Being weird is paying off!

  I had an unusual childhood. My city bred, college educated mother taught me things like finance, how to shop to get the most for your money, and interestingly enough, how to drive a stick shift. My country bred, grew up too poor to be a dirt farmer father taught me about the outdoors, guns, hunting/fishing, boating, building, and gave me a love of reading. There were no children living anywhere near our home and my siblings were all much older than me, so I spent all my time alone, reading and acting out the things I read about. We had a large yard, and an abandoned pecan orchard behind the house where I built lean-to shelters with a rope and leafy branches, pretending to be a primitive person. Sometimes I was a Native American, sometimes a Celtic warrior, a space traveller on an alien planet, or a Cimmerian from the world of Conan, it all depended on what I was reading that week. 
  My parents would take me everywhere with them, and often the older people at the various gatherings would tell me stories to keep me entertained, usually about what they did when they were my age. I was fascinated hearing about life in the country, farming or ranching, growing a garden for food, wild gathering other foodstuffs. I paid attention, and often the older person would be happy to teach me the skills they knew.
 As I grew older, I became even more interested in primitive living. I was born in the early 60s, and the hippy culture was full steam by the time I was 10 or so. In Jr. High I met a classmate who had an actual hippy for a mother, and she introduced me to the good and the bad of living with less, or as my parents called it, dirt poor. I learned much at her knee, and she was happy to pass on her knowledge to anyone who was interested in learning. 
  Freshman year of college, I was rummaging around in the magazine bins at a local used bookstore, and stumbled across a magazine called Mother Earth News. I opened it, and became hooked immediately. I dug through the bins and found the entire first 5 years, all in good condition. I think I paid something like five or ten cents each, the bookstore owner was just glad to get rid of them. I took them home and devoured them. Some of the things I had already learned over the years, and some things were totally new, or things I had read about but never tried. As time went on, I found books in the library on homesteading and other things, and began teaching myself. I learned to spin and weave from a book, hand carving a spindle from scrap wood and picking up spilled cotton bolls on the side of the road around the cotton gin. I got hides from local hunters and learned to tan leather and fur, learned how to knap flint and make tools and weapons, how to wild gather food, how to build a solar still or oven, pretty much anything I took an interest in, I was able to teach myself or learn from the area older population. 
 I was always the weird kid that no one really wanted to play with. I did find a small group of other weird kids in Jr. High, but only a handful. Even in college I was fairly isolated because I had such different interests from everyone else. As I grew older I continued learning new things, and doing a lot of homesteading practices. Even after I moved to the city I continued to read, research and learn how to do 'old fashioned' things. I would buy large amounts of food and can/dehydrate it, grow some of my own food, and raise small livestock. As time went on I met a few more people with the same interests, but it wasn't until the Internet that I really found my tribe. While it is no longer feasible for me to live in the country, thanks to others like me who have learned to adapt and overcome, a new wave of urban homesteading has sprung up, fueled by the economic uncertainties and food insecurities of the last decade.  People have always laughed and joked that when the apocalypse hit, they were heading to my house. With the current state of affairs, they have stopped joking, and started asking how to do things. Sometimes it pays to be the weird one. 

Today is not a good day.

Yesterday was an okay day. Despite the pain of a cracked tooth, I was able to get up, do a bit of housework, ten minutes of Tai Chi, and get out to do some shopping. I ended up going to five different stores to get everything I needed. Leaving store #5, my body decided to rebel, and by the time I got home, I was crippled to the point I was barely able to make it from the car to the house. Last night's supper was a poor choice of salty prepared food yet again, as the pain made it impossible to stand, and no one else in the household cooks. Today will be spent in pain from multiple parts of my body, sad and depressed that once again, I can't do the things I need to, let alone the things I want to.

I contracted mono as a young teen, like many people. Mine didn't even come from making out (Mono was called 'The Kissing Disease' when I was in high school, with a wink and nod.) I contracted mine from an idiot in theater who knew she was sick, but didn't want to give up her starring role in the current play. We all shared drinks and smokes back then, no one thought anything about asking a friend for a sip of their Dr. Pepper. She infected the entire theater department. I was also cursed with a mother who didn't really understand illness or even want to admit it existed, and didn't take us to the doctor unless it was absolutely necessary. By the time I was finally taken to the doctor, I was very sick indeed. I remember our family doctor yelling at my mother in the hallway for not bringing me in sooner. The standard treatment for mono at that time was a massive shot of penicillin. I immediately went into anaphylactic shock, and then the fun began. I noticed as high school progressed that I seemed to feel 'off' all the time, unlike my classmates. I woke up tired and depressed many mornings, which got worse the older I got. Like most of us in the 70s and early 80s, I was on fire to get out of high school, out of my parents' house, and do Great Things, which i had been told was expected of me and everyone else. I got a job like my friends, but I didn't seem to be having as easy a time as they were. Some days I could go out after work and party, some days I was so exhausted it was all I could do to make it home to collapse into bed.

By the time I was in college, I knew something wasn't right. I didn't feel exactly good much of the time, but there wasn't any one thing I could put my finger on. Complaints about how I felt were met by my family with skepticism, when I mentioned widespread pain with no apparent cause, I was told 'It's just growing pains', and 'You're imagining it'. I finally went to a doctor at the college clinic, since it was free and I had no insurance, who listened to everything I had to say, did a thorough examination, then diagnosed me with something called Epstein-Barr Syndrome. She explained that something had happened when I was sick years before and had the reaction to the antibiotics, and it had affected my immune system, and that I would basically have chronic severe mono-like symptoms for the rest of my life, and would most likely get worse as the years went by. I wasn't happy exactly to find this out, but at least I now knew why I felt like I did. I remained active, and able to do most things most days without too much pain and fatigue.

As I grew older, things started breaking down more. When I would go to a doctor and tell them of the EBS diagnosis, I would be met with derision by the medical 'professionals' and told no such thing existed, and it was all in my head, and I needed to be in therapy, which was the hot new thing in the mid-80s. As time went on, and my German/Italian/Northman body, already 'overweight' (which I wasn't) because I didn't look like Twiggy, began to thicken, the doctors added 'lose weight and you'll be fine' to their litany, instead of actually trying to help me. So began my abuse from the medical community for the next 30 years. It took going blind in one eye on my 56th birthday for the doctors to finally admit that I had an immune disorder of some sort.

I have been handed off to no less than 7 doctors in the last 6 months. They all agree, yes, there's an issue with my immune system, but no one is willing to put a name to it. I have been tested for MS (negative), rheumatoid arthritis (negative) and endocrine disorders (negative again). They shrug, and say "Well, it's not in MY field, so off you go, and no I won't/can't help you." It's not like I'm asking for drugs or narcotics, in fact, I usually refuse them when offered, I want to save them for a time when nothing else will work. I'm now out of money, the insurance having refused to cover one of my days in the hospital, because according to them, sudden onset blindness with optic neuropathy isn't a reason for a hospital stay. And at $60 a pop, I can no longer go to specialists to continue trying to find out what is really wrong with me.

I have spent the majority of my adult life being told I was lazy, faking, and lying because I didn't 'look sick', and just 'didn't want to work' and the ever popular 'If you would just do.....'. Yeah. I just LOVE living in poverty most of my life. Really? So you think I am just living it up over here at 56 years old in a house with no hot water, walls literally crumbing, plumbing shot to the point the entire system needs to be replaced, in pain from a cracked tooth that I can't afford to get fixed because our dental insurance is a joke? (Don't EVEN get me started on the 'Well then you should just move somewhere cheaper!" assholes.) Tack on the lack of support system with the cultural loss of extended families, which terrifies me after having to put both parents in a nursing home and seeing the rampant abuses first hand. It is no surprise why so many people in my situation end up committing suicide because 'thoughts and prayers' are a bullshit cop out that we hear daily, with not one single person willing to stand up and help us.

No, we will no longer remain silent

 Normally I do things like this on my Facebook page, but I feel the need to share this further. Facebook has removed and blocked a photographer from their site because of a powerful photo shoot that she posted. You can see the details here. 

 Enough! This bullshit whiny PC crap needs to stop now! This is totally BS that a bunch of crybaby titty babies with sand in their vaginas are too busy sticking their fat fucking noses in everyone else's business. Don't want to view the pics? The learn to ducking use that little x on the upper corner TO CLOSE THE DAMN PICTURE! And if I hear one more rant about "What about the childreeeen???" I am going to go Pulp Fiction on their asses. Maybe if you educated your children instead of trying to keep them from knowing how the world works, there wouldn't be as many teen pregnancies, drug over doses, and suicides from bullying. 

 The world is a hard scary place, and while yes, children do not need to be exposed to all the horrors that it holds until they are able to understand it, it is past time to stop trying to keep our entire society in a state of extended childhood. Grow the fuck up, learn to deal with your problems instead of hiding them and drugging them away, because that solves nothing. NOTHING. 

July Day Trip

 For our July day trip, we rolled a 4 sided die and came up with the direction of northeast, and this morning we loaded up and headed out in a general northeasterly direction meandering out of Austin. 
 Our first stop was the town of New Sweden, a wide spot in the road. The only thing of note that we could find was the New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church out in the middle of nowhere.

 Next stop was Coupland, population 298, home of the Old Coupland Inn and Dance Hall. 

 Next door to that is the other main tourist attraction in town, the former train station. 

 It's a museum now, I think. There weren't any signs of it being open, but there was a case with some old items in it inside. 

Coupland is also the birthplace of Morgan C. Hamilton. Exciting. 

 Leaving Coupland we headed north on 95 to Taylor, 8 miles up the road. The countryside out here is flat, mostly farmland growing maize and hay. Boooring to look at. 

 Taylor is a big larger town, about 17,000 people. There are definite signs of growth, as it is one of the hottest new bedroom cities to both Austin and Georgetown. The old downtown district still had some cool old buildings, but it looks like they are quickly being gentrified with new construction. 

The original bank building for the area. It's all boarded up now. What a badass home that would make for someone with the $$ to rehab it. 

 After our bit of sightseeing, we headed to Louie Mueller BBQ, owned by the Mueller family for three generations. For my blog post and review of that, click here. 

 Sorry about the fuzzy pic, I didn't take it. 

 Our trip home took us through Hutto, where they are frantically building to handle the overflow from Austin. We did stop at a nice little veg stand outside of Hutto and picked up a few things for supper. 

 All in all, a nice quiet little half-day trip. I look forward to the August trip! 

Sadness and Anger

 Lately the news seems to be all bad. The Stamford Rapist, and now the Pulse shooting. It seems that things are getting progressively worse, not better since the Great Recession. The country has been divided socially and economically for decades now, with the poor getting poorer and the rich dodging the massive amount of taxes they should be paying. Reading last month about the atrocities that American companies have perpetrated on Central America, it makes me sick. The people are being exploited, and the environment will take generations to recover, if it ever does.

 Westboro Baptist Church is speeding their way to Florida right now, to vomit their hate all over the grieving community. People carp on 'free speech', however, they have no clue what it is, exactly. Constitutional free speech simply means that you can criticize the government without fear of being snatched up and sent to prison or worse.What is does not do is allow you to say whatever you damn well please without repercussions. I find it thoroughly amusing that every member of Westboro will be going straight to their Hell, express lane. And they don't even see the irony. When a mother can't even feed her baby in public without some ignorant fucknut screaming "WHORE", it is past time for us to retake our country.

 As much as I admire the people preaching love and peace, remember that it took violence at Stonewall to get the message across that we will not just lay down and let the government and worthless pieces of shit like Westboro stomp all over us. Stay strong sisters and brothers, and we will overcome. 

Old World Customs

I grew up for my first 10 years in an Italian household. My grandfather Pete was the uncontested head of the family, even my father made it a point to never go against him. I spent much of my time hanging out in his shop, watching him work (He was a blacksmith.), and listening to what he had to say. 

 Papa was raised in Chicago, in the area known as Little Italy. My great-grandfather had immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s, and my grandfather was one of the children born here. He was an unusual man, he left home at 13 after being molested by a Catholic priest, hitchhiked to New Orleans, and went to work on a banana boat going back and forth to South America. When WWI broke out, he lied about his age like so many young men, and joined the Army at 15. He ended up in the cavalry, where he learned the blacksmith trade. He shipped out almost immediately to Europe, saw 13 major engagements, and was mustard gassed twice. (No one to my knowledge ever saw him naked except his doctor.) He met a German girl of 16, fell head over heels in love, married her and spent five years in Ochtendung with the occupation forces, waiting to get my grandmother's papers so she could travel to the 
U.S. 
 
 My grandfather had a very interesting outlook on life. He was generous to a fault, but when he felt he had been wronged would cut a person off in a heartbeat, and never help them or even acknowledge their presence again. One of his favorite phrases was "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." Their house in Chicago had the kitchen in the basement, and my grandmother had a table set up at all times to feed hungry people during the Depression. The hobos who traveled around looking for work marked the house with symbols showing that generous people lived there. I was taught that if someone is hungry, even if we didn't have much, we shared what we had, with the unspoken understanding that they would do the same. 

 As I have gotten older, and the world has changed, this standard no longer applies here in America. Everyone is out for themselves, and screw the rest. There are a few pockets of us still around, and usually we are called old fashioned, hippies, or even rubes, because we are still willing to help out others in times of need. I still believe, despite having been burned time and again, that it is my duty to do so. Sadly, this is seldom, if ever, reciprocated. Sometimes people mistake my generosity for weakness, and when they try to take advantage of me, they are totally surprised to find themselves cut off. I think the rest have good intentions, but they weren't raised in that type of culture, and don't really comprehend that kind of a give and take relationship. The relationships I do have like that are all with people who were raised in a similar culture, and understand it on a subconscious level.  These really and truly are the friends that you can call at 3 in the morning, and they will be there. There was a time when people had large family/tribe units to rely on, but most times that is no longer the case. People are roaming further from their families following jobs, college, romance, and are not returning to the familial areas like they used to, so those connections are being lost, and we are having to wade through a sea of posers to find those like ourselves, to create our intentional family, the people we can rely on to have our backs in times of need. Sad that this is no longer the norm in our society, but looked upon as a colloquialism, a throw back, old fashioned. 

 

End of an Era

 Within the last 3 weeks, we have had two holidays, and three upheavals. We celebrated our anniversary and my birthday, and in between the two, S got laid off by AT&T after being one of the top 1% in his department for nearly 11 years. Rather than try to return to the call center, he has decided to move forward, rather than back, and look for a job in the computer industry, which is the field of his degree. 

 I had decided to close the Pagan shop, and scale back the bakery to my current customer base several weeks before this happened. Instead of trying to open back up, I too have decided to shake things up, and finally get around to writing. I was published in my younger days, and with self publishing, writers are no longer tied to a publishing house, fielding weeks/years of rejection letters, and being under the editor and agent's thumbs. This will be my first foray into fiction, as previously I wrote research papers and a bit of bad poetry, which none the less managed to get put into print, long before home computers were a thing. 

 Number three hit last week was our son informing us he was quitting college to find a dead end minimum wage job. I am super bummed that his biofather is letting him get away with this. Why the man wanted a child in the first place, I will never know, since he takes zero interest in what W is doing. They have given him little help in the year he has lived with them, and he is refusing to move home so he can get his life together. I'm sure he's going to show up on my doorstep at 28 with no job, no education, and no where to live, and I will have to fix my ex's fuck up once again. 

 So at 52, I am once again striking out to new territory. Brave new world!