IrishAyes
IrishAyes's JournalBless you for such a wonderful story.
I hope everything improves in your life, because you certainly deserve it.
And I certainly agree with you on the therapeutic value of pets. It's a cold cruel world we have to face sometimes, and the comfort and strength our furkids share makes everything more bearable.
For many years I had a Dobie-Rott mix that I found loose on a highway near a military base, and from certain signs I learned later that he'd been somebody's jungle patrol project. He was big enough to rip almost anybody or anything in as many pieces as he wanted. But when I also brought home a tiny kitten orphaned at 5 weeks, he hounded the dog unmercifully and the dog seemed to love him all the more for it. Kitty would walk up to dog asleep on the floor and butt his head against his jaws, then when they opened he'd stick his whole head in. Eventually taught the dog to carry him around as a mother cat would.
If not for a continuing stream of furkids, I never could have survived life's blows. When I get sick of mankind in general, I stop and remember all the true pet lovers and feel better just from that. So keep those stories comin'!
IT'S ABOUT TIME!
Clearly things can't be allowed to continue as they have been.
A long time ago, Jesus had plenty to say about wolves in sheep's clothing. He must've known the GOP was coming.
Don't worry, Beck's so full of it he can produce more
At least a few years ago, there was a website where you could enter your own name into an app and a long Beck rant would focus on you specifically. I still have mine around here somewhere. Must've watched it a dozen times.
If anybody can find that website and share it with others, it would be a treat. Beck rants and raves and calls you every terrible creature in the book; writes your very own name on a blackboard proving you're a satanic lunatic. It's funny!
I actually wrote Beck a snarky email one time and he started sending me all sorts of thinly veiled threats. Wouldn't stop until I said I was going to the AG with it.
Try living in RedNeckLand, honey
Where they think everything they don't know or don't have is suspect. They only know 2 kinds of people: themselves and the rest of us, all commies every one. It's funny until the pickaxes come out. Then I run home and hide.
The snarky game I enjoy
is to keep the locals where I retired guessing as to my financial status. They know I moved here almost 4 years before early retirement could be had, and they've never seen me with a job. I paid cash at auction for the most desirable house in town if you happen to like hundred-year-olds that need total rehab. Eventually I sold my car because it was clearly more economical to pay someone to drive for me a couple hours on weekly errands. Other than that I get around on a bicycle. Raise a garden. Read the papers at the library. Don't spend $ I don't have, and most of that slowly finds its way directly into crucial home improvement.
So the point being, while I'm sure many people don't give a fig either way, certainly not my small circle of friends and friendly acquaintances, those with nothing better to occupy their time can't seem to decide if I'm broke or well off or just tight or some combo. Now that the yard and exterior of the house at least show great improvement, a certain odor of jealousy wafts by on occasion, via snide remarks about who does she think she is anyway. Etc. More than a few catty remarks about my bike and no car. And what proper snob also walks? Tongues really wag when I happen upon a curbside treasure in open view and haul it home. One time I made it 4 blocks home on foot, carrying an antique iron bedstead some nut threw out. Add that to the fact of proud public Democratic Party support, and they know something's going on that they wouldn't like if they could just figure out what was at the bottom of it.
I hope this post doesn't stray too far off topic. Just wanted to say it can be fun to confound the eternally nosey who keep trying to poke their noses in other people's business. Small towns especially are notorious for that. If a person is able to gain a halfway decent and secure situation for retirement out in the sticks, though, I think it's worthwhile just to be shed of the even worse rat race. And it can be more fun than you'd think with the proper twist of mind. That's the ultimate crime, learning to live happily on a shoestring.
It is most helpful and welcome
Some of us just plain old love animals, period, and she's a hero to us.
I can relate to that
Summers on the farm, I'd take a book out to the pasture and read to the cows. Although the book had nothing to do with it, cows will come and form a protective, attentive circle around you if you sit quietly.
My favorite cow story, however, involved an old lady (not me!) who was going to be away from the farm awhile, so she hired a couple older boys to come take care of the milk cow twice a day. After offering them a good dollar, she set the hook with another tip: the milk cow didn't really like men so they'd have to wear a dress when doing the work. Otherwise the cow would fight them. Turned out to be true. I don't know that the story itself is true, but cows certainly have their own personalities and quirks.
No, maybe my favorite cow story is one I can vouch for because I'm the perpetrator. Wound up at an aunt and uncle's farm one summer, which was a big mistake because Uncle Azur was a real fire and brimstone preacher who believed in corporal punishment. But he didn't dare do anything himself because he knew what my dad would do to him. So he'd hand Aunt Star a belt and send her with me into the bedroom for my punishment. She'd yell at me, slam the door shut, and then whale away on the bed, making a great noise while I pretended to beg for mercy. By the time we came out, we both had tears streaming down our faces (from silent laughter) and the old coot would be satisfied that justice had been done.
I didn't consider justice done, however, until the Sunday I feigned illness and begged off going to church with them. Didn't want to hear another sermon about women's wicked ways. As I sat on the front porch, inspiration struck. The milk cow in the front pasture bordering the highway was NAKED! Determined to teach her the error of her ways, I took a pair of Uncle Azur's bib overalls off the clothesline, cut them to fit the job, and somehow managed to attach them to a very mellow old cow so that her bag wouldn't show.
She just kept munching along as if nothing in her world had changed at all. I stayed on the porch, rocking away and waiting for church to let out, knowing that most of the attendees would pass by in plain sight on their way home. They must've approved, because quite a few honked their horns in passing and waved at me. I waved back, happy as a clam. When Uncle Azur's truck appeared, though, I could hear him swearing at the top of his lungs so I ran and hid.
But I'll guarantee you one thing, they took me home that day and I was never forced to visit again, not even under parental supervision. I guess he banned me.
Want to hear something odd?
I won't deny there are some ill-behaved youths everywhere you look (let's address abusive elders another time), but even here where I retired in RedNeckLand, they are far more kind and open to me than some of the so-called adults who can be absolutely brutish. I always loved visiting college towns because some of the students I passed by would high-five even me, a total stranger and little old lady. Maybe it's something subliminal, maybe my habitual mode of dress had something to do with it, who knows. (A good shrink friend always told me I present soft.) They probably know old hippies when they see one. But hardly ever in my life have I had a single negative experience with the 'kids'. That's why it's hard for me to give up on them as a group.
Your parenting skills are to be admired.
These so-called reality shows
often pander to the public's worst instincts. And the producers do indeed encourage and provoke the most outrageous behavior they can, then edit the results. With the possible exception of talent competitions, which can still be rigged, they seem pretty trashy.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHome country: US
Current location: retired to MidWest
Member since: Mon Feb 18, 2013, 10:15 PM
Number of posts: 6,151