My Augean Task

Specs found here

I am faced with a task as onerous to me as cleaning King Augeas' stables was for Hercules, although my place doesn't stink as bad, nor does it have any horse/cattle manure. Lots of SPIDER(!!) poop, though. Since I don't have a couple of rivers nearby whose streams I could divert to flush out my "stable," I'm forced to look for more modern equipment...heavy-duty equipment, the likes of which O-Cedar broom-makers only wish their products could emulate.

I'm talking earth-movers here, Peeps. In particular, the Bobcat MT52, as seen above. (BB, check out the specs, linked under the picture. Sweet, hunh?) This baby comes with all kinds of attachments: plow blade, front-end loader bucket, post hole digger and the most bodacious revolving snow-terminator whatchamacallit I've ever seen - and its blades are blue, Lucy! That beautiful October-sky blue that you like. It might be the snow-terminator that won my heart. I can just see me throwing snow over Mike's fence next winter with the MT52. For that matter, I might even start a new business for myself and Donovan. Yeah! McLemore and Grandson Movers, Inc.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Cleaning my stable.

I am amazed at the amount of crap Ex-B and I have accumulated in the 25-plus years of our relationship. Most of it is junk, and will be tossed/plowed out, though it must have been very important to us at the time we acquired it. There are bundles of ham-radio (his) and writers (mine) magazines collecting dust throughout the house, not to mention hundreds of orphaned computer and radio parts (his) and teapots, art supplies and how-to books (all mine) cluttering shelves in every room that has shelves. This is just the house; haven't even thought about tackling the tool shed, workshop or the barn!

Oh, and dust-bunnies! Out the wah-zoo-o-o-o-o! (No wonder I'm asthmatic!) These are no ordinary dust-bunnies, either, but tumbleweed-sized globs of dead skin cells (human and other animal), hairs (human, cats and dog) SPIDER!! bodies (murdered and naturally-expired) insect body-parts (murdered leftovers from SPIDER!! feasts), toast and other food crumbs, flakes of backyard soil (composition unknown - and let's leave it at that), plus copious quantities of star dust, automotive exhaust particles, microscopic ashes from the few times we used the fireplace, and who-knows-what-else. I've gone through a year's supply of vacuum bags in two days trying to suck up this stuff. I swear to you, Friends of the Blogosphere, I think they're cloning themselves even as we speak, doubling in mass every thirteen seconds.

I might have to widen the doors to get the MT52 into the house, and obtain a hazardous/toxic waste site permit for the back yard to clean up my house (and my life, too, I guess) but it will be worth it...trust me.

(I would post pictures, but my pride won't let me embarrass myself by doing so.)

Because...

...I like this song, and because this is where I am now -- moving on. This time, the post is for me.

There is much joy in moving on...and a little trepidation, but nothing I can't handle.

Thanks to all who left comments the first time I posted this song. I sincerely appreciated what you had to say.

This post doesn't need comments. Just wanted those of you who have endured slogging through the weepy stuff to know that those days are behind me. Thanks for sticking around while I got my act together...sort of, maybe, and for the most part.

Crow Time

(I don't remember whose art this is at the top of this post. I found this image years ago, when I was collecting crow pictures for reference material, so I apologize for using uncredited art. I shall look on the Internet to try to find this again, and give full credit when I do.)

The crows are back. Now that the cat who used to live here has moved in with daughter and grandson, they've begun coming into the backyard again. I have missed them very much. They used to perch in the larches and the oak each morning for their gab-fest...and to wake me, too, I believe. They knew I soon would appear on the sidewalk with a plate full of hot dog pieces for their morning snack. If I managed to beat them to the yard, I would whistle for them. Off in the distance, I'd hear them talking to one another, then would see a couple of them fly overhead, silent, watching me as they did a flyby. The first ones would hightail it back to the arboretum in a straight line, the opposite of the meandering approach and circular flybys. About halfway back, they began calling to the ones left behind. I liked to imagine they were quoting the morning menu.

This is the time of year that nesting pairs have begun or are nearly finished building or repairing nests, having dispensed with the courtship/bonding rituals a couple of weeks earlier. During the courtship/bonding period, males break off twigs to present to the females, perhaps as engagement tokens, or - more likely - to prove they can provide nesting materials. Truthfully, I have no idea why they do this, but they're funny to watch as they do. One year I watched a male present his twig five or six times to the female he wooed, only to have her rebuff him and his twig. Finally, he went to the farther end of the branch, set the twig under his foot, picked up the end opposite the one he had been holding, and presented it again. Ha! This time she accepted the twig and the romance commenced.

Last spring, one of the unmated yearlings claimed the tip of the tallest larch in the backyard. The first part of the morning, he cawed loudly in all directions, chest puffed up, body swaying in the breeze. A few of the older birds, including the pair I think are his parents, flew by, cawing once, as if to say, "Yeah, we see you." Mr. Show-off puffed up even more and shook the tree top. He cawed a couple more times, then began stripping off the small twigs, starting at the one just under the very tip, down to about a foot below where he sat. By the time he finished tearing off the tender twigs, the tree top resembled something Dr. Seuss might have drawn. It still looks that way, almost a year later. What was that all about, I wonder.

This morning, one of the older birds took up his (might be her, don't know) favorite perch in the sassafras tree outside my window, just before daybreak, and called the sun up. Of course, I got up, too, and turned on the bedside lamp. When I lifted the shade, I came eye to eye with my alarm clock. For just a few seconds we gazed at each other; a small connection between two Others - the Crow and the not-Crow. With one great flap of his wings, he was gone, leaving behind a crow-shaped hole (as Plutarch once said) in the air.

I'm so glad they're back.
(c) 2010 Martha McLemore

Enjoy!

Followed my nose from Whiskey River to Sam and Sara Motel where I found this video.

I'm Still Here - I think.

Somewhere beneath several piles of reports and deposit slips and sales tax receipts, I am doing payroll, company income and state sales taxes reports for the historical society (my paid job) and the Friends school (my volunteer job).

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I haven't quit blogging, at either spot; just under a mountain of tax stuff to finish in the next several days. See you all soon, I hope!

Cosmos Revisited

Wow!

Several weeks ago, when I was at the end of my rope, dangling over a bottomless pit of despair, I received an email which pointed me to a wonderful video, where - upon visiting YouTube - I found another. They were from the Symphony of Science web site. I signed up for their e-mail notification messages. Today, an email arrived telling me about the latest video, and once again I found another one. The first two videos snapped me out of the downward spiral, which started me on the road to recovery. I have long admired Carl Sagan, so am happier than a pig in mud with the new videos. Hope you like them as well.

Rude Beggars

Good eats.

When I was a girl and we lived in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, we had a neighbor, Mrs. May (referred to as ‘Miz Widder May’ by locals), whose mentally retarded adult daughter lived with her in a cabin a few miles away. Her daughter, Ruby, would wander down the lanes, through the fields and woods, across the ‘hollers’, on ‘haintins,’ or visits.

Mrs. May wasn’t a widow. Her husband had left her with the infant Ruby nearly forty years previous when their child was diagnosed as retarded. Ruby had had a stroke when she was in her late thirties, and her speech was slow and slurred. (The unkind teenage boys my cousins hung around with called her “Mush-mouth.” My aunt told her boys that if she ever heard them call Ruby that name, she would skin their backsides and rub them down with salt.)

Ruby visited us one spring afternoon, carrying an apron full of mushrooms she had collected at one of the sycamore sinkholes near their farm. She also had a couple of softball-sized purple vegetables with her. Ruby called the mushrooms dog-peckers, a name which sent my brothers into gales of laughter and made my mother blush almost as deep a color as the purple softballs. (The mushrooms turned out to be morels, which another neighbor, Aunt Dessie, showed me how to cook, since Mama had never seen them before.)

Mama asked Ruby about the purple softballs.

“Shaysroobegguzz.”

Mama asked Ruby to repeat what she said, but more slowly.

“Daze…rude…begg-guzz.”

“Rude beggars?” More howls of laughter from my brothers. Mama shot them a look that would have stopped a train in its tracks. Brothers decided there was something urgent they needed to see outside and ran from the room…and from Mama.

“Cloznuf,” Ruby answered, grinning at my mother’s confusion. I’m certain Ruby left our cabin feeling sorry for the children who lived there, having a mother who couldn’t hear right.

Of course, you realize the purple softballs were rutabagas, or Swedes; also called yellow turnips. Mama didn’t know about those, either. She knew turnips, of course, and thought Ruby’s gift might be unusually large, dark purple turnips, so she told my aunt later. She laughed at herself for misunderstanding Ruby. So, from that day on, the purple softballs were rude beggars.

When I was ‘haintin’ the grocery a few days ago, looking for cheap eats, I picked up a rude beggar, a head of cabbage, a couple of leeks and some carrots, determined to make something tasty with them. I turned them, and a few more ingredients, into soup on New Year’s.

I made so much of it, I’ll be eating it for at least a week. It was better today than it was yesterday, as most soups tend to be, getting better as they age.

Naturally, I’ve named it Rude Beggar soup.

(c)2010 Martha McLemore

Sorting Posts, Packing Out

Original image here

As I noted in the previous post, I started The Crow with a different purpose in mind than what it seems to have become. I'm splitting off the more personal posts to a separate blog, where I will continue to write about the reclamation of my life. Although not to everyone's liking, I need to keep writing these posts, to sort out what happens, and track my progress. Perhaps my daughter will someday find value in them. I'll keep The Crow for less personal matters and for "random observations."

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If interested in reading the other material, which will probably be pretty dull, send me your email address and I'll pass along the URL to the other blog.

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Thank you all for your responses and friendship.

(PS: Oil man comes in the morning; husband has helped, for which I am most grateful. Turned up the heat as soon as I got home. Warm is good.)

How I Got Here (A Very Long Post)

When I started this blog in October 2008, I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted it to be. Mostly, I wanted to start writing again. I wanted this blog to be a place where I could express whatever caught my fancy, no matter what. I didn't expect that I would write about such personal matters as I have done recently.

I also didn't expect my life to take the negative turns that it has, nor to be overwhelmed with trying to cope with so many changes in a short period of time. When my husband moved out in April 2008, my household income dropped by 65%, a huge surprise, though it shouldn't have been. I knew the disparity between our paychecks. My car required an enormous repair bill that took several weeks for me to pay off, eating holes in my budget. Heating oil prices skyrocketed, along with gasoline prices; another big hit to my budget, which was already stretched thin. With higher oil and gasoline prices came higher food prices. I was placed on new medications for my diabetes and hypertension, though most of that was covered by the insurance my husband still carried for me, which helped tremendously. My homeowner's insurance jumped by 27% when it came time to renew it, because - my agent told me - the insurance industry was hit hard with mortgage defaults and somebody had to make up the loss.

Then my daughter became emotionally ill and there were serious problems with my grandson. He was institutionalized in a residential treatment facility and she was admitted to a mental hospital several miles away. When she was released, she came to live with me, followed six months later by grandson, when he was released. There were now three people living on income that scarcely supported one person. I do not regret bringing them into my home. They both needed a place where they could feel safe, and I needed to know they were okay.

Money I had saved to pay real estate taxes (didn't have all I needed, but was close) was eaten up by the resulting increase in living expenses. When income tax time rolled around in April 2009, I was stunned to see that I owed almost $600 to Uncle Sam. I filed the forms but had no money to send with it; still don't.

Shortly after that, my car needed more repairs and new tires and an exhaust system; a little over $1,000, this time.

Then my doctor told me I had had a heart attack and ordered an expensive nuclear stress test to determine the extent of the damage. Although the insurance coverage I had through my husband paid most of the cost, I still had almost $1,000 in co-pay.

I began sinking deeper into another depression, which had started around Christmas 2006, when it became overbearingly clear that my ailing (well, I thought it was only ailing at that point) marriage had died, and grew worse when I realized the nature of my husband's deceptions. Things just kept getting harder and harder to bear. I started having anxiety attacks and was paralyzed with fear. (Fear isn't gone; it sits at my elbow as I type this.)

Terrifying memories of childhood homelessness and other effects of poverty took over my emotions, adding to my inability to think clearly. I began having dreams of being hungry and cold, and living in barns, and abandoned houses again, of having neighborhood kids shining flashlights in on us as we sat in the dark, calling us - aw, hell, you don't want to know all this crap. Neither do I, but I have no choice.

Where, before husband moved out, I was keeping my head above water, financially speaking, I began treading in deeper and deeper water. Even so, I was keeping my nose up, which kept the worst of the anxiety at bay.

Then I did two very stupid things. Husband called and said if he was to renew the health insurance coverage on me, he needed a copy of my 2008 tax report. I panicked. I didn't want him to know I couldn't pay my taxes. I was ashamed because I didn't have the money to pay them, so I did the first stupid thing - well, not the first stupid thing, but the first stupid thing since the middle of the year - and said, No, that's okay, we're going to be finished with the divorce soon, so don't bother. What, in the name of God and all that is holy, made me say such an incredibly STUPID thing? Shame? Because I did not have the money to pay the IRS?!
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The second STUPID thing I did was tell him he didn't have to continue paying spousal support. First of all, that wasn't my call to make. Those payments were mandated by the court, through Domestic Relations. Neither of us is allowed to make changes to the order on our own. We are supposed to petition DR for any changes to be made. I was in the depths of serious depression when I said that, trying to appease, to please. When he reminded me, later, of what I'd said, instead of saying, "Hey, look, I wasn't thinking clearly when I made that unbelievably dumb remark, so no, you cannot stop those payments unless DR says so," I stood by what I'd said...and gave away a third of my income.

I briefly considered suicide, very briefly. I'm not that selfish, and besides, there are too many things I haven't done yet. Maybe later.

I also briefly considered committing a felony, so that I would have a guaranteed place to live, and warmth and food, but I don't think I would do very well in prison. Yeah, I know I wouldn't. Maybe they'd let me sleep there in winter?

Finally, I got angry, mostly with myself. I decided I've had enough of this and am going to fight back, stand up for myself, starting by telling the woman in the mirror what a complete ass she's been for putting up with all this garbage for all these years, especially the last three years.

I don't know what I'm going to do to turn things around, just yet, but I know how to research answers and find resources. There has to be help out there for people in my predicament, even stupid people like me.

And I'm going to ask my husband to help me buy heating oil, so I can turn the thermostat up from 58 degrees (Fahrenheit.) That's just too darned cold.
(c) 2010 Martha McLemore

Where'd They Go?

Thank you, everyone, for your kindness and thoughtful responses to the two posts I removed. I just couldn't bear reading another single one of those Perils of Pauline posts I seem to have fallen into over the last few months.

Time for me to get a life.

To Laugh, To Be

I will take my existential angst straight up, no chaser.
- Douglas Imbrogno

borrowed from Whiskey River