine. Things just don't really gross her out, not like they do other kids.

She pondered this in a way I didn't think she was capable, the idea of life and death and what we are "made" of. She asked me how we are formed, and by what...like silly putty or clay or stone...what WE are made of. I told her we had best ask her doctor for more accurate answers because when I told her God made us, she rolled her eyes and said, "That's not what I meant Mommy!"

Maybe she will be a doctor someday...hmmm....these little initiations bring us just one step closer....

Dreams and dreams

Bird dreams. So many bird dreams last night. I wish I could remember them all. One had a baby crow clinging to the back of a larger one....the larger one was being held by a man who was quite threatening, even though his demeanor wasn't. He was trying to seem friendly. The bird was trying to tell me otherwise. Interesting.

There was another where they were all gathered in a large tree just outside our window...I can't recall if it was my house or my mothers...but there were crows in every branch...in every place they could possibly perch. It was nighttime...they were getting ready for sleep.

There may have been others...I can't recall. I've been told to keep a dream journal...not sure why I don't. It would make sense since I usually have such vivid dreams with conversations remembered and details that most people may not recall.

I usually love my bird dreams. Last nights...well...I have mixed feelings on it. I just wish the sun would shine. I think it would help. This gloom is bringing me down.

Seems to me

It seems to me that life is too short, that friends don't live as long as we need them to and that our landscape is ever changing and it's annoying the crap out of me.

Last weekend I attended the memorial service of a friend who has been a part of my life since I was born. He was elderly, and frail and tired, yet his passing was just as difficult for me as if he had been 30 and had the whole world ahead of him. He was a part of MY landscape...MY life, and he's gone. Things don't seem quite the same to me. It's almost as if my life were haunted by this loss...and that everything I look at seems slightly altered in the most impossible ways.

Just a week later, another friend, yes...elderly and ill, has passed from this world and again I feel this loss as much as I would any other. He wasn't old to me. He was just Stanley. No number or ranking attached. Just Stanley...and he was a great guy, always there when you needed him. He was a rock for my mother, a true friend when she needed one, and for that I will be eternally grateful to him for his calming and strong presence in our lives. Again, things don't seem quite right to me. My landscape is altering, yet again, and I am powerless to stop it. I am haunted by these changes, both emotional and physical. I am helpless in the swirling waters of my life. That's how it feels. Even if I'm NOT technically helpless, it feels that way. I wish it didn't.

How do we learn to cope with these inevitable changes? Do we ever adjust to it? Do we ever come to expect it or like children, do we hold this secret hope that someone...just one person that we know...will not leave us...that they will be forever? I tend to think that realistically we realize what is unavoidable, yet we choose to put blinders on and just live our lives because if we didn't...if we remained conscious of the changes that will surely come, we would never be able to say goodbye, even if just for a moment because we would be too frightened of what might happen in our absence. We could never be casual again. We would live on guard, and that might not be living at all.

So, here I sit, watching my landscape shift...feeling a bit lost and small and wishing my friends a happy journey into the next world. What more can I possibly do?

With Embarrassment I Say...

With much embarrassment...I say that I have read the Twilight books...yes, I have done this horrible thing. I have read them willingly, AND watched the movies. God, I can't believe I am admitting this! It started out with someone at work telling me how entertaining the books were, and I figured, hey, I like entertaining. I can do that! Well, I tried to hide the books, slunking in corners in the semi lit bathroom reading them as fast as I could so I could do it, but not get caught! I am somewhat of a book snob, and rarely read popular fiction or anything that is considered trendy. It's just what I do. Alice Hoffman is as trendy as I get. Danielle Steele, well, forget that...I'D RATHER DIE! That's one literary place I won't EVER go! I still have my standards...despite this lapse in reason. I am still reading the third book, and want to get to the fourth quickly so I can see what everyone keeps telling me I will see. That the relationship between Bella and Edward will make SENSE to me. I can't imagine it, but I have to see for myself. I care too much at this point. I need to have it make sense, because right now, it doesn't. This stupid young girl so eager to give up life for this boy (her very first boyfriend, I might add)....ridiculous! She has no goals beyond becoming undead. She has no interest in girlfriends. She has no interest in a career. She hasn't even given one tiny indication that she even has a brain in that head. She's so busy obsessing over Edward, and he's so busy obsessing over her...well...it's mind boggling. I am finding it difficult to really LIKE Bella. I don't really see what the fuss is about, how she has caught the attention not only of a 100 year old vampire, but also a teenage werewolf. She's nice enough, don't get me wrong, but I fail to see these redeeming qualities that make her so special and sought after. Will it make sense to me once all the books are done? Maybe not, but as I said, I have to know. THIS. IS. PERSONAL. I've invested 2 days of my time trying to figure out the attraction the mass public has had with this couple, and I need to see it through. When I'm done with the last book, I'll give my final opinions and conclusions. Until then I'll continue to hide in darkened corners with these borrowed books until I'm done. I'll eat later!

IMISSMYDOOR

This word you see as title of this blog is a word I hear in my head most days. You may think it's a made up word, fabricated in my cubicle drained mind, but it's not. It's a word with a meaning. Imissmydoor. It means, in simple terms, that my head won't unclog. The noise.... phones, voices, footfalls, clearing of throats, coughing, bracelets jangling...it all clogs up my head and imissmydoor. It's a word that says it all. Since we moved to this new office, it's been difficult not to feel that imissmydoor EVERYDAY. It's something I have just come to live with...that desire to feel solid wood and brass door knobs in my hand and just shut my DOOR! Hey....I don't have a door! I used to. I loved my door, and now imissmydoor. I say it so often and so fast, it all comes out into one jumble of letters and made a word...and it has become as real to me as the word "draft" or "data" or "form." Imissmydoor SO MUCH! I know if I could just feel that solid wood in my hands and touch those little panes of glass...my heart would be lighter and my head would unclog and this cubicle would be nothing but a thing of the past, a bad dream that left me shaken. Imissmydoor. I wonder if it misses me, too.

Crow Dreams

I am not sure how I forgot to write about this dream, but I did. Life has been hectic lately, and I tend to think of doing something, but then never actually get to do it! I wanted to write this down, just because it felt so wonderful, so I don't ever forget.

I was at my neighbors house. I heard banging on her back door/window. There was a very angry man outside screaming at us. I have no idea what he was saying, or what he wanted or who he was. In the midst of his tirade, I saw these two beautiful crows flying by, I reached out the window and they took peanuts out of my hand. Then they came back around and the larger crow was carrying the smaller one in his talons and the smaller one landed on my arm and the larger on my shoulder and they ate from my hand. I felt so overwhelmed by this sense of peace, I woke up crying.

I have no idea what it means. I just know it was beautiful. It made me feel loved, and watched over. It was a peaceful feeling, and I was wishing I could go back to sleep and see them again, to experience it all over again. They felt real, and they felt like more than birds.

It was lovely. I wish all my dreams could make me feel like that.

My Last Blog

My last blog was purely an experimental moment. I was playing on YouTube and I clicked on the "share" button and saw that you could post things to your blog from there, so I gave it a try. Obviously it worked!

I always loved Annie's Song...always loved John Denver and felt so bad when he passed away. He was taken far too soon in my opinion. I think he was a great humanitarian and as a fellow tree hugger, I could relate to his love of nature. When I was a little girl and I first heard the song Calypso and saw Jacques Cousteau, I thought to myself that these men lived noble lives, taking care of the earth, both in their own way. They had great vision and purpose and even as a child I could feel it. I was hoping that I had such a purpose too.

I'm not sure, looking back 40 years, if I have the sort of purpose and life that I imagined I would back then when I was 7, but it hasn't been a bad life and I'm not complaining. It's just not as I envisioned it. I envied Jacques and his life on the sea (but really, I am afraid of water, so I'm not sure I would have made a suitable assistant for him!), I envied John and his beautiful gift of music, but didn't see my voice as something anyone else other than my mother would want to listen to! They lived very romantic lives in my mind, and I thought that I was one of the most romantic people I knew, so who better to have a romantic life than me...and really, I've never wanted much from life. I've always had simple desires. Even as a 7 year old, although I envied those larger-than-life men, I only wanted a quiet life, some babies, a dog...a white picket fence around my house and fresh laundry hanging in the yard. I think I've done alright for myself considering those were the things I wanted. I think I've come pretty darn close to those childhood musings!

A person can't expect more from life than that.

John Denver - Annie´s Song

Missing my BLOG!

I've been away from my blog for far too long. I have no idea what I'm writing about here...I just know I need to. It's a strange thing, really. I find I expend too much energy in other places and then I have nothing left for blogging. I rarely spend too much time blogging and maybe that's the problem. Maybe I'm spending too much time doing the wrong thing!

So here I sit. At work again. Blogging on break. Maybe we can call it The Break Blog! Maybe everyone should blog on breaks! It should be mandatory! It would help us to clear our heads and get all the crap out so we can forge ahead doing whatever mundane job we are required to do so we get paid every two weeks. It's like energizing...refueling...reving the old engine! I feel like a real old car that's been sitting in the driveway for a few months over the winter. I'm slowly putt-putting back to life. It does seem an appropriate time of year for that sort of thing. Spring is coming soon. This dreadful snow will melt and I will be able to see greenery again, I HOPE! I hear some people have seen daffodils popping up in their yards. I'm not lucky enough to have those...but I trust them if they say they saw them, then they did. My snails were screwing up a storm yesterday so I KNOW they realize what time of year it is. There is hope for this winter bound soul. If the weather breaks soon, maybe my mood will too!

Well, it's back to work for me. I've got lots to finish up before I leave today. I just feel good having written something, even if it's just nonsense.

Hope I didn't bore you. Hey...wake up! ;-)

Strange Dreams

Not that strange and vivid dreams are a stranger to this girl, because they aren't, but lately the dreams I have been having are showing a pattern and I wanted to document it. I don't keep a dream journal because I'm stubborn! I should. I have a journal just for that purpose, but I don't use it. I think I'm just making life harder than it needs to be!

The first dream was last week. It involved baby chicks and ducks. They were helpless. I felt they needed me to help them. They were sleeping and seemed to be sleeping in a place where it wasn't safe to be sleeping. I tried to gather them up to keep them warm in a pile. They were very sweet. The setting was the street where I grew up. The house/backyard was my neighbor's house...a place I spent much time as a child.

Then, the next few nights went by, I had a dream about baby foxes and kangaroos! The baby foxes were sooooo cute....and the baby kangaroos were clinging to my body...searching for my POUCH! Weird! I was riding a pedal car...that looked rather like a Hummer...or big Jeep. The street I was on was near the street where I grew up. It was a corner. Not sure if any of these details matter...but although I found the foxes and kangaroos adorable, I was trying to get them off of me and I couldn't. They were stuck to me...to my legs...weird!

Then a few nights later...maybe two, I had a dream that there were...(gulp) bats and bugs living under a bed in our house. It was so weird. There were piles of excrement and bugs crawling around...and I was so happy to have found them so I could show my husband that we did have a problem and that we should get rid of them immediately. Well, naturally, when we went back to look, they were gone! UGH! Disgusting dream.

So...what's with the two animal theme? The first two dreams seemed so similar to me...but the last one...yuck! I suppose if I gave it a lot of thought I could figure it out. Maybe the needy baby animals represent stresses...too many things going on and needing my attention. The last dream was just the bats way of freaking me out!

Anyhow...not sure why it matters...but I wanted to write these down before I forget. It's easy to forget dreams over time and for some reason I felt the need to document. I think I should start that dream journal. Then I don't have to bore blog readers (as if there are so many! hahaha) with this sort of thing.

Oh well, sorry to bore you....I'll try harder next time!

Thinking Outside the YOU box

We all have perceptions of ourselves, qualities we think we possess and are a part of us that will never change. Perhaps we see ourselves as the nervous type, a couch potato, an athlete, an artist, a smoker. Whatever views you have of yourself help to pin you down, to keep you in one place, where personal growth would be impossible to achieve. We should "never say never" and not pigeon-hole ourselves into a corner. Think outside the "you" box. If you see yourself as a couch potato, you most likely, like me, would think that working out is something you would never want to participate in unless you were forced to. I tend to think I'd drop dead just putting on work out clothes! It's a view I have of myself, as that person who is just too busy reading to consider exercise. Maybe I should think outside the view of myself that I have created. I wonder if I could do it.

I once saw myself as a smoker, I thought of that little white stick as an extension of myself, that it would always be there. Well, it's just about 12 years now, and I haven't even wanted one, even on my worst days...so there goes that theory! Perhaps it can be the same with other things. Maybe I can change my own view of myself, thus allowing for personal growth.

Hmm.....now this is food for thought!

Change

Life surely rolls along, doesn't it? Ever changing, our surroundings and our very world alter everyday, yet we go along as if everything were the same as it were a year ago, 5 years ago...we walk around in denial for the most part. Even we are ever changing...growing and evolving, maturing (one would hope!) into the adult person we are at this very second and the person we will be tomorrow. Everything effects us. Everything changes us. Even the weather. Every little thing teaches us something, so that some deep down part of us learns something and becomes different because of it.

Our landscape changes...spring, summer, winter...but it always comes back again in a way, to those same seasons of life, which I believe is part of the reason we walk around believing that everything is inherently the same, but it is anything but. With every spring comes a new landscape. If we looked more closely, we would see that. Even the trees grow and change, get older. Land erodes, rocks shift, trees are planted and knocked down. Even those people who shared the spring with us the previous year have changed, or are gone from this world. Those people who are breathing air right now, right this second...well, not all of them will be here by the end of the day, or week, or year. Our personal landscape is always changing. Yet we profess to hate change. Well, at least I do. But, the truth of it is I live with change everyday, I am surrounded by it and smothered by it. I can't run from it. Why do we try? Sitting in the same cubicle day after day, drinking coffee at the same place everyday...that doesn't make things the same. It just gives the illusion of sameness, of safety and comfort. Do I think there is anything wrong with having a safe zone...well, not really, but I just got to thinking today that although I may need to feel safe....how safe am I?

A friend of mine passed away yesterday. Yes, he was 86 years old or so...yes, he surely lived a wonderful life full of love and happiness, sorrow and disappointments, much like all of us, but his passing got me thinking of the impermanence of things, as I know all passings do. You can't walk by a cemetery without thinking of your own mortality. If you can, then you just aren't looking.

I like to be aware of my life, my frailties, my mortality. I know I'll never have enough time to read every book I feel I need to read. I know that my friend probably wished he had more time with his family and his garden. But I know he's at peace now. That just has to be enough for those of us left behind.

The knowing and faith we have in what lies beyond is all we have. I don't mind clinging to it, even in the face of constant change. It's all we have, really.

Change is all around us, but so is hope, and beauty and light. I think we can acknowledge our own morality without losing sight of those things too.

Now, I'm off to feed my birds.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Today we had a two hour delay due to the snow that fell over the evening, so my daughter and I had some time to ourselves before we had to leave the house. It was nice, a slow paced morning. It was the kind of morning you wish you could have everyday, when there was no arguing, rushing and worrying. It was just a leisurely pace that suited both of us.

Well, we started to play a bit, just moping around, and we decided to play a unique version of "School." We use my feet as the students, and she is the teacher. One foot (the left) is well behaved, the other is a student who has no manners and is always getting into trouble. She loves this game and we rarely have time for it, so I agreed to it today.

As we were playing, the students had to do seat work and art class, and then lunch and then gym...and it was fun for her to switch roles and be the teacher, but something struck me about the interaction she was having with my feet..or should I say students? The right foot student handed in his paper and she looked at it, as if grading it, and told the right foot that he would get no credit for his paper because he did it in red marker. The right foot student said, but I like red, don't you like red? The teacher said that the work was to be done in pencil, not red marker, so he would get no credit. The foot argued that it was a form of self expression. My daughter the teacher didn't see any room for that sort of nonsense in her classroom! Well, it got me thinking. Since she was mimicking her own school experience, she must hear that in school. Only use a pencil, only use blue ink, only write on every other line...etc., etc. In our quest for order and discipline, have we lost our creativity? Are we squelching our children's imaginations by telling them to color within the lines? Have we crossed that line?

Well, given my nature, I'm certainly concerned about this and try my best to get my daughter to express her individuality as much as she can without breaking too many of those important rules she must live by. I realize there is need for order. I know that a school without discipline wouldn't be much of a school, but I don't see how NOT using a red marker for your homework, as long as your homework is neat...well...what does it matter what you use to write your homework down as long as it's done right? Are we doing these children a disservice? Should schools be teaching our children to be free thinkers instead of little lemmings who follow every direction given? Are we brainwashing our kids and making them less than they could be?

Very good questions. No answers here. As I said, I'm seeing the need for discipline. I've seen kids who have no respect for authority and where they end up in this world, but I'm just not sure that everyone using a number 2 pencil has anything at all to do with discipline and I fail to see how it helps my daughter spread her wings.

I suppose all I can do is be sure to allow her all the freedom of expression that she desires, within reason, and hope that all the rules and regs at school don't squelch her natural exuberance and enthusiasm for life. She's a unique child and is capable of great things and I want to do what I can to be sure she doesn't lose any of her creativity. She's amazing, and I want her to stay the awesome girl that she is, through her teens and beyond. There is no reason to lose that energy. We just do. Well, I will stand guard and hope she keeps that fire burning.

It's my job. That's just what I do.

No Reason

My very favorite sound of all time, other than the sound of my children's laughter, is the mournful sound of a train whistle in the distance.

This sound is especially mournful sounding during the autumn, when for some reason, it just sounds better. Maybe sound travels differently at that time of year, but the train whistle can sound so haunting as the leaves begin to fall off the trees and the mornings are brisk.

I sit here now, in the middle of January, on one of the colder mornings I've experienced and I strain to hear the train sound that seems to travel so well in the autumn. I can barely hear it. I know it's there, but I have to strain, and as I listen to it, it seems to lack that quality it carries with it during the fall. It doesn't seem to be crying...it doesn't seem to be mourning the end of the summer. It's just a whistle.

Maybe that's why it sounds so different during the fall...because it seems to be mourning something. The sound drags on forever then. Now it's just whistle blast and nothing more. I suppose a scientist might say it has something to do with the weather, or the snow muffles the sound, or my own senses are dulled by the long winter season, but I think the train whistle mourns the passing of summer and sends out her melancholy call for all to hear.

I'm a romantic. It's just who I am. I'm not about to try to change that now so I can become more practical minded. I wouldn't want to see the world that way, with logical, reasonable explanations for everything beautiful....everything miraculous. I like not having a reason for everything I see. It makes me feel closer to the divine.

So, is the sound of a train in the distance during the autumn something that can bring you closer to the divine? I think so. It stirs my soul to hear it, wakes up the divine within me, and brings me a little piece of eternity right here on earth.

No reason. Just beauty. Embrace it.

Snipet #21

As Mrs. Edna Putnam sliced leeks for her much sought after chicken soup, she thought about Evelyn and the wind. The wind had just started to pick up as she stood by her kitchen window slicing vegetables, and it was then that she recalled that it was Evelyn's birthday.

Thirteen years ago the storm that had raged through the town destroyed so many of her beloved plants and trees. She had painstakingly planted every tree and form of greenery on her property herself, and the loss would have been devastating to her, if it weren't for the arrival of Evelyn. She saw Evelyn's birth as an omen, and an omen as powerful as that was due a bit of a sacrifice. Mrs. Putnam loved life, all sorts of life, animals, plants and people. She was the town midwife for many years, taking over after her own mother had retired. She came from a long line of midwives, as far back as her great-great-great grandmother Chelsea Beadle.

These women had been well known in the art of female medicine, even before there was such a thing as female medicine. They knew secrets they never told anyone except their apprentice, and each had an apprentice, their daughter or niece, when the time came to pass the knowledge on to another. But Mrs. Edna Putnam was not blessed with a fruitful womb, and when her husband died unexpectedly when she was 32, she knew her fate was sealed. She had loved George Putnam from the first moment she laid eyes on him when she was 14 years old and he was 17. For her it was love at first sight, for George, as he would affectionately say, Edna told me I was in love with her, and who was I to say otherwise?

There would be no other loves for Edna Putnam, and that was that. Unfortunately, it left her with a bit of dilemma. She had no idea who to pass the knowledge on to. She felt strongly that she would find an apprentice someday, but it wasn't until the birth of Evelyn on that stormy night, that she believed in miracles.

So, as she chopped her vegetables for the chicken soup, she pondered what she would say to Sara Martin and how she would convince her to let Evelyn learn the secrets of Edna's ancestors. She thought Sara might balk at the idea, as it seemed to Mrs. Putnam that Sara had done her best all these years to appear just like everyone else in town, even though everyone in town knew that Sara and Evelyn were anything but.

She would have to approach this cautiously. She would have to choose her words carefully. She would need another miracle.

Carpe Diem

Today is a snow day....my favorite sort of day...when I get chance to spend time with my daughter, get caught up on chores around the house...it's just a super experience that makes working for a school district really worth it!

I got up and started my day as any other, thinking I had to be somewhere. Well, after a few alert calls from friends and the school my daughter attends, we found out we had no where to go today. It was an exciting morning! Mia was still sleeping, so I thought I would have a little time to see a grown up movie. I put on Dead Poets Society. It's one of my favorites and I was excited. Well, she woke up after the first 10 minutes and I left it on for a bit. When it came to the part when Robin Williams tells his students to Seize the Day...Carpe Diem...well...first off she was shocked I KNEW what it meant...and also she said something else that was interesting. I told her I had some vinyl appliques to hang in the house yet, and one of them was the phrase, Carpe Diem. I told her I couldn't find it, and that I hoped I would find it soon. She put her hand over my heart and told me to hold it there and then I wouldn't need to hang the words on the wall. Wow. That just about knocked me over. She's an intriguing child, to say the least! It's like...she's old or something! I have been blessed with a wise child.

Well, that whole conversation and the movie got me thinking. Am I doing enough to seize everyday? Do I Carpe Diem? Is there more I could do to make my life more fulfilling? Should I be seizing more? I like to think that as much as I'm able to, I take as much advantage of everyday as I can, but how can I be seizing anything from behind my desk in my miserable cubby? How can that be seen as fulfilling? How can I live up to my potential sitting there?

I have been at my job for 26 years, and out of those years I've spent a few chunks of time regretting my decision to stay there...wishing for more. Then, practically speaking, I think how could I have survived without the job? It kept food on the table...a roof over our heads...my son in private school. Where would we have been without it? If I had been frivolous about it, and abandoned a job that didn't fulfill me...my son would have been living out of a cardboard box! In that regard, I know I did what I had to do...but now...my situation has changed and I'm closer to retirement than I've ever been before...do I stick it out? Do I leave now and seize the moment and do something daring and impetuous? What is my destiny? Am I on the right path?

So many questions...even at my age, we have so many questions and doubts. Amazing. I know that I have obligations. We all have obligations and we must do what we have to to meet them, but where is the magic? Where does it go? Is is where my daughter said...in our hearts? Do we carry that passion for life in our hearts, and go about that everyday mundane routine, yet burn inside? I think that may be it. I think if we carry it with us, then it makes it easier to do those things we must do.

I know tomorrow morning I will get up and there won't be a snowday to keep me home. I will have to go to that cubby I despise and make the best of it. I know I must. But I can Carpe Diem all the same. I don't have to be living a glamorous life to seize every moment and live it the best I can. I can be calm and carry on. I can Carpe Diem, plan for my future and hope for the best.

What else can a girl do? So just do what I do...do what you must, yet carry that passion in your heart and don't let the fire go out. Maybe just wanting more, feeling the desire for more, will eventually bring more to you.

Carpe Diem, however or whenever you can!

Snipet #20

For Sara, it seemed as if Evelyn's thirteenth birthday came on as suddenly as an April shower. It was certainly not something she was ignorant of, yet somehow it shocked her, left her almost speechless in it's abrupt arrival. She was totally aware that Evelyn was growing up. She lived with the girl for thirteen years. It was hard not to notice those kind of changes, yet they seemed so unexpected at the same time.

As she gathered the ingredients for her traditional sponge cake, she let her mind wander off to the past. She didn't dwell on the fact that she was alone, she didn't allow herself to think of Evelyn's father very often, but it was inevitable on Evelyn's birthday that she would think of the man who was her lover. Sara had not heard from him, hadn't seen him since the night he left. She had considered trying to find him. She consulted with a private investigator, but the price was very high, both financially and emotionally. She decided to just carry on without him and if he returned, then she would deal with that, but he never did. It were really almost as if he hadn't existed, and if it weren't for the evidence of Evelyn, Sara would have thought she had dreamed him up of a summer evening.

Sara had to come to terms quickly with her situation. Her baby needed her and she hadn't hesitated. It was just her way, to give her all to whomever was right before her, needing her at any given moment. Evelyn needed her attention, completely and unconditionally, and that's just what Sara was prepared to give. She had immersed herself in motherhood and wore the role easily. She felt it was what she was born to do. After a while, in her mind, the absence of a man became less of a burden and more of a blessing. She enjoyed being Evelyn's whole world and not having to share the raising of this beautiful, precocious child with anyone else. The problem with Sara's single status was that it was more of a burden to Evelyn than to anyone else, yet Sara seemed unaware of how her daughter becoming her everything might be weighing the child down. She certainly was aware of how Evelyn's father's absence affected HER, yet didn't give much thought to how it might make Evelyn feel.

Sara was tired, which was to be expected. She was tired from mothering, she was tired from all the energy she put into forgetting, she was exhausted by trying to fit in. She was just tired. Not that she didn't love many aspects of her life, especially Evelyn, yet the effort of being Sara was at times difficult to bear. She spent many sleepless nights with her eyes closed, lying on her back in her bed, hoping to absorb the wisdom of her dearly departed female relatives. She believed if she lay still enough, if she concentrated enough, maybe she would learn some of the things they knew so well, the things she wasn't aware that she knew deep down inside her, but were long forgotten. She would wake up as ignorant of the wisdom of the ages as she was the night before, and feel like a failure. She thought she was just too distracted or unworthy to receive the gifts she felt were just beyond her grasp. She believed she could almost smell them, the clove, cinnamon and cardamom floating in the air just before her, dangling effortlessly just out of reach. These blessings were very real to Sara and had substance and scent and she longed for them with every ounce of her being.

What bothered Sara even more was that she was sure that Evelyn had received these gifts without any effort on her part at all. She was just born with them, just knowing without knowing how or why. Just knowing. She loved her daughter, but a small part of her was envious of how Evelyn embraced life, how she wasn't afraid to be who she was, how she didn't see the need to spend countless hours concentrating on forgetting and ignoring the world around her. Sara got to the point where she truly believed that during Evelyn's birth, the child had taken from Sara all of that which was magic and light and took it for herself. It hadn't dawned on her yet that she could learn a great deal from her daughter's fearlessness and love of life. Parents didn't learn from their children, or did they, she would wonder.

Sara had always admired Evelyn. From the day the child was born, she held her in very high regard. She believed that the wind had raged the night Evelyn was born for a reason. Evelyn was different, and that was good. Who wanted an unimaginative child who was like everyone else? Not Sara. Sara loved that the Wolf was in her daughter. She may have been envious, yet she was not jealous of her, and showered her daughter with all the love she could, everyday. She thought it wise to stay on the good side of such strong magic, and to be touched by it, even for a moment, was worth everything.

All the sacrifice, all the effort. Everything.

Froggie Feeding Days

At our house, there is always someone to be cared for. There are children, a husband, a dog, a bird, 4 snails and since Christmas, 2 little African frogs. Yes, I consented to share my living space with two inch long African frogs. How that happened I have yet to comprehend. One minute I was making a Christmas purchase at a toy store and the next minute I changed my mind and bought these two funny looking froggies...I'm still shocked at the swiftness with which it happened. Shocking, really.

This just proves that you can't go shopping the day before Christmas with your best friend who could talk you into ANYTHING at the drop of a hat! My mother used to say I'd lie and she'd swear to it...and she may be right...but I like to think that we have more scruples than that!

The first dilemma with these frogs is that I hate frogs. Well, I don't HATE them. I just don't LIKE them. They're icky. Icky AND cute...which is how they ingratiated themselves into my life in the first place. I swear if I am ever forced to TOUCH one of them, I'll have my whole body sprayed down with Lysol!

Then there is the feeding dilemma. They eat twice a week. Hmm....now how does one figure out WHICH two days to feed them? You certainly wouldn't feed them on a Tuesday and a Thursday because then they would have to wait four days to eat again, and they could starve to death! We considered other combinations of days...the debate went on for a day or two (all the while they patiently waited for the divine hand to bring them their pellets) until we finally decided on Monday and Thursday. So now, twice a week, our little froggies get fed 4 pellets on Monday and 4 pellets on Thursday. Dilemma #2 solved.

Dilemma #3...not so easy. Naming the little buggers. I thought maybe my daughter would want to name them after her favorite couple, Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but that's not what she wanted. Then I thought maybe something simple like Ike and Mike, after the two ducks my grandmother had many years ago. Very cute names, I thought. My daughter didn't agree. We ended up naming them Eragon and Arya, her two favorite characters from the Eragon movie. (She's a big dragon fan!) Anyhow...the frogs now have very fancy, fantasy names. Good for them.

Ok, I think I'm out of dilemmas. Not even sure why I felt it necessary to write about my frogs, except I'm distracted to DEATH here at work and I can't write my snipets because everyone's conversations are rolling around in my over addled brain and I can't come up with anything that makes any sense. Writing about the frogs seems to take care of two things...one, it gets this "whatever" that is pent up in me out, AND it may also cheer me, as writing always seems to do that.

This morning on Facebook I said that this was going to the the greatest Thursday of my life. Well, I can't say that it's lived up to that, but you know, the night is still young! You never know!

Snipet # 19

Later that night, after his mother had gone to bed, Percy took the box of unopened grape leaves out of the garbage and took them to the sun porch. He sat there in the dark, considering what they might taste like, should he be brave enough to eat one. He sat there with the box on his lap for a few minutes and just as he was going to put the box aside and go back to bed, he heard a noise. It was a quiet rumbling at first, then a growl, low and steady. It seemed to be coming from outside, yet it seemed to be emanating from within Percy himself. It was then that he recognized what were hunger pains, pure and simple, yet deep and heady. It was plain hunger for food, yet a longing for distant lands, for different sights and smells, for other ways of seeing those things his eyes rested upon everyday. He thought he would die if he didn't devour every last grape leaf in the box.

He tore the box open and picked one up. The oil dripped down his fingers and would eventually stain his favorite jeans, but he didn't care. He slipped it deftly into his mouth and savoured the taste of another world. His mother was wrong, he was sure of it. What could be so bad about trying new things, of thinking of other places? How could his mother ignore what went on around her? Percy was confused. Wasn't she ever young? Was she born into the world, full grown, as a matronly woman with a stained apron and pin curlers in her hair?

As Percy contemplated his mother's errors and flaws in judgement, his father cleared his throat from the sun porch doorway.

What ya got there son, he asked.

Grape leaves, Percy replied. Mom was throwing them out. I just wanted to taste them. She didn't think it was such a good idea.

Your mother is a simple woman, Percy. Don't be too hard on her, his father replied, as if he could read Percy's thoughts.

I just don't understand, Percy said as his father sat down beside him.

What's not to understand, he asked. She takes good care of us. She is a kind woman. She is comfortable with her life just the way it is. Anything different spooks her, that's all. She just worries about you Percy.

I'm not so sure about that, Dad. I mean, she seems so unhappy sometimes. Aren't we enough to make her happy?

She doesn't always know how to show it Percy, but if she didn't care, she would have gone ahead and let you eat that whole box of thingamabobs without even giving it a second thought. In her mind, she was saving you from something. That's not the action of woman who doesn't love her son. Judge not, lest ye be judged, his father said in his mock minister voice.

But she put them out for me to eat in the first place. Then she took them away because she thought they would hurt me. It doesn't make sense.

Just take the jam, Percy. Just take the jam.

Jam, Percy asked.

My mother was very much like your mother is. She rarely had time for play, or for children getting in the way. She cleaned her house, fed her family, took care of business quite well, actually. She used to make this jam, Percy. It could dissolve the finish off a wood floor just like acid It was that horrible. But she made this jam every year, and every year, even after I up and married your mother, she would send us a jar of that jam. Not so much as an I love you on a note. Just the jam. Your mother used to get so angry. She said she was angry for me, but I wasn't bothered by it in the least. It was your grandma's way of saying she loved me. It was all she had to give. That damn jam. Ya know, I used it to strip the paint off the walls in the bathroom some years back, he chuckled.

Very funny Dad, Percy laughed.

So, just take the jam, Percy. It's how she loves you and how she needs to love you. She don't know any other way. Just when you find you're feeling sorry for yourself, think of her, and how hard it is for her. Think about what may have made her that way.

The conversation that had transpired that night was the longest one Percy could recall having with his father in years. He decided not to question why it happened, he was just glad it did.

Are you hungry, Dad? Do you want one, Percy asked, reaching out to give his father one of the plump, stuffed leaves.

His father shrugged his shoulders. I'm just tired, Percy. Just tired, he said. Then he got up slowly as if he were pondering if he should go back into the house or go out the front door. With a soft sigh, he turned toward the living room and left Percy alone on the porch. That was the end of their father and son bonding moment. It was odd, but it was nice, and it was enough.

Percy thought of what his father had said long after the grape leaves were eaten and the box hidden in the dumpster behind the store. He might never understand his mother, and that would have to be fine. She may never understand him either, and she would have to find a way to deal with that herself.

Isn't that just the way of it, Percy thought to himself. We're all going around day by day, just coping, just trying to figure things out, trying to negotiate the many moods and ways of those around us. What is it we all truly desire but to be respected for who we are? If that is what we desire, then we can do no less than to offer that same courtesy to everyone around us.

Percy decided to take the jam, sprinkle some sugar on it, spread it on some fresh bread, and share it with Evelyn.

Snipet #18 *not sure in what order this will fit in*

Percy's mother was an odd woman, no one in town would deny that, not even Percy's mother. She would openly admit she never felt very maternal about her son, or her cat, or her husband. She cared for them, as she felt she must. She loved them, as she also felt was her duty, but she never felt that pull that other women seemed to experience. It seemed to her it would hurt to much and she would much rather not have to hurt at all, so she tended to live on the fringes of her own life, observing as an impartial viewer the comings and goings of her own family. It wasn't a happy existence, but she was content not to feel much of anything, which gave her the illusion of happiness. Smoke screens and light tricks were good enough for Irene Cooper. It never occurred to her that her son might question their lives, that he might hunger for something else.

One day while Percy was sitting in the kitchen doing his homework, his mother plopped down a bowl of odd looking food that looked rather like green cigars with oil all over them. They had an odd smell, but Percy was curious.

What's this, asked Percy.

A shipment of these things came in yesterday to the store by mistake. Your father tried to return them, but the company that he got them from insisted that he had asked for them. Can you imagine that? Your father ordering these little green bullet looking thingies? Really? He didn't even know what they were called until he spoke to that nasty foreigner on the phone yesterday, she replied.

Well, what are they, Percy asked, as he poked at them with a fork.

Grape leaves is what he called them. Said there is rice inside. You like rice, don't you, she asked.

I guess so. Did you try one, he inquired.

Me? Good Lord child, no. I wouldn't put one of those heathen made confections in my mouth. Can you imagine a place where such food were considered normal?

Yes, he replied. I can imagine. Actually, what is normal? Normal is anything that is familiar to a group of people. This is familiar to someone. So it's normal somewhere in the world, and we're considered odd to them.

His mother laughed in response to that, as if her little General Store and her cozy existence could seem anything but normal to anyone.

Percy began to lift one of the grape leaves to his mouth and his mother shuddered.

Give me that, she said. I've changed my mind. We'll just throw them out.

Why, Mom, he asked. I want to try them.

Don't be silly Percy.

But I'm hungry, Mom. Aren't you hungry?

I don't know Percy. I just don't know.