Before Girls Dreamed of Mt. Everest

When I was ten, my friends, there were three of us; decided we wanted to hike up a mountain. My mother, already stricken with cancer, dropped us off at the foot of the mountain and promised to pick us up at the top.

We began our hike through tall grass and soon we were crossing through black berry bushes and wild grape vines, but we trudged on, our reward, the crystal clear spring fed waterfall and clear rock swimming hole at the top. The cicadas were so loud and the mosquitoes were swarming to get a taste of our tender flesh and grasshoppers, big fat grasshoppers jumped from one blade of grass to the other. “We might get lost,” Cindy said. “Nope, we can only end up at the top, someone would find us,” I said. “If we do, we can eat grasshoppers.” “Yuck,” I said.

Each leg of the journey became more and more difficult and Rosie cried, she wanted to go back, but Cindy and I told her she was going to have to go alone, because we were going to climb this mountain. We ran, trying to out run the mosquitoes and at one point, I looked down and my legs were stripped with welts from the stinging Johnson grass. We stopped for a rest at the bottom of the mountain, and we began to scream at the discovery of seed ticks crawling on our legs. It took us at least thirty minutes to dust off our socks and shoes and wipe the tiny things off of us and we still missed some, before we could actually start the journey upwards, but finally we were on our way, hot, itchy, and feeling creepy crawly things on our arms and legs.

For the most part, the mountain was a series of rather steep cliffs that were not too treacherous. They were more sloped so that it was easy enough to climb up and there were rocks that jetted out and made for easy grabbing and pulling ourselves to the next ledge. I was first and when I got to the safety of the ledge, I helped Cindy, and then we both pulled cry baby up, and that went on for a couple of hours. Before we made our last dangerous ledge climb, I noticed a huge nest and said, “Oh look, an eagle’s nest.” Well, it wasn’t an eagle’s nest because the farmers had pretty much killed all the eagles with their pesticides and it’s probably a good thing it wasn’t because we would have been too stupid to get a way from the angry mother. As it turned out, it was a hawk’s nest and she had some fledglings, if that is what they are called, and when we started up the ledge, she began to circle around us and dive at us and she was protecting her young, but we were determined and when she came toward us, we swung at her and she never made contact. Her nest was on the ledge, and it was huge, maybe even an old eagle’s nest, but she and more hawks banned together and were diving at us, putting the fear of sharp talons and strong beaks into us, but I just had to look in her nest, and so I did and they were so ugly, those fledglings, and I hurried up and moved on and the mother continued to circle above our heads.

We finally made it to the top of the mountain, not even a half a mile from the water fall. I jumped and danced and yelled, and soon the other two joined in the victory dance. Mom was waiting at Clear Rock with hamburgers and an ice chest packed with cold drinks. As we ran toward the water falls, we began stripping off our clothes, preparing to jump into the water, and Mom was standing there smiling, “We did it,” I yelled.

I jumped into the water and swam to the other side, followed by my friends and we decided there that we could do anything. Rosie said, “Let’s climb Mt. Everest.”

Well that was the first and last mountain we ever climbed together. Cindy was hit by a car on her way to school and lived only a week before her heart gave out. When my mother died, Rosie and I were separated by 30 miles and I never saw her again. The other day, I ran into a mutual friend who told me Rosie was in prison for manufacturing meth. I wonder when she gave up her dream to climb Mt. Everest.

I still can’t look at a soaring hawk without remembering the little girls loaded with our brother’s canteens and pocket knives and rope walking toward the mountain that warm summer’s day.

Racist Pigs

Okay, I know racism exists, I hear it every day. But, I thought such overt displays of hate as seen at the site below, well, it just makes me more ashamed today than I have been in a long time of being from this place where cross burning is still going on, and not just in a round about without the fire kind of way.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12677315/?GT1=8199

The Nerve to Tell the Truth

So it’s that time of the year. Already, my sister has called and informed me what we are having on Thanksgiving and giving me ideas what to bring and frankly I didn’t have the guts to tell her that I am not coming. I’m not. I just can’t do these family things any longer. I have pretty much severed the ties with my three sisters who live in one town, but the sister who raised me, well, it’s harder and she is like a mother to me. But they are so fundamentally Christian and staunch republicans and racists and homophobes and war mongers that I hate being around them. For instance, my sister’s husband, Mr. Know It All, well, he tries to bait the educated fool that would be me. You see, while I am in my last year of earning my masters, I am the most educated in our family, of all our family, including in laws, cousins, and everything in between. Of my siblings, besides me, only my sister who raised me, Mother Hen, has even graduated high school, so they see me as an educated fool, thus the baiting.

Most of the day is spent, prior to forcing too greasy of food down my throat, smiling when the women, including me, prepare, serve, and wait on the men to finish eating before we actually sit down. The men retire to the living room, while we clean up the mess and keep running around officering pie to the adults and chasing after the kids, who are hyper from so much sugar. They watch ball games and discuss politics and religion and I just want to say, no that is not what the Bible says and I used to say that and then they would drag out the Bible and I would prove my point and they would say that I was taking it out of context and I would say, no, I’m not.

The conversations, of the last couple of years, revolve around liberal fools, illegal aliens, and why not just drop a bomb on the Middle East. I look at them all and just want to scream but I am always too doped up to do anything but count the minutes that are required after eating before I can leave, according to Ms. Manners.

This year, I am cooking a nice turkey and making dressing and maybe sweet potatoes and probably long green beans and asparagus. I will make one pie, maybe a cake and invite friends over. This year, I am calling Mother Hen and telling her that I am just not able to come down, that I think it is time for me to have my own traditions begin. And those traditions are going to include, my immediate family and my friends. I just hope I don’t chicken out and tell her I am sick. That is my usual get-out-of-family-free-card.

Grateful? About what?

Per Oprah's five things to be thankful for:
1. I have a roof over my head when so many haven't and the roof is sturdy.
2. My underwear are finally in style, you know, the staying in the crack thing.
3. I have a new computer and am no longer sharing my laptop with Mr. Zelda.
4. I have The Good Son.
5. My grandchildren.

I really have to work at finding good things in my life. Hmmm, I mean, yeah, I breathe, and yeah, I eat, and yeah I have comforts, but there seems to just be this crap that falls in my lap every fucking day. Crap like stupid ass freshmen who speak before thinking, yep; and sophmores, who just think the world owes them space, so they take it and won't fucking move out of my way when I need space; and the damned juniors, who are almost there and strut, yes they do; and finally the fucking seniors, who are just weird. Now, what about the other ones, you know, my peers, the graduate students. I would need a fucking book.

Suffer, I say.

So, I'm trying to translate and Mr. Zelda is driving me nuts. So, I just put the books up and am sitting here playing, now he falls asleep. Geeze. The thing with transaltions, for me anyway, is that I just can't jump in and translate. I have to be in the groove, it's sorta like writing. I have to be there mentally and have my favorite pencil, eraser, and all my books just so, and if there is an interruption to the flow, I'm pretty much fucked. So, he is asleep and I'm thinking how he would feel if I pulled that long hair out of his nose. It would burn, sure, it would wake him up, sure, but how would I feel. Let me see. Yep, pretty much made my day.

Homophobes doing well here on the hill.

There is a climate at the university, a fearful climate. It started with the letters to the editor. Two students gay bashed, not just gay bashed, they talked about how that gays shouldn’t have rights, that they should have their children taken away, that they are an abomination and are going to hell, they said that we should lock them up. I mean, it was so scary to think that our young folk are so filled with hate and rage to write such venom. But, as I hung out around the lobby, waiting for my class, some of the other students were reading the comments out loud and saying things like, right on, or it’s about time the Christians had a voice. You can not reason with them. It’s a really sad day when are youth are so filled with hate that they can not see a person for who they are, but instead, identify them by their sexual orientation, nationality, color, religion, and sex. We are living in bad times.

The Heat Is OFF

So, the weather is changing. We have left the triple digit heat behind and our seeing more days the eighties and rare nineties at night, fifties, yes. It is cooling off enough for a sweater a couple of mornings and today, we are having a thunder storm. It looks like a typical fall storm. Mostly loud thunder and the rain is a drizzle with a threat of a down pour. I noticed the pear trees are turning and some of the leaves on the sugar maples are turning. Even the oaks are getting their tent, that almost golden edged before the entire tree goes to a golden glorious sight.

We are eating fresh pears and apples, the fall fruit, and even the fall peaches are ripe and good. And we are also drinking fresh apple cider, and no more melons, I am tired of melons.

Last evening, hubby and I went to a dinner hosted by the head of the comparative lit department and the cultural study staff was there as well and it was so nice, for a change, to be the minority white. There were Arabs from all over the Middle East, and Latin America was well represented and it felt so good to have these people introduce us to their culture via their dress and their food and it just felt nice. It was the first time in a long time that I was happy that I chose comparative lit. Plus, I think I scored points with the head of the department. While I don’t judge others, I think he has judged me as a middle aged white woman choosing to fill her bored days by hobnobbing with the minorities and for once he saw that I don’t look down on him or any one else, that I am truly interested in their cultures, their literature, and their lives. I believe he saw that I was in deed sincere and maybe he will now recommend me for a position. Who knows. He did spend a lot of time talking to me, and his wife and I talked almost the entire time about recipes, child rearing, and of course my favorite subject, the classics. She, too, likes the classics. Go figure. He was really happy that I am taking two more semesters of Spanish so that I can take the class that I want and the instructor only teaches in Spanish. Okay, I’m off to clean my kitchen and figure out what to cook for supper, maybe the girls, the graduate students that I have adopted, will make steaks. I am letting them come over and cook. HEHE.

Always in hiding

Some of us had these people in our lives who felt compelled to remind us that we were sexual beings, even when we were children, they were on this mission to keep us aware of our sexuality. That we were developing and because we had breasts now, we should hide them and while one of the biggest observers of my development was my mother’s boyfriend, yep that one, well there were others, and like many other women today that have had similar scripts, what they said and did caused me to have this retarded view of me and it makes me wonder why they do it, why the very people we love and are supposed to protect us, do these things.

For me, it was two of my three older sisters. They were older than me by over a decade, and as it happened, when I started puberty, they were married with children and always seemed to have children on the way. Okay, that’s okay but two of my older sisters well they lived next door to us, one on either side, and they were over our house day and night, which means that their husbands were there too and their babies. Since my sisters were still young women, in their early twenties, I realize now, they were jealous of me for a lot of reasons, but the main one, I wasn’t spitting out babies every nine months nor was I tied down with those babies; they were also jealous of how their husbands responded to me. They weren’t perverted or anything like that, but they joked with me and flirted a little, it was innocent, or I think it was innocent.

Even when my sisters weren’t pregnant, they were shaped differently than I, not that I had huge breasts, but they had none, nope, never more than an A cup, and they had no waist and a flat butt and when the babies started coming, they developed little tummies. I, on the other hand, was normal breasted, had curves, and had that butt that was perfect, no, it really was, it complemented my sway back just enough and not too much. Plus, I played ball and had a musculature body, hell, I had to have muscles, I was the only girl in a neighborhood of twenty boys. There was never doll playing for me, it was softball and kick ball and bike racing and all of that, even up until my mother died and I had to move away from my life long friends.

So, I didn’t know it at the time, it was always jealousy, but unfortunately for me, I thought they just hated me. How did all of that influence me? As soon as I began to develop breasts and a waist and hips, well, my pregnant, always pregnant, sisters were right there telling me my shirt was too small or my pants too tight or why don’t I put some clothes on or even yelling to my mother that I was boy crazy and would she make me put some clothes on. I remember my sisters and how mad they got when their husbands looked at me. I was thirteen and they were afraid their husbands saw me in a sexual way and instead of taking it up with their husbands, they took issue with me, it was my fault, I was the little slut who was walking around trying to seduce these over sexed men. Yes, little ole me and now all these years later and I still feel the need to hide behind shirts that are way too big and pants that don’t show nothing of my real body. One day, a few years back, my one sister said, “You know, you always stayed in your room and read. I remember you locking the door and not letting anyone in and when you finally did open the door, there were always open books on the bed.” I said, “I was hiding.”

Those fucked up people.

So, I’m at the University, and I’m studying Latin, and I hear them, even with my hearing aides turned off, I hear them, and what’s worse, I see them. Who are they? They are young men and women who are members of the on campus religious group, that’s who they are, and what they do, they pass on their love, loudly, overtly physically, and annoyingly.
Why do they always have to hug, not male to male or female to female, no their damned repressed sexual selves have to do the mixed sex hug, the one that is trying so hard to restrain but their bodies can’t restrain and they hug a little too long and some grinding happens and they are sick, fucking sick. Plus they talk loudly, they want everyone to hear about how god has blessed their lives and how they are so happy and content and right where they want to be, fucking through their clothes and hoping no one knows it and, well, it’s all just way to sick to even talk about. Today’s discussion, that Rosie from the View who was talking about fundamentalists’ Christians being as dangerous as those Arab people, yes that is how they said it, those Arab people.

A MEME

Meme
How Long Have You Been Blogging?

Hmmm, soon to be two years. Thanks to Delagar for giving me yet one more addictive behavior to occupy my time.

Self-Portrait:
I am one of those people when children and dogs see, well they are instantly my friend. Long gray and black hair, more gray than black. I suppose you would say that I am darker than most white folks, green eyes, if that’s important, and I am not one of those women who worries over clothes, never have been, never will be, just have way too many other things to keep my mind busy. I’m portly, or do they just use that with men? Was thin, but gained a lot of weight when I was sitting for ten years in a wheel chair and why do women, especially, feel the need to justify being overweight. I’m overweight, no big deal. I’m short but believe it or not, I’m the next to the tallest one in my family. Now, my children are giants, taking after my father and their father, both jerks, the fathers, I mean. I have bad eye sight for up close so I wear triple bifocals. Yep, without my glasses can’t see to read or write or even cook. My best feature, I’m not so sure I have a best feature, I suppose if I had to pick my best feature, it would be my eyes. Not brown, not green, but sorta in between.

Why Do Readers Read Your Blog:
Like a train wreck, maybe, they just want to watch it crash. Hell, I don’t know. Sometimes they are entertaining, but most of the time, they are just fucking depressing.

What is the last search phrase someone used to reach your blog:
I don’t know what that means either.

Favorite way to find blogging material:
It’s my life, that’s where I get it.

Favorite blogs:
Waiterrant
http://delagar.blogspot.com/
http://writingasjoe.blogspot.com/
http://thedeesdiversion.blogspot.com/
http://ogblay.blogspot.com/
http://amousehole.blogspot.com/
http://thedeesdiversion.blogspot.com/
http://www.pandagon.net/
http://geekymom.blogspot.com/
http://dmorgen.blogspot.com/
I have more but got tired of copying.

What blog did you read last:
That would be waiterrant only because he is so damned entertaining.
Why am I so technologically fucking useless:
Well, I think it is because I click before I think, much like my mouth, talking before I think, well in this age of blogging and communicating via the computer, my fingers do the talking, thus the click before I think. So, when I am trying to do something, I get hasty and click and then it’s all fucked up. So that’s what I think.

Who do I tag:
Oh mouse, where are you? I tag mouse.

Mr. Zelda and I spent the weekend rock hunting. I have to say that the place where we hunted was on a Peninsula in the middle of the White river way up in Missouri. The cliffs along the side are made from granite, marble, and there are veins of flint, so, it was a place where the Native Americans spent a lot time. They probably made tools there and over the years a great many spear heads and knives and arrowheads have been found. So, Mr. Zelda and I drove down the sand bar and we got out and sat in the sand and I sifted through pounds and pounds of white sand. I found a tool, it’s what looks like a tool used to make the arrow heads. I don’t know much about tool making, but I found some like it on the good sites for arrow heads and mine even has the little markings that indicated it was used often. My big find was a huge petrified root rock. It’s a huge piece from a much larger piece. The roots are so perfectly petrified, they almost look alive and there are other markings around the roots like small animals may have been scratching and eating on the roots. The man who found them said he had an old tree that he couldn’t get up so he used a big tractor and when he was scraping the dirt out, he came upon this huge rock and he broke it up with his big dirt digger and piled them all in a huge rock pile. He gave a few of them to my friend and she gave one to me. She thought the tree he cut down was the tree that left the root pattern on the rock, not so according to my research. That tree wasn’t nearly old enough to have petrified roots. Any way, my weekend rock hunting paid off big time. Next time, I’m going for rose rock. A friend or someone I emailed and will probably be my friend before it’s all over is letting me dig in her pasture where there is a huge vein. So what happens when I have more rocks than room?